Patent Law

IAM talks to Q. Todd Dickinson

Posted on September 09, 2008
From IAM:As you would expect, I asked him about suggestions that he might be appointed Director of the USPTO should Barak Obama come out on top in the November presidential election, but he played a very straight bat on that ? basically that he is completely focused on the AIPLA, that he has no idea what will happen and that there are a number of strong candidates for the post, whoever occupies the White House...

United stock loses 75% of its value based on recycled 6 year old story on bankruptcy

Posted on September 09, 2008
The false report of an impending United Airlines bankruptcy, based on a recycling of a six-year old story by an investment firm, is hard to believe. Here's how the Financial Times covered it-->United Airlines plunged on Monday [Sept. 8] after a false report that the carrier had returned to bankruptcy court surfaced on the internet...

Michelle Obama's IP case

Posted on September 08, 2008
Note CHICAGO PROFESSIONAL SPORTS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP and WGN CONTINENTAL BROADCASTING COMPANY, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION, Defendant-Appellant, 961 F.2d 667 (CA7 1992), opinion by Judge Easterbrook. A line from the case:But it is a bane to the other clubs, which would prefer to have fans watch theircontests rather than tune in the Bulls, who, thanks to Michael Jordan andScottie Pippen (to name only the Olympians), are the winningest and most popular team in the NBA...

Carnegie-Mellon loses big time for failure of written description

Posted on September 08, 2008
In Carnegie-Mellon v. Hoffmann-LaRoche, the CAFC affirmed invalidity and noninfringement, so that Hoffmann won.Of the biology-->One gene in the bacterium E. coli, called the E. coli polA gene, encodes a protein known as E. coli DNA polymerase I. Since at least the 1970s, the E...

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Prior art to iPod competitors

Posted on September 08, 2008
File under "my enemy's enemy is my friend" (from PC World)-->Apple has admitted that a British man played a part in developing the iconic and extremely profitable iPod, although he has so far received no money for his invention.In 1979 Kane Kramer from Hertfordshire filed a patent for a digital music player that stored just three and a half minutes of music to a solid state chip - limiting media options to just one short song...

On going "one-on-one" with Tom Brokaw, like being interviewed by Captain Kangaroo

Posted on September 08, 2008
One blog had this to say about Joe Biden's appearance on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, September 7:On Sunday, September 7, in what was billed as "his first Sunday morning interview since accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for Vice President," Biden went "one-on-one" with Tom Brokaw and was once again spared any embarrassing questions about his shameful history of plagiarism, which many members of the public are still not familiar with...

Print on demand

Posted on September 08, 2008
In the context of the end of William Patry's blog on copyright, there was a comment on publication on demand ->I've been a reader of your blog since my lawyer pointed it out when I became involved in copyright litigation in 2005. If you're interested in putting the archive in print as a book, with either yourself as the publisher or somebody else, I'd be happy to explain all of the options available with print-on-demand...

Water-based data center

Posted on September 08, 2008
Google's published application 20080209234 (based on 11/679013) has first claim: A system, comprising:a computer data center proximate to a body of water comprising a plurality of computing units;a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units; and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units...

Invent, invent, invent [?]

Posted on September 07, 2008
In turning "Meet the Press" into a talk show for people pushing books, Tom Brokaw went over Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" on Sept. 7.The best oxymoronic line was Shape the market so it will be innovative, coupled with Be China for a day, presumably speaking of Chairman Mao's China...

IP Business

Posted on September 07, 2008
IPBiz notes the existence of IP Business which contains wisdom asThe argument basically is that in a competitive market, the low-cost competitor wins. On that score, cable would have some advantages, not only in plant investment but in operating costs, at least for the legacy services and customers it has served...

Enablement, for 102 and for 112

Posted on September 07, 2008
In a post on SKB v. Apotex in 2005, IPBiz noted:The CAFC in Rasmusson v. SmithKline quoted BMS v. Ben Venue, 246 F.3d 1368 (CAFC 2001): newly discovered results of known processes directed to the same purpose are not patentable because such results are inherent...

Poor Joe Biden

Posted on September 07, 2008
Tom Brokaw continues as a disappointing substitute for Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press." After spending a few pleasant minutes with Joe Biden on Sept. 7, Brokaw launched into an attack of sorts on Biden's connections to MBNA. Although Russert would have had the relevant clips on the screen front and center, Brokaw started by reading them from material in front of him...

Thinking negatively about Bayh-Dole

Posted on September 07, 2008
An article in the New York Times titled When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder includes an allusion to a book about the Bayh-Dole Act:Of course, there is precedent for scientific secrecy, notes Daniel S. Greenberg , author of ?Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards and Delusions of Campus Capitalism? (University of Chicago Press, 2007)...

The "next step" after innovation?

Posted on September 06, 2008
After the innovation has occurred, the next steps can be clunky.One commenter on iTunes: I held off and held off but finally installed the new version of iTunes (v7.7.1) - the invasiveness of this application (for those readers living in the southern US, I liken it to kudzu) is starting to make me think twice about another iPod?and I love my iPod...

Will California taxpayers roll rocks uphill for ten years?

Posted on September 06, 2008
Californiastemcellreport correctly observed:Prop. 71 created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine [CIRM]. (...) The initiative placed representatives of the beneficiaries of the $3 billion in grants in control of the rules for giving away the money, a built-in conflict-of-interest that naturally raises concerns...

