Patent Law

LS9, another ethanol start-up funded by Khosla

Posted on June 14, 2008
On 14 June 08, the Times online ran a story titled: Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrolSilicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'. Within the article one found:Inside LS9?s cluttered laboratory ? funded by $20 million of start-up capital from investors including Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Micro-systems ? Mr Pal explains that LS9?s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant...

107-year-old patent lawyer tells how Edison hired patent attorneys

Posted on June 13, 2008
C. Yardley Chittick of Concord, NH, now 107 and the last surviving member of the class of 1918 at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., went to MIT and then became a patent lawyer. Chittick had a chance for a job with Thomas Edison, noting that Edison gave him a 150-question test before offering him the job...

LinuxWorld opines on Red Hat settlement

Posted on June 13, 2008
A post at LinuxWorld on the Red Hat settlement begins:When you're driving down the highway and you see a spotless white tanker truck with a big green tree painted on the side, you can be pretty sure that it's full of hazardous waste.Likewise, companies with "innovation" in their names are generally innovation-hostile patent trolls...

Kanzius, and burning water, again

Posted on June 13, 2008
Go-Erie has posted portions of a June 2008 interview between John Kanzius and the Erie Times-News Editorial Board. The post noted:He spoke for 50 minutes about his invention, which is being tested at world-class research institutes as a cancer-killing machine and a device that converts saltwater to energy...

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Trademarks in politics-->

Posted on June 12, 2008
from BusinessWeek:It's not as if the 42nd President is ignorant of the power of branding in politics. At the Promax/BDA promotion conference in New York a year ago, one of his speaking gigs, Clinton said he lost the "battle of branding" to the Republicans during his Administration...

BIO brief in Kubin appeal

Posted on June 12, 2008
Of Kubin (now before the CAFC), Patently-O noted: On June 10, the Biotechnology Industry Organization filed an amicus brief asking the court to cabin in the scope of KSR and hold that its obvious to try dicta does not abrogate the Deuel standard. See also:Eleven easy pieces for obviousness under 103? which includes The Kubin decision had text about the CAFC decision In re Deuel:Appellants heavily rely on Deuel...

Genentech, MedImmune settle over Cabilly patent

Posted on June 12, 2008
On June 11, Genentech announced it had settled with MedImmune concerning the dispute over the Cabilly patent.Marilyn Chase of the WSJ reported: The settlement dismisses MedImmune's challenge of the patent, under which it pays royalties to Genentech on sales of its product Synagis, which is used to prevent respiratory infection in infants...

Airport scanners, microwaves, patents and penile implants

Posted on June 12, 2008
A recent yahoo news post on the new body scanners enclosed at booths at airports includes the text:The booths close around the passenger and emit "millimeter waves" that go through cloth to identify metal, plastics, ceramics, chemical materials and explosives, according to the TSA...

Red Hat settlement: how much does it protect open source community?

Posted on June 11, 2008
Red Hat has settled with DataTern and Amphion Innovations PLC.The post on cnet read:Unlike other patent deals (Read: Every single one that Microsoft has signed), which try to create a walled garden of protection for the signing parties, Red Hat opted to go much broader:"Typically when a company settles a patent lawsuit, it focuses on getting safety for itself," said Rob Tiller, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, IP [Red Hat]...

Timothy Lee blasts Federal Circuit

Posted on June 11, 2008
In a post at TechDirt, Timothy Lee blasts the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and advocates a return to the prior regionalization of patent jurisdiction. As is usually the case, it's what was NOT mentioned that one should worry about. For example, "why" we went AWAY from regionalization in the FIRST place...

CIRM back in the propaganda business?

Posted on June 10, 2008
In CIRM Dredging Up Old Economic Controversy, californiastemcellreport notes that CIRM is spending $49,900 (going to the Analysis Group of Palo Alto) to discuss the economic benefits of Proposition 71.Californiastemcellreport mentions a Feb. 2007 piece in Slate (plugging Eliot Spitzer in the first paragraph!) which questioned the earlier Baker/Deal ("Analysis Group") report on the benefits of Prop...

To wikify GenBank?

Posted on June 10, 2008
Further to the IPBiz post --Use of GenBank Accession numbers in patent applications --, note the "letter to the editor" in Science (320 Science 1289 (6 June 08)) commenting on the 21 March "News of the Week" story "Proposal to 'wikify' GenBank Meets Stiff Resistance"...

David E. Boundy takes whack at the USPTO

Posted on June 10, 2008
Concerning the notice athttp://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/notices/73fr32938.pdf [effective date is for all appeal briefs filed December 10, 2008] David E. Boundy writes:The Response to Comments repeatedly misparaphrases the comments, and then replies to the misparaphrase, rather than fairly addressing the comment...

Blogging is about coherent storytelling?

Posted on June 10, 2008
Patent Hawk, the blog, has a story about U.S. patent examiners and numptys.You have to read numptys yourself. IPKat/Kitten is involved.A comment to the post asserts blogging is about coherent storytelling. IPBiz thought "coherent storytelling" was patent application writing, post-KSR.

