Patent Law

Canada's mounting plagiarism discussion

Posted on October 06, 2008
A recent addition to the various charges of plagiarism being tossed around in Canada is the following from the Globe and Mail, reproducing work from a blog by Stephen Taylor -->You be the judge.From an article written by Charles Mandel for Canwest on March 7th, 2008:In a major forthcoming report on Canada's changing climate, scientists warn of everything from increased severe storm activity in Atlantic Canada to hotter summers and poorer air quality in urban Ontario...

CAFC appellate advice from Judge Lourie

Posted on October 06, 2008
Patently-O gives some advice for appeals at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [CAFC]-->Make sure your case is final before filing the appealCross appeals are only for the purpose of challenging the decision (not for arguing that the decision is correct)The exclusive licensee does not have standing by itself (the patent owner must be joined)Don't allege that "every business fact is super-confidential...

How a single patent changed the world

Posted on October 06, 2008
Nature Geoscience recently noted we are at the 100th anniversary of Haber's patenting the ammonia synthesis work.In an article titled 100 Years Of Ammonia Synthesis: How A Single Patent Changed The World , ScienceDaily wrote: The [Nature] feature appears 100 years after Fritz Haber filed his patent on the ?synthesis of ammonia from its elements? for which he was later awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry...

D. Del. grants Ariad leave to appeal adverse SJ ruling

Posted on October 06, 2008
D. Del. has granted Ariad leave for immediate appeal to the CAFC of the adverse summary judgment ruling.The Boston Globe noted: Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge said today [Oct. 6] that a federal judge has granted its request to permit an immediate appeal of the court's ruling against Ariad in a patent infringement case...

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Italian day at Hamilton, NJ on October 4, 2008

Posted on October 05, 2008
Hamilton mayor-->

NYT on "Flash of Genius"

Posted on October 04, 2008
The New York Times [Oct. 3] quotes Greg Kinnear on "Flash of Genius": I just fell in love with the story because it really isn?t about the intermittent windshield wiper, it?s about someone who has a dream ? like so many of us do ? and he decided he wasn?t going to take it when somebody stole his dream...

On paying patent royalties

Posted on October 04, 2008
At the end of a movie review of "Flash of Genius"-->There's a memorable quote in Seabrook's New Yorker story from a lawyer for Henry Ford who once boasted that "[t]here is no power on earth, outside of the Supreme Court, which can make Henry Ford sign a license agreement or pay a royalty...

Amgen whips Roche in Mircera case; injunction granted

Posted on October 03, 2008
wsj.online noted: Amgen Inc. said a federal court granted the biotechnology company a permanent injunction prohibiting Roche Holding AG from selling its Mircera anemia treatment in the U.S., while also upholding a jury verdict regarding certain patent-infringement claims...

Patentee Johns Hopkins loses at CAFC

Posted on October 03, 2008
Johns Hopkins University lost big time at the CAFC: Because the jury?s finding of infringement was not supported by evidence, we reverse the court's denial of Datascope?s motion for JMOL of non-infringement and remand to the district court for entry of a final judgment in favor of Datascope consistent with this opinion...

RealNetworks case on DVD copying

Posted on October 03, 2008
from the LA Times -->"Great products should not be bullied out of the market by people trying to misuse the law to suppress legitimate innovation," Glaser wrote in an online statement outlining his reasons for launching the RealDVD software Tuesday [Sept...

Flashback to 1942

Posted on October 03, 2008
PatentHawk reviews text from a 1942 law review article: Laurence I. Wood, author of Patents and Antitrust Law, from the George Washington Law Review article "Patent Reform and 1943: Antitrust or Anti-Patent Law," published 1942, which begins:To put the matter very frankly, the attitude of many people in the country today with regard to patents is a petulant, irritated mood...

Patent law: a subject of marginal interest?

Posted on October 03, 2008
In reviewing the film "Flash of Genius" about inventor Robert Kearns and the intermittent windshield wiper, Nathan Lerner concludes: "Flash of Genius" ends up being a lackluster film about a subject of marginal interest.One thing that bothered him was the title of the movie: "Flash of Genius" takes its title from a phrase written by Justice William O...

Joe SixPack doesn't ride the Acela

Posted on October 02, 2008
One of the nice things about the internet is the rapid dissemination of information. The transcript of the Palin, Biden debate is already on the internet, available for inspection. One sub-theme of note is that both VP candidates are stressing their ties to the middle class...

Rule 11 in patent law: McDermott, Will & Emery (and Medtronic) whacked

Posted on October 02, 2008
Dan Slater writes:Earlier this year, in the span of two weeks, two different teams of outside litigators representing Medtronic in two different patent trials, heard in two different jurisdictions, were both fined attorneys fees. On Tuesday, U.S. District of Colorado Judge Richard Matsch (pictured) put a price tag on those sanctions for one of the teams: McDermott, Will & Emery (and Medtronic) must cough of up $4...

Things one finds on the internet: pink meanie jellyfish

Posted on October 02, 2008
Crab on pink meanie jellyfish. Also at abcnews: Crab Rides a Gigantic Jellyfish video at clipmarksYouTube on cheating with a Coke bottle.

Boston Scientific loses latest round in stent wars

Posted on October 01, 2008
Bloomberg reported on Oct. 1: Boston Scientific Corp., the leading seller of artery-opening heart stents, fell to the lowest in New York trading since January after the company and Medtronic Inc. were ordered to pay $629 million in interest to Johnson & Johnson in an 11-year patent battle.