Cockatoo confusion in Trenton. Luna. Lex and Howard.

Posted on September 05, 2008
AP reported the story of how Luna the female umbrella cockatoo caused police to break down the door to Evelyn DeLeon's house:Cries for help inside a Trenton, N.J., home turned out to be for the birds. Neighbors called police Wednesday morning after hearing a woman's persistent cry of "Help me! Help me!" coming from a house...

In re Swanson on re-examination

Posted on September 05, 2008
The CAFC holds that, as long as there are new questions of patentability, re-exams can keep on coming:We hold that under 35 U.S.C. § 303(a), as amended in 2002, despite consideration of U.S. Patent No. 4,094,647 (?Deutsch?) in the initial examination and our prior decision, there was a substantial new question of patentability regarding whether Deutsch anticipated and made obvious claims 22-25 that made reexamination warranted...

CAFC affirms D NJ in Janssen v. Apotex concerning respiridone

Posted on September 05, 2008
In another post-MedImmune case on DJs, the CAFC said:Defendant-Appellant Apotex, Inc. (Apotex) appeals the order of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissing its declaratory judgment action for noninfringement against Plaintiffs-Appellees Janssen Pharmaceutica, N...

Gold-plating of patents: Obama's bad AND recycled idea

Posted on September 05, 2008
One of Barack Obama's ideas is the gold-plating of patents. This is not a new idea. In an IPBiz post in the year 2005, titled Antiquated U.S. patent justice system thwarts innovators?, gold-plating was discussed. IPBiz also discussed the idea in Gold-plating patents: been there, proposed that...

CollegeOTR misleads on Taleyarkhan

Posted on September 04, 2008
Paul Tassi (OTR Editor) ran a story on "bubble fusion" under the headline: Purdue Scientist Caught Forging Soundwave Energy Research.The Purdue folks found Taleyarkhan involved in the corroborative research AND guilty of having a gratuitous co-author...

Biden plagiarism a non-issue?

Posted on September 04, 2008
A post on the National Ledger noted:In 1988 plagiarism and exaggeration of his credentials were admitted by Biden and he had to forego his attempt to get the Democrat presidential nomination then. Only a few present day articles mention this but spurious charges against Palin make headlines...

Lemley to out further commenters in Yale/AutoAdmit defamation matter?

Posted on September 04, 2008
The Yale Daily News noted:Several more of those commenters have also been unmasked, but the plaintiffs are trying to negotiate an out-of-court settlement, said Mark Lemley, a Stanford University law professor who is representing the two Yale students...

Report on Colorado IP Bar discussion of Prez candidates' IP policies

Posted on September 04, 2008
Out-law.com has a report on the discussion of the presidential candidates' positions on intellectual property, from the meeting in Denver on August 27.Chris Sprigman said that Reines' comments were "the rhetorical equivalent of vapourware".Although the report does not mention that Obama's "gold-plated" patent (applications) are a re-cycled Lemley-ism, one is troubled that Obama's "idea" is copied from someone else...

CAFC hears DBC, parallel case to Translogic on appointments issue

Posted on September 04, 2008
An "easy" way out to avoid the problem may be to rule that the time to challenge the administrative judges was at the time of the Board hearing, and not well after the Board hearing. The CAFC could simply say that it is "too late" to make this constitutional appeal for the first time with the CAFC...

Claim construction of D NJ tossed in Howmedica case

Posted on September 03, 2008
After a lengthy discussion of arguments, the CAFC disposed of an erroneous claim construction by D NJ rather quickly:As explained above, the plain language of claim 15 makes clear that, whether a prosthesis is unicondylar or bicondylar, only one condylar element meeting the geometric limitations of the claim is required to bring that prosthesis within the scope of the claim...

Google Chrome and Apple Safari

Posted on September 03, 2008
From biz.yahoo:Chrome borrows liberally from other browsers running open-source software code, including Apple Inc. and Firefox, and Google officials said they planned to fully share Chrome code with other developers."We have borrowed good ideas from others," Google Vice President of Product Management Sindar Pichai said...

S.1565 on California's CIRM

Posted on September 03, 2008
Californiastemcellreport noted:Governor Schwarzenegger has until Sept. 30 to act on S-1565 (designed to ensure affordable access to stem cell therapies developed as a result of state funding arising from CIRM). Otherwise it will go into effect without his signature...

Looking at science fraud through rose-colored glasses?

Posted on September 03, 2008
An article by MICHELLE CHEN in Newsday doesn't quite get things right on science fraud.In the text:But Hwang's work, despite bioethical shadiness, also left behind an unintentional legacy: last fall, Harvard research scientists concluded that Hwang's team had stumbled upon a method of parthenogenesis--the creation of an embryo from an egg without fertilization by a sperm--which could also have implications for future medical research...

IT players don't want patents [?]

Posted on September 03, 2008
From an interview in metrocorpcounsel:Editor: Should the Patent Reform Act be approved in anything close to its present form, what effect will those provisions have on life sciences companies?Doug Cawley: Patent reform has been promoted by information technology giants and opposed by pharmaceutical companies...

Monsanto, Pilot Grove settle over "Round Up" case

Posted on September 03, 2008
Reuters reported:Without releasing details, Pilot Grove Cooperative Elevator Inc, a Missouri grain elevator with about $15 million in annual sales, acknowledged violating Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready seed technology and agreed to take series of measures that include employee training, funding college scholarships and adopting a policy aimed at avoiding future patent infringement.

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