Patent Law

"Academics who have purposely hidden data have committed scientific fraud"

Posted on November 24, 2009
The Washington Times presents an account describing a theft of email from a university (U East Anglia), which email suggested problematic behavior by a variety of professors at East Anglia and elsewhere:It was announced Thursday [19 Nov 09] afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England...

"Eight notable instances of false advertising"

Posted on November 24, 2009
IPBiz has given incidents of false advertising, including California's campaign for Proposition 71. Finance.yahoo gives eightnotable examples of false advertising, with culprits including Target, Dell, and Nike.See alsoTrademark in "Bimbo" Truth in advertising: the meaning of "other whitefish"Pinocchios for intellectual property professors?UPDATE...

Quality lacking in HP laptops?

Posted on November 23, 2009
Although Hewlett-Packard has been complaining about "lack of quality" in US patents, it seems that there may quality issues with their laptops.A recent post on tech.yahoo notes:The least reliable [laptop] brands? Acer, Gateway, and HP. HP's hardware malfunction rate, the worst in SquareTrade's analysis, is a whopping 25...

Rhode Island patent jury ?lacked a grasp of the issues before it"; Microsoft gets win in Uniloc case

Posted on September 30, 2009
Bloomberg notes that U.S. District Judge William Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, on Sept. 29 vacated an April 2009 jury verdict of patent infringement of a Uniloc patent by Microsoft.In his order, Judge Smith wrote that the jury ?lacked a grasp of the issues before it and reached a finding without a legally sufficient basis...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

The journal "Engineering with Computers" publishes plagiarized article, retracts

Posted on September 30, 2009
IPBiz has covered plagiarized texts which have appeared in science journals (eg, British science paper on "sperm from stem cells" retracted! ). There's another one out, this time involving plagiarism by Kamran Daneshjou, Iran's science minister, wherein the journal "Engineering withComputers" published in 2009 a paper copied from a 2002 published article...

New Jersey's patent bank website

Posted on September 29, 2009
On 25 Sept 09, a collaboration among New Jersey's Office of Information Technology, the Commission on Higher Education, the Commission on Science & Technology and the Governor?s Office of Economic Growth launched a website on patents, New Jersey Patent Bank [www...

Should bloggers be Teflon-coated?

Posted on September 29, 2009
In a post titled Don?t Like a Blog, Sue It on the ipeg blog, one has the text:Bloggers should be given almost unlimited freedom of speech. Only in the rarest of circumstances would we agree to limitations (have problems finding an example).The ipeg blog refers to Joff Wild at IAM, who wrote:Instinctively, I believe that there has to be a very good reason indeed to over-rule someone's right to freedom of speech...

Patenting the matchbook

Posted on September 28, 2009
On Sept. 27, 2009, CBS Sunday Morning presented "The first matchbook patent " as its Almanac feature. Showing a copy of the patent, CBS mentioned the name of the "inventor" Joshua Pusey but omitted discussion of the rest of the story, which unfolded in the 1890's...

Tweets of exit polling results in German 9/27 election prematurely released?

Posted on September 28, 2009
AFP reports: It is illegal in Germany to publish exit polls before the cut-off point for voting but a number of tweets claiming to show the scores for the main parties surfaced one hour before polling stations closed.The exit polls of the Twitter tweets gave numbers comparable to the first official exit polls...

Netlist files infringement suit against Inphi over US 7,532,537

Posted on September 28, 2009
Inphi Corporation issued a press release responding to a press release by Netlist asserting that Inphi?s newly developed iMB ? technology infringes on Netlist?s U.S. Patent No. 7,532,537. Inphi described this as a nuisance lawsuit, which (at the time) was filed but not served...

Webcam at Denali National Park

Posted on September 27, 2009
The webcam at Denali National Park, which offers a view of Mt. McKinley under appropriate conditions, runs on solar power and is basically down for the winter. However, there are some "signs of the times" which can be seen without a webcam, as discussed further below...

The Holder plagiarism case: from 1998 to 2009

Posted on September 27, 2009
In 2005, the Florida state Judicial Qualifications Commission cleared Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder of plagiarism charges. The issue was one of judicial fitness in view of a charge that Holder, an Air Force reservist in 1998, copied portions of a research paper by a fellow reservist, E...

Customer printing a secured document (such as a stamp or an airline ticket)

Posted on September 25, 2009
A note to Quillen and Webster from the CAFC in KARA TECHNOLOGY v. STAMPS.COM :The claims, not specification embodiments, define the scope of patent protection. The patentee is entitled to the full scope of his claims, and we will not limit him to his preferred embodiment or import a limitation from the specification into the claims...

"Plagiarism and the College Culture": a microcosm of the patent reform debate?

Posted on September 24, 2009
A review of the book by My Word!: Plagiarism and College Culture by Sara D. Blum suggests that the plagiarism debate on university campuses is quite similar to the patent debate:However, Blum suggests, the real problem of academic dishonesty arises primarily from a lack of communication between two distinct cultures within the university setting...

WhoGlue sues FaceBook for patent infringement

Posted on September 24, 2009
The first claim of US 7,246,164 states:A method for managing the sharing of personal information among a plurality of users of an online relationship management system, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, from a first user of said plurality of users, an identification of a second user of said plurality of users and an assignment of a second user information access right level for said second user and receiving, from the second user, an identification of the first user; associating said second user with said first user responsive to receipt of the identification of said second user from said first user, the identification of said first user from said second user, and the second user information access right level from said first user; receiving, from said first user, first information having a first information access right after associating said second user with said first user, wherein said first information is to be entered into at least one input template of said online relationship management system to provide first structured information automatically generated from at least one output template based on said first information; transmitting, to said second user, said first information if said second user has provided the first user identification and the first information access right is consistent with the second user information access right level; receiving, from said first user, second information having a second information access right, wherein said second information is to be entered into said at least one input template of said online relationship management system; and not allowing transmission, to said second user, of said second information if the second user information access right level is inconsistent with said second information access right...