Praxair gets a win at CAFC in ATMI case

Posted on September 30, 2008
The CAFC did more heavy lifting on inequitable conduct in the Praxair case:Inequitable conduct in breach of this duty can be established by showing by ?clear and convincing evidence that the applicant (1) made an affirmative misrepresentation of material fact, failed to disclose material information, or submitted false material information, and (2) intended to deceive the [PTO]...

Stiglitz predicts Obama win, but did he get the Wright Brothers right?

Posted on September 30, 2008
Breitbart: Joseph Stiglitz, who won the 2001 Nobel prize for economics and who advised President Clinton, said on September 30 that the United States faces a long recession and predicted that Democrat Barack Obama will win November's presidential elections...

More on the dog clone wars

Posted on September 30, 2008
Text in the Korea Times suggests the dog clone wars might be argued in terms of a theory in which the earlier Roslin patent claims encompass the scope of the later SNU claims:However, BioArts claim that the Roslin patents are "foundational" patents and that the SNU patent could only be an "improvement," which needs the rights to the underlying foundational technology to avoid infringement...

Biden and plagiarism

Posted on September 29, 2008
The local Lawrence (New Jersey) Ledger had a letter-to-the-editor by one Newton E. Godnick which included the text: Sen. McCain, for all his past heroism, has insulted the nation and put it in political peril by choosing Gov. Palin to be the proverbial ?one heartbeat away? and has done her possibly budding career a disservice by putting her in a position of potential embarrassment...

IBM's application on "identifying white space"

Posted on September 29, 2008
IBM, which has left a bread crumb trail of questionable patents/applications for anyone who cares to look, came up with yet another:METHODOLOGIES AND ANALYTICS TOOLS FOR IDENTIFYING WHITE SPACE OPPORTUNITIES IN A GIVEN INDUSTRY published application 20080235220 (September 25, 2008) based on application 12/132561 filed on June 3, 2008...

Goldstein's "A patent lie," and other IP-themed literature

Posted on September 29, 2008
Patent Baristas gives a thorough discussion of the book ?A Patent Lie,? written by Professor Paul Goldstein. The protagonist is forty-seven year old attorney Michael Seeley, a solo practitioner patent attorney in Buffalo, NY [Tim Russert would have liked this...

Wachovia taken over by Citigroup; the fear of the times?

Posted on September 29, 2008
On September 26, CNN Money had a post on Wachovia, of which two points fascinated IPBiz:#1. Regardless, Wachovia looks to be in substantially better shape than Washington Mutual before WaMu failed. Wachovia has a loyal and largely affluent banking clientele, and a sizable business of offering investment services to clients through financial advisors...

New York Times discusses Rambus saga

Posted on September 29, 2008
A Sept. 28 piece titled Chip Maker Rambus Wins Battles, but Faces Bigger War notes the troubles faced by Rambus, in spite of its court victories. One recalls Jaffe and Lerner savaged Rambus in Innovation and its Discontents, and praised Qualcomm. In the time since the book, Rambus has been winning its cases, and Qualcomm has been losing most of its cases [Some of Qualcomm's lawyers were disciplined, and its chief counsel departed...

"The 'scilence' is deafening"

Posted on September 28, 2008
The 19 Sept 08 issue of Science has a "Perspectives" piece titled: Illuminating the Modern Dance of Climate and CO2 which notes "Currently, the amount of CO2 emitted as a result of human activities is about double the amount required to explain the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2...

Plagiarism, self-plagiariam, and "idea salmon"

Posted on September 28, 2008
Mike Masnick talks about Scott Adams (Dilbert) in a post Self Plagiarism And The Creative Process.IPBiz notes that what's good for the comics may not be the best way to promote invention. We want people to dwell on things; thus, If my paw misses its target, that salmon is gone for good...

More on the papers of Hwang Woo Suk

Posted on September 28, 2008
Authorship issues in the publications of fraudster Hwang Woo Suk are discussed in Kevin Strange, "Authorship: why not just toss a coin?, Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 295: C567-C575, 2008

Reprised: universities as trolls?

Posted on September 28, 2008
A recent article on patent trolls contains the lines:These patent owners do not use (i.e. licence or assign) or manufacture on the basis of their patents or patent portfolio. Many instead see patent ownership as a means of hijacking another?s success in their field, with minimal effort or expense...

Google's "bidding for cell phone service" patent application

Posted on September 28, 2008
Google's new patent application, Flexible Communication Systems and Methods (published application 20080232574, ap no 11/688145) has first claim:A method of initiating a telecommunication session for a communication device, comprising:(a) submitting to one or more telecommunication carriers a proposal for a telecommunication session;(b) receiving from at least one of the one or more of telecommunication carriers a bid to carry the telecommunications session; and(c) automatically selecting one of the telecommunications carriers from the carriers submitting a bid, and initiating the telecommunication session through the selected telecommunication carrier...

CAFC affirms Microsoft win over Alcatel-Lucent in mp3 area

Posted on September 27, 2008
Of Microsoft's victory over Alcatel/Lucent, the Boston Globe had a quote: The ruling is "a victory for consumers of digital music and a triumph for common sense in the patent system," Tom Burt, deputy general counsel for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said in an e-mail...

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