Patent Law

Dow Jones Newswires misreports MuniAuction v. Thomson

Posted on July 15, 2008
Dow Jones Newswires wrote of Muniauction v. Thomson:But a federal appeals court ruled that both that Thomson's product was an obvious extension of MuniAuction's product and that it doesn't infringe on an existing patent. The court also noted two rulings it handed down since Thomson first lost the case, including a decision that toughened the standard of willful patent infringement...

More on Sikahema and Canseco

Posted on July 15, 2008
The "boxing experts blog" discusses the 12 July fight:Sikahema, a Golden Gloves champ before his football career with more than 80 amateur fights, was giving away seven inches and 43 pounds. The size disadvantage had zero effect on what looked and sounded like a very angry Sikahema:"He's a very impressive-looking guy...

Robert Klein resigns presidency of Americans for Cures

Posted on July 14, 2008
The californiastemcellreport notes that Robert Klein has resigned as president of the lobbying group Americans for Cures, a position he had held concurrently with his job as head of California's CIRM.John M. Simpson was quoted: "His [Gibbons'] phone call came after my posting the view today that holding both the state position and the advocacy position was untenable and the situation was a train wreck waiting to happen...

CAFC reverses WD Pa in Muniauction v. Thomson

Posted on July 14, 2008
The CAFC handed Thomson a big victory in the Muniauction case. Claims 1, 9, 14, 31, 36, and 56 of the asserted 6,161,099 patent were found obvious, and the others not infringed. $77 million in damages evaporated.Two cases were important to the outcome -->While the appeal was pending, this court issued two opinions relevant to issues presented by this case...

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ATMI, Praxair settle patent litigation

Posted on July 14, 2008
Dow Jones reports: ATMI said it and Praxair Inc. have settled a five-year long litigation over the patent rights of pressurized gas containers, with neither company making any payments to the other.

Carpet-bombing by patent trolls?

Posted on July 14, 2008
IPBiz came across this text at pocketpcthoughts:"Now that the Patent Reform Act (S. 1145) has been pulled from the Senate floor schedule, it looks like business as usual for patent litigants, as a holder of touch screen patents has launched a carpet-bombing assault...

CountryWide and IndyMac

Posted on July 14, 2008
A NYT article notes: With $32 billion in assets, IndyMac, a spinoff of the Countrywide Financial Corporation, was the biggest American lender to fail in more than two decades.In the spirit of 1960's bumper stickers --Don't worry, they're still 90 miles away--, the Times article notes:But time may be running out for some small and midsize lenders...

Plagiarism flap comes to central New Jersey!

Posted on July 13, 2008
An article by Martin Bricketto noted:Parent Margaret Millar raised allegations of plagiarism against [Branchburg schools Superintendent Kenneth ] Knops during the public session of a June 12 meeting of the Branchburg school board."Plagiarizing is a big issue in my workplace and in our daily lives because it indicates the type of person you are," Millar said...

Nuts!

Posted on July 13, 2008
A piece by CLARK HOYT in the New York Times discusses the divergence in reported details among newspapers describing the Jackson/Obama matter. While interesting, it's hardly the biggest problem of the New York Times.

Sikahema beat Canseco

Posted on July 13, 2008
The Daily News reported of some pre-fight activities:Sikahema's 15 family members and friends performed a haka - or Polynesian war dance. With painted faces, and native Tongan dress, they hissed at Canseco, pounded their chests and screamed. Northcutt rubbed Canseco's shoulders...

Patent quality on the rise?

Posted on July 13, 2008
Joff Wild has a post which includes text about work suggesting patent quality is rising:All of this is clearly going to infuriate a lot of people. The will look for reasons why Malackowski and Barney have come to the conclusions they have: they will accuse them of, for example, being USPTO apologists or of trying to create a market for patents ? something that will help Ocean Tomo achieve its business goals...

Bribery allegation within patent infringement case

Posted on July 13, 2008
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:DataCard contends, and a federal judge agrees, that Card Technology Corp. of New Jersey inflated a contract with the Nigerian government to provide bribes to the officials running the identification program in order to win the business.

Al Stewart comes to Bridgewater on July 13

Posted on July 13, 2008
Al Stewart at Duke Island Park in Bridgewater on 13 July 2008Yes, he did Time Passages, Angry Bird, Anarctica, ...Musician jokes, including the banjo player and the Lamborghini.

Merck/VIOXX

Posted on July 10, 2008
Lead Counsel Corner has a story: Fighting an uphill battle: Vioxx verdicts are being overturned

SRI v Matsushita: reverse doctrine of equivalents

Posted on July 10, 2008
The defense of "reverse doctrine of equivalents" had prevailed at the district court level, but the CAFC found summary judgment inappropriate:The question of non-infringement under the reverse doctrine of equivalents, as above indicated, raises in this case a genuine issue of material fact which renders the issued summary judgment inappropriate...

Tornado video doctored?