"Troll tracker case" settles

Posted on September 24, 2009
Joe Mullin reported that the Frenkel/Albritton defamation case settled before jury deliberations. The key factor was a ruling by the judge that the jurors would have to find "actual malice" on the part of Cisco/Frenkel, even though Albritton was not found to be a public figure...

Is the Karma an innovation?

Posted on September 23, 2009
One might file the following under "what were they thinking"?Fisker Automotive, a California manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles, will receive more than $500 million in federal loans to develop a plug-in hybrid sports car with a sticker price of nearly $90,000 and a new plug-in hybrid vehicle to be built in the United States...

University of Virginia to change definition of plagiarism?

Posted on September 22, 2009
Following the ghastly treatment of Alison Routman during the "Semester at Sea" program, the University of Virginia is working on a new definition of plagiarism.The Cavalier Daily noted:The present definition begins with, ?Plagiarism is using someone?s ideas or work without proper or complete acknowledgment...

Mylan, AMD bankruptcy candidates?

Posted on September 22, 2009
Two companies who have been involved in patent litigation (Mylan and AMD) showed up in yahoo.finance's Ten Big Companies That Are Veering Toward Bankruptcy:Mylan: In a classic case of management empire building, Mylan overpaid big time when it bought Merck?s generic business back in 2007 and is now stuck with $5 billion of long-term debt as a result...

To all the "next big things" that weren't

Posted on September 22, 2009
Within a post titled Kappos on the US Economy, Music to My Ears at IPWatchDog, one has the text: On March 30, 2009, I wrote A Patent Proposal for Green Technology, suggesting:On July 28, 1987, President Ronald Reagan set forth what became known as the ?11-point superconductivity initiative? in a speech to the Federal Conference on Commercial Applications of Superconductivity...

Litigation over U.S. Patent No. 5,302,021, a patent with one claim

Posted on September 21, 2009
The single claim of U.S. Patent No. 5,302,021, which readsA method of preventing the formation of an air pocket around rotating blades positioned in a pitcher of a blender, the air pocket being created from an air channel of a cross-sectional size defined by a member associated with the blades, comprising the steps of supplying a fluid into the pitcher, and positioning a plunger, having a cross-sectional size approximating the cross-sectional size of the member, adjacent to and above the rotating blades while maintaining the plunger free of contact with the pitcher thereby preventing the formation of an air pocket in the fluid around the rotating blades...

Article One makes more awards

Posted on September 21, 2009
From a press release of Sept. 21, 09 by Article One:Article One Partners, LLC has discovered new prior art impacting the validity of two Minerva Industries, Inc. patents for mobile entertainment and communications devices. Article One also announced the discovery of new evidence which can show Eli Lilly & Company?s patent for Cymbalta to be invalid, as verified by outside counsel...

Sept. 2009: the New York Times discovers the world of patent auctions

Posted on September 21, 2009
In an article on 20 Sept 09 titled Now, an Invention Inventors Will Like, Steve Lohr "discovers" the concept of buying and selling and licensing patents:Other players in the emerging patent marketplace are specialized investment banks, brokers and licensing companies including Acacia Technologies, Altitude Capital Partners, Intertrust, IPotential, Ocean Tomo, Rembrandt IP Management and Thinkfire...

Obama to talk about innovation, but what about the USPTO?

Posted on September 21, 2009
At a talk at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY on 21 Sept 09, President Obama will talk aboutdeveloping an advanced information technology system, restoring U.S. leadership in basic research, improving education, development of clean energy, advanced vehicle technology,information technology for use in healthcare, and promotion of U...

Was Doll pushed?

Posted on September 20, 2009
In an article on John Doll titled Patent office overseer quits agency, John Schmid and Ben Poston wrote:Maryland patent attorney John White said the general view is that Doll was expected to resign under the new director."All of us felt that John Doll was not long in his job once the administration had changed, simply because he was the key architect of what Dudas had tried to do," said White, a former examiner...

DoJ weighs in AGAINST Google Books settlement

Posted on September 19, 2009
AP wrote on 19 Sept 09:The U.S. Justice Department advised a federal judge Friday [Sept. 18] that a proposed legal settlement giving Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books threatens to thwart competition and drive up prices unless it's revised...

Lose patents, lose jobs

Posted on September 19, 2009
On the announcement that Lilly will cut about 5,500 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce:Chris Schott, an analyst with JP Morgan Chase & Co.: ?Lilly?s move is consistent with announcements by its major pharma peers and was to some degree inevitable given the company?s 2011-2014 patent cycle...

IP in movie "Duplicity"

Posted on September 18, 2009
The word "patent" is mentioned twice, and text from an issued patent appears at the end, signaling the final twist in the plot. The molecule was known! [Those into patents figure out the ending seconds before the rest of the audience.]There's lots of stuff about industrial espionage, although this is a about a trade secret which isn't...

IP in the Annie Le case?

Posted on September 18, 2009
One poster at websleuths has speculated on the involvement of intellectual property in the Yale murder case involving Annie Le:I agree with most of the theories so far -- workplace rage. But, I also agree that it just seems like there must be more to this...

"A high level of scientific illiteracy in the investment community"

Posted on September 18, 2009
On the topic of biofuels, see the article "Interest in algae's oil prospects is growing," by Tiffany Hsu in the Los Angeles Times, which has quote from, among others, Biofuels Digest editor Jim Lane. Of companies mentioned:National energy companies are converging on the fledgling industry...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.