San Jose Mercury News screws up discussion of Supreme Court case, Quanta v. LG

Posted on June 10, 2008
The San Jose Mercury News (picking up an AP story by Pete Yost) wrote:The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday limited the ability of companies to collect multiple royalties on their patents, the latest step by the justices to scale back the power of patent holders...

Supreme Court whacks CAFC over doctrine of exhaustion

Posted on June 09, 2008
IHT/Bloomberg wrote: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, June 9 limited the ability of patent holders to extract royalties from companies at each stage of the production process, throwing out a lawsuit by LG Electronics against Quanta Computer of Taiwan...

Patent pool in WiMAX area

Posted on June 09, 2008
PCAdvisor notes:According to the Wall Street Journal, Cisco and Intel are joining Samsung, Sprint Nextel, Alcatel-Lucent and Clearwire to form the Open Patent Alliance, which will hold the rights to WiMAX-related patents and license them to makers of computers, networking devices and other products.

Amtrak licenses Katz patent portfolio

Posted on June 09, 2008
A business wire release of June 9 states: Amtrak, also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, based in Washington, D.C., and Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., headquartered in Los Angeles, announced today the settlement of patent litigation between the parties and that, as part of the settlement, Amtrak has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for a nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications.

Coalition for Patent Fairness member HP settles with Acer

Posted on June 09, 2008
In March 2007, HP sued Acer for patent infringement, planning to keep the Taiwan firm from selling some products in the United States. In July 2007, Acer sued HP. One June 8, 2008, HP announced it had settled with Acer, with the settlement agreement resolving all claims asserted in three federal court lawsuits and two U...

Flashback: the iPhone in January 2007

Posted on June 08, 2008
Recall the words of Mark Chandler on iPhone issues back in January 2007:"We wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony...

Emerjent; ipnewsflash

Posted on June 08, 2008
Patent Docs talks about a new search engine, Emerjent.Separately, note the existence of a patent download tool at ipnewsflash:http://www.ipnewsflash.com/get_pdf.php

Microsoft, "brain lateralization," and patent quality

Posted on June 08, 2008
In March 2008, Jon Dudas, Director of the USPTO, made a subtle jab at the IT folks, suggesting that they were accumulating a lot of perhaps "not so significant" patents. Microsoft, a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, has a recently published application which can serve as a poster child for this trend: Developing Software Components Based on Brain Lateralization , US published application 20080134132 (5 June 08), based on application 11/565495...

"Brainiest" places to retire?

Posted on June 08, 2008
US News, which has attained fame for its lists of academic institutions (eg, top law schools) has compiled a list of The 10 Brainiest Places to Retire. As to New Jersey, the list has Hoboken, but not Princeton. As to California, Berkeley was on and San Diego was not...

Masnick takes on Wayne Root

Posted on June 07, 2008
Mike Masnick writes:However, the split among libertarians over intellectual property rights fascinates me. There is a large group of libertarians who are against intellectual property rights (or, at least in favor of weakening them drastically). And then there's another camp that are very much in favor of intellectual property rights (and for making them much stronger)...

"Most of what you hear is garbage"

Posted on June 07, 2008
from KMOV:At Odyssey Advisors Inc. in Los Angeles, "We don't invest in companies unless we see a competitive advantage that's confirmed by strong orders, a rising backlog or an increasing market share," said Paul Woods, chief executive of the firm that manages a portfolio of "clean energy" stocks...

"Does the h index have predictive power?"

Posted on June 07, 2008
Jorge Hirsch continues his work with the h index in the paper: Does the h index have predictive power? in the online PNAS, PNAS | December 4, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 49 | 19193-19198.One footnote describes deficiencies with ISI: In using the very valuable ISI resource for individual evaluations, one should keep in mind that it has limitations, e...

Gates cleans house

Posted on June 06, 2008
The Washington Posts notes: Gates decided to remove Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and the chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, because "the focus of the Air Force leadership has drifted with respect to perhaps its most sensitive mission," he said Thursday, June 5, adding that he would recommend replacements for both positions to President Bush shortly...

"A leader we can believe in"

Posted on June 06, 2008
IPBiz notes a story from Matthew Balan of NewsBusters concerning a report by Veronica De La Cruz of CNN which apparently was based on posts from the the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos relating to an allegation that John McCain's new slogan ?a leader we can believe in,' and accompanying motifs are copied from Barack Obama...

Microsoft skates in third Lucent case

Posted on June 06, 2008
On June 4, a San Diego federal jury determined that Microsoft Corp. didn't violate a patent owned by Alcatel-Lucent SA when producing its Xbox 360 video game player.***SeparatelyMicrosoft has not fared well in the re-examination business. ChannelWeb reports:n February, Microsoft Corp...

"War at the Shore" extends to Philly Channel 3?

Posted on June 06, 2008
Keeping tabs on Philly Channel 10's coverage of the Sikahema/Canseco "War at the Shore," IPBiz didn't mention the disaster on Channel 3, with Larry Mendte being investigated by the FBI. In Philly, 7pm tabloid television starts at 6pm.from casoneblogs: We were talking about Larry Mendte, a Philadelphia news anchor who is being investigated by the FBI for discovering his female co-anchors password to her private account, opening it hundreds of times from his computer, and probably, and we don?t know this for sure, leaking stories about her to the media...

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