Posted on July 10, 2008
AP reported on July 10: The Associated Press and video services operated by CBS and NBC have pulled video allegedly taken of a tornado in Nebraska last weekend after questions were raised about its authenticity.Lest we forget, one of the frauds in the Hwang Woo Suk affair on stem cells and SCNT was the use of pictures which were not what they were purported to be...

The reasonable person in trademark law

Posted on July 10, 2008
The piece TEACHING INTELLECTURAL PROPERTY LAW: ARTICLE: THE REASONABLE PERSON IN TRADEMARK LAW by LAURA A. HEYMANN [52 St. Louis L.J. 781 (2008)] mentions LBE:n50. There are other ways in which to compare, for example, two colors. See Lawrence B. Ebert, Trademark Protection in Color: Do It by the Numbers!, 84 Trademark Rep...

Flap concerning incoming LSU Chancellor Michael V. Martin

Posted on July 10, 2008
The Advocate Capitol News Bureau gets into issues arising when Michael V. Martin asked NMSU officials to look into possible plagiarism of master?s theses by former faculty members.

Conflicts of interest at Harvard Medical School?

Posted on July 09, 2008
The 27 June 08 Science has an article which begins:"Senate investigators began poking around academic medical centers last summer, looking for information on who was receiving corporate money and who was reporting it in compliance with conflict-of-interest rules...

Defendants winning more, post KSR

Posted on July 09, 2008
A study by Andy Gibbs reports:In the 2006 [CAFC] cases reviewed for this study, 63% of the decisions found for the defendant, 37% favored the plaintiff. In post-KSR cases, 71% of the decisions favored the defendant, while 29% found for the plaintiff. The 11% increase in post- KSR decisions favoring the defendant reflects, on average, an increase of patents being declared invalid in the post KSR court...

The use of patent committees to evaluate inventions

Posted on July 09, 2008
From an article by Sandra P. Thompson:Your patent budget ? whether large or small ? can no longer fund every new discovery by your research and development teams. The demand for research or patent managers to efficiently utilize the budget is high. Therefore, it's important to thoughtfully review the inventions, tie them together where available, and determine early in the process where you want that patent to fit within your portfolio in the long-term (more than five years)...

No reverse doctrine of equivalents in Roche v. Apotex

Posted on July 09, 2008
In a CAFC case in which the Honorable Faith S. Hochberg, District Judge, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, was sitting by designation, a decision of ND Cal was affirmed and Apotex lost.As to standards of analysis:The determination of infringement is a two-step process, wherein the court first construes the claims and then determines whether every claim limitation, or its equivalent, is found in the accused device...

Village Voice picks up Constantine plagiarism matter

Posted on July 09, 2008
One line from the Village Voice piece on the Constantine plagiarism matter at Columbia:Whether or not the perpetrator of the noose on Constantine?s door is ever identified, there should be plenty of work for lawyers to go around in upcoming semesters...

InterDigital stock dropped 23% on adverse ITC staff recommendation

Posted on July 09, 2008
The stock of Interdigital took a dive merely from a nonbinding ITC recommendation. BusinessWeek reported:InterDigital shares lost $5.72, or 22.6 percent, to $19.54 Tuesday [8 July 2008] at more than five times their average daily volume. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $16...

Toyota Prius drops solar panel idea

Posted on July 08, 2008
AutoWeek included the text:?Even if you laid solar panels out on the entire roof of a house, you only generate enough energy to run two hair dryers,? the official said. ?It?s an interesting idea, but it would be very difficult to power a whole car, even with technological advances...

Plagiarism in law review brought up in judicial nomination

Posted on July 08, 2008
The Washington Post discussed plagiarism issues asserted in the proposed nomination of Michael E. O'Neill to a seat on D DC.The Post noted White House spokeswoman spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said O'Neill was "completely forthcoming" about incidents in which he copied quotes and analysis from another scholar, and said lawmakers who worked alongside him in the Senate had attested to his "character and abilities...

Nichia patent litigation strategy in LED area

Posted on July 08, 2008
from ETNews:Nichia?s such patent strategy has been widely known in overseas market. Starting with six year long lawsuit with Toyota Gosei since 1996, it has had continued patent lawsuit with Osram, Cree and Citizen. As a result of lawsuits, it has gotten mutual patent sharing and unilateral patent possession...

Edward Jones takes license from DataTreasury

Posted on July 08, 2008
CentreDaily reports: Financial services firm Edward Jones has acquired a license to utilize six of DataTreasury's financial transaction patents on a worldwide basis. These patents relate to technologies involved in the electronic processing of checks and other financial instruments...

More on outsourcing patent work to India

Posted on July 08, 2008
Further on the outsourcing to India of patent work, Times of India writes:As Navtej Saluja, head of intellectual property, Evalueserve, one of the leaders in this space, explains, "A lot of LPO work being done in India has been glorified BPO jobs like filling up forms etc...

Nintendo sued for patent infringement again

Posted on July 08, 2008
Yahoo Games reports:John R. Martin has filed a complaint [against Nintendo] alleging that he owns the patent on the system's lauded touch screen. While the patent was updated in August of 2005 -- a full six months after Nintendo launched the DS -- it was originally filed a decade earlier in 1995...

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