Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog

Intellectual Property Law

: Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog

Wednesday Shorts: Patent Tools, Enforcement Company Updates, and More

By Peter Zura

More Patent Tools (Part 1): Rolf Claessen, who is a partner at the German firm von Kreisler Selting Werner, and proprietor of the wonderful IPNewsflash website, has added a patent PDF download tool covering numerous countries. To try it out, click here.

More Patent Tools (Part 2): A new website called PatentRetriever has also issued a PDF download tool that allows "download of US, European and PCT patent applications as PDF fileswithout annoying user registration or logos inserted on pages." To try it out, click here.

Patent Enforcement Company Update #1: from the Politico.com news site:

Last week, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and two other Texans on the House Financial Services Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the company ?and the potential impact of DataTreasury Corp.?s litigation? against nearly 60 U.S. banks.

The three members requested that the agency check into the backgrounds of DataTreasury?s founders, investors, lawyers and patents. In the past, financial services lobbyists have raised questions about the company executives backgrounds and the fees paid to the company?s two law firms: Nix, Patterson and Roach and Provost and Umphrey.

Patent Enforcement Company Update #2: Plutus IP is a notorious patent holding company that allegedly has a multitude of affiliate companies formed under its umbrella (e.g., Taurus IP, Gemini IP, Caelum IP, Phoenix IP, Orion IP, Constellation IP). Currently, DaimlerChrysler is seeking up to $4 million in legal fees against Plutus IP in the Western District of Wisconsin after prevailing on a jury verdict for breach of contract. Apparently, Daimler previously paid a $2.3 million dollar settlement on a portfolio of patents in a broadly construed "no-more-lawsuits" arrangement with Plutus. After patents were shuffled among the affiliates, Daimler was sued not once, but three more times by affiliates. The Wisconsin jury ruled that this was a no-no. Read the complete story at The Prior Art.

Patent Troll Tracker Litigation: Joe Mullin has the latest - click here.

Full post as published by Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog on June 11, 2008 (boomark / email).