Patent Law

IP issues in "The Protector" (Tom Yum Goong )

Posted on September 17, 2009
For future reference as to the movie "The Protector", contemplate#1. The use of "Quentin Tarantino presents"#2. The use of a Jackie Chan double in a scene in the movie

A coming Sikahema on patent oppositions: good news and bad news

Posted on September 17, 2009
In a post titled Tech cos. protest patent reform in letter to Locke in the Microsoft Blog at SeattlePI, one has the textLawrence Ebert, of the Center for the Study of Digital Property, explains on the center's blog why post-grant review is controversial...

Legal issues in proxy marriages

Posted on September 17, 2009
An AP story titled Proxy wedding means Marine's widow, baby unwelcome on the case of Hotaru Ferschke presents issues of conflicting law in the matter of Hotaru's marriage to the now-deceased Sgt. Michael Ferschke. Michael and Hotaru had been together in Japan for more than a year, and she was pregnant when he deployed...

Advice on the "background" section of a patent application

Posted on September 17, 2009
from the 12:01Tuesday blog:If you are going to have a "Background" section, try to keep it SHORTER than the rest of the specification. Remember that the Background is the one section that is not required by statute (i.e., 112) or rule (e.g., 1.71 - 1...

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Superhydrophobicity

Posted on September 17, 2009
One IPBiz reader was interested in the topic of superhydrophobicity, a property defined in terms of surfaces with a water contact angle above 150° and which materials are the subject of great interest for their water repellency. One Joseph L. Lowery is the co-author of a paper titled: Electrospun Poly(Styrene-block-dimethylsiloxane) Block Copolymer Fibers Exhibiting Superhydrophobicity...

Blog coverage of Cisco/Frenkel trial in Texas

Posted on September 16, 2009
In a 14 Sept 09 article in Texas Lawyer, Brenda Sapino Jeffreys writes:Legal bloggers writing about intellectual property matters are sure to take note of a trial set to start on Sept. 14 in Tyler. It pits East Texas intellectual property litigator Eric Albritton against Silicon Valley tech company Cisco Systems Inc...

Amgen and Mircera and the CAFC decision

Posted on September 16, 2009
from the AP:Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen ( AMGN - news - people ) said the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Roche ( RHHBY.PK - news - people ) Group's rival product, Mircera, infringes on four Amgen patents. The patents relate to genetically engineered erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production, and to the processes used for making it...

On picnic coolers in science and learning from each other

Posted on September 15, 2009
In 2009, the use of a picnic cooler ("beer cooler") was highlighted in the story The $150 Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget:The two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth...

Patent reform 2009: least likely of the unlikely?

Posted on September 15, 2009
An article by Grant Gross in PCWorld titled Technology Issues on Back Burner in US Congress mentioned five technical issues before Congress that are sitting on the back burner, of which patent reform was mentioned dead last. Thus, as to Congressional action, patent reform might be viewed as the least likely of the unlikely...

"INS v. AP" in the 21st century: ABC, CNBC on Obama/Kanye West story

Posted on September 15, 2009
In the context of the Hartford Courant plagiarism matter, IPBiz mentioned the relatively old Supreme Court case of INS v. AP to discuss some of the 21st century issues in the Courant situation. The INS case also has relevance to the Obama/Kanye West matter, because of the shared fiber optic line of CNBC and ABC ...

"if an author?s writings are not findable through Google then they are rather irrelevant"

Posted on September 14, 2009
The text -- if an author?s writings are not findable through Google then they are rather irrelevant. -- appears in a comment by Gene Quinn to a post by Gene Quinn [Hal Wegner, You Now Have My Full Attention ] that concerns comments made by Hal Wegner concerning Gene Quinn in Hal's newsletter of 12 Sept 09...

A question in trademark

Posted on September 13, 2009
In a previous post, IPBiz mentioned the appearance of the Party Dolls at Duke Island Park on 28 June 09. This is how they appeared:Fast forward to 12 September 2009, with the location Veterans Park in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. This is how they appeared:Trademark law, in theory, is to protect the consumer against likelihood of confusion, although in practice it serves to protect the mark owner against knock-offs...

Plagiarism and the firing of UN-Reno professor

Posted on September 13, 2009
In a story about the firing of a University of Nevada-Reno professor, one finds the text:But in a three-page letter, Glick agreed with the committee?s finding that Hussein plagiarized from his graduate students by sending excerpts from their master?s theses to donating corporations...

Microsoft gets new trial on damages in Alcatel case on Day patent

Posted on September 13, 2009
Discussing the recent CAFC decision in Alcatel v. Microsoft, Kurt Mackie of Redmondmag.com located the CAFC in Southern California:The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Southern California denied Microsoft's appeal of the infringement charge, but ordered a new trial to reassess the damages portion of the judgment...

The superficiality of analysis by McAfee

Posted on September 12, 2009
An IPBiz reader sent along the following from McAfeeSiteAdvisor:ipbiz.blogspot.com/2009/08/patent-applications-from-prison.html may try to steal your information.Why were you redirected to this page? When we visited this site, we found it may be designed to trick you into submitting your financial or personal information to online scammers...

Transistor errors

Posted on September 12, 2009
In Paths of innovation: technological change in 20th century America by David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg, one has the assertion on page 125 that the 1956 consent decree led AT&T/Bell to license its transistor technology at nominal fees. In fact, AT&T was licensing at nominal fees BEFORE 1956 and BEFORE the consent decree...

"The Ellen DeGeneres Show" sued for copyright infringement

Posted on September 11, 2009
The AP story included the following text:According to the suit filed Wednesday [9 Sept 09] in U.S. District Court in Nashville, when representatives of the recording companies asked defendants why they hadn't obtained licenses to use the songs, defendants said they didn't "roll that way...

Balsillie of RIM blazing new legal trails?

Posted on September 11, 2009
Remember NTP vs. RIM, and the $612.5 million settlement? Jim Balsillie's offer of $242.5 million for the Phoenix Coyotes is making news in another legal area, that of bankruptcy:The Toronto Star notes:The league [the National Hockey League] also has the support of the other major pro sports leagues, which don't want a bankruptcy judge to force an owner [eg, Balsillie] and a market on a league that wants neither...

"Catch and release" model is catching

Posted on September 11, 2009
Recall the recent flurry of media coverage over the "catch and release" model of Intellectual Ventures? [IPBiz: Intellectual Ventures' "catch and release" gambit]Allied Security Trust is doing a similar thing. From Ars Technica:Zemlin's comments about Microsoft are a response to a patent auction carried out by Microsoft to sell a number of patents that the company allegedly said were related to Linux...

BIO on patent reform 2009

Posted on September 11, 2009
PatentDocs has the following text:Andrew Noyes from Congress Daily asked about patent reform, and Brent Delmonte, BIO's Vice President for Governmental Relations said that BIO hopes for support for the Senate bill, a "fair, responsible compromise," and that contentious bills (like H...

Teenage cut and paste: copying without reading?

Posted on September 11, 2009
An article on a survey by Cranfield School of Management has the following text:Research suggests that 60 per cent of teenagers have copied and pasted information straight from the web into their schoolwork without even reading it.The study, based on results at ONE school and reported by Andrew Kakabadse, originated in Britain:The study, based on a sample of around 260 pupils aged from 11 to 18 at a secondary school in the Midlands, raised fresh concerns that modern technology was having a disruptive effect on young people...

Seinfeld defends/wins copyright infringement case

Posted on September 11, 2009
Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry, successfully defended in SD NY against a copyright infringement suit brought by Missy Chase Lapine.In terms of bad reportng, note the text:The judge in New York threw out the plagiarism and copyright and trademark infringement case, which Seinfeld's lawyer called "a complete victory for Jessica Seinfeld...

Truth in advertising: the meaning of "other whitefish"

Posted on September 10, 2009
Within a story by WILLIAM J. BROAD in the NYT titled From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch about the use of hoki in various fish sandwiches, one has the text:Now, Ben Golden, a Yum Brands spokesman [Yum owns Long John Silver?s ], said hoki was ?not on the menu...

Joseph Wu of Stanford on iPS cells

Posted on September 08, 2009
A CNN story titled Study: Human fat yields multipurpose stem cells about work of Dr. Joseph Wu at Stanford was interesting for what it did NOT mention.There is not one word about iZumi, which bought up the rights on iPS from Bayer, which work preceded the Yamanaka work on iPS...

District court upholds jury verdict against Medtronic in Synthes case

Posted on September 07, 2009
Reuters reported: "We are pleased that the court has upheld the jury's verdict," said Michel Orsinger, president and chief executive of Synthes.The patent infringement case involved the Maverick, A-Mav and O-Mav brand devices of Medtronic.Medtronic is appealing to the CAFC...

IN RE ROBERT SKVORECZ: confusion over comprising?

Posted on September 07, 2009
The Skvorecz case examines the meaning of a fundamental term used in claim drafting, the word "comprising."In a re-issue proceeding, the claim was:1. A wire chafing stand comprising a first [an upper] rim of wire steel which forms a closed geometrical configuration circumscribing a first surface area, [a lower rim of wire steel forming a closed geometrical configuration circumscribing a second surface area with said first surface area being larger than said second surface area] and having at least two [a plurality of] wire legs with each wire leg having two upright sections interconnected to one another [at a location below the lower rim] in a configuration forming a base support for the stand to rest upon with each upright section extending upwardly from said base support to from an angle equal to or greater than 90° with respect to a horizontal plane through said base support and being affixed to the first [upper] rim adjacent one end thereof [and to said lower rim at a relatively equal distance below the point of attachment to said upper rim] and further comprising a plurality of offsets located either in said upright sections of said wire legs or in said first [upper] rim for laterally displacing each wire leg relative to said first [upper] rim to facilitate the nesting of a multiplicity of stands into one another without significant wedging...

News aggregation as copyright infringement?

Posted on September 07, 2009
While Frank James of NPR gave a superficial account of the plagiarism issues with the Hartford Courant [ see America's oldest newspaper apologizes for plagiarism ], Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal Inquire, delved into the underlying rationale of "why" the Hartford Courant has been copying text from its smaller Connecticut rivals...

Duke Island Park. Concerts. Summer 2009.

Posted on September 06, 2009
The last event In the Duke Island Park Summer 2009 Concert Series was the New Rascals on 30 Aug 09 [above]. In the white shirt is Gene Cornish, guitarist and original founding member of the Rascals (a.k.a. the Young Rascals). On drums is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame's Dino Danelli...

"Is intellectual property law a scam?"

Posted on September 06, 2009
In a thread on "JD Underground" titled "Is intellectual property law a scam?", LBE got a boost from one "henryhazlitt"-->Kinsella is an interesting fellahttp://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/kinsellas-post-on-patent-reform-insipid.htmlI would second Ebert's arguments that the patent system is not about "innovation" and therefore Kinsella's utilitarian argument is moot...

Of Yale Law School grads...

Posted on September 06, 2009
from a news post about the recent resignation of Van Jones: [Howard] Dean pointed to Jones' credentials as a Yale Law School graduate ... Though Jones signed a 2004 statement calling for an investigation into possible Bush administration involvement in the Sept...

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