Patent Law

"Ending Abuse..." being re-invented?

Posted on July 24, 2009
Elizabeth Pesses in the article PATENT AND CONTRIBUTION: BRINGING THE QUID PRO QUO INTO EBAY V. MERCEXCHANGE [ 11 Yale J. L. & Tech. 309] wrote of "Ending Abuse...": Id. For various legal scholarship attempting to calculate better sized patent terms, see Mark A...

The myth of the first-mover advantage

Posted on July 24, 2009
Embedded within a story about Predator UAVs is the text:For his part, Singer draws another historical parallel, comparing the U.S. and the UAV to the British invention of the tank in the early 20th century."There is no such thing as a permanent first maneuver advantage," Singer says...

Are people who lose jobs history?

Posted on July 23, 2009
Back in June 2004, LBE noted the following text:Other labor statistics appear to support the bleaklong-term outlook for professionals. U.S. Departmentof Labor unemployment figures for 2000-2003 show a 95percent increase in unemployment among workers withcollege degrees, compared to a 40 percent increaseamong those with a high school diploma or less...

Churchill trying to regain CU job

Posted on July 23, 2009
Ward Churchill didn't get his job back at CU and is asking for re-consideration. Examiner.com:Ward Churchill's lawyer, David Lane, filed a motion 22 July 09 asking Denver District Judge Larry Naves to amend his ruling and reinstate Churchill to his former position as a tenured professor at CU's Boulder campus...

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The Chinese/Taiwanese companies who make Apple products

Posted on July 23, 2009
In PSC v. Foxconn (2004), the CAFC re-visited the "disclosed, not claimed --> public domain" holding of Johnson & Johnston:PSC?s disclosure that the prior art included clips with plastic parts was both precise and clear. One important purpose of the written description is to provide notice to the public as to the subject matter of the patent, while the claim provides notice as to the scope of the invention...

History detectives on patents

Posted on July 23, 2009
Note US patent 251,231 to Thomas Howell for an exploding device to discourage grave robbers. ["Grave Torpedo"]

Park vents on NASA, twice?

Posted on July 23, 2009
IPBiz was wondering what Bob Park would say about some of things coming from NASA and from former astronauts. Park's post of July 17 had a predictable message, but seemed oddly unedited (or tediously repetitive):This is the 21st century. Telerobots have been invented...

"it feels better to reject than to allow, simply because it's more conclusive"

Posted on July 23, 2009
Just-n-Examiner has the line: The truth of the matter, though, for me, is that it feels better to reject than to allow, simply because it's more conclusive.andMaking the decision to allow an application, though, is somewhat less conclusive. Sure, once I've done a thorough search and satisfied myself that I've found the best prior art available, I'm not reluctant to allow an application (OPQA be damned!)Still, who knows what unavailable prior art might be out there? Some hardcopy of a journal that is sitting in some school's technical library in Boise? Perhaps an advertisement in a newspaper on microfiche in Berlin?andObviously, you have to stop searching sometime...

Plagiarism Thursday in Minnesota

Posted on July 23, 2009
A line from "citypages":One day you're hitting Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V into blog software, the next someone's making an unflattering movie about you called Shattered Glass and you're being played by Darth Vader.neglected to addOR you could be Vice-President of the United States, President of a major Illinois university, or a University Professor at Harvard...

Kappos, IBM options, and the hearing for 29 July 09

Posted on July 23, 2009
The TechDailyDose reported:Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has released the committee's completed questionnaire pertaining to David Kappos, President Obama's pick for Patent and Trademark Office director, which could signal that his confirmation hearing is around the corner...

New Jersey--July 23, 2009. FBI nabs NJ mayors.

Posted on July 23, 2009
The NYT reports: The mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus, a state assemblyman and dozens of others were rounded up early Thursday [July 23, 2009] as the F.B.I. swept across four counties in New Jersey as part of a two-year corruption and money-laundering investigation that ranged from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn and has even reached into the State House in Trenton...

WSJ on problems at the USPTO and Kappos nomination

Posted on July 22, 2009
Note the article by Amy Schatz at WSJ titled: Backlog, Budget Woes Await Patent Chief. The second paragraph states:Many companies are complaining that the patent office is approving too many weak patent applications, issuing patents on less-than-novel ideas or inventions that belong to another party...

Will 2009 fee for patent practitioners be collected by USPTO in 2009?

Posted on July 22, 2009
IPBiz has had previous posts on the planned fee for registered patent practitioners authorized under § 11.8(d) [seePatent attorney fee won't be collected till Spring 2009 ] Patently-O has a post including the text:The Office has not issued a notice to pay the annual practitioner maintenance fee for FY2009...

Is it real or is it Masnick?

Posted on July 21, 2009
On July 18, IPBiz, in the post On guys who know things: Einstein was a patent clerk, sort of... reproduced some text of Ryan Scott's post The Rise Of Techno-Cheating & Fall Of Memorization and made some comparisons to Mike Masnick/Techdirt on the topic of collaboration/re-imagination...

"If the plaintiffs in this case have standing, then ..."

Posted on July 21, 2009
The University of Utah and Myriad have moved to dismiss the suit brought by ACLU, PubPat, and others involving patents directed to BRCA. [See IPBiz post: ACLU sues the US patent office ].Text in the motion to dismiss: "If the plaintiffs in this case have standing, then virtually anyone can challenge any patent at any time...

Shane report questions need for oppositions (PGR)

Posted on July 20, 2009
Within the conclusion:This report outlined several adverse effects likely to result from the expansion of administrative patent challenges. It showed that the changes would increase the length of patent pendency, create uncertainty about patent validity, decrease the knowledge disclosure necessary for innovation, increase the costs of achieving patent validation, reduce investment in R&D, hinder efforts of U...

Jerry Lewis and patents on video assist

Posted on July 20, 2009
In a post titled Video assist: The true history, Peter Glaskowsky assesses claims by Jerry Lewis about invention of video assist, which relates to the use of electronic video technology to support film making.One has the line: Jim Songer didn't apply for patents on this work, which would have belonged to Video West in any event...

USPTO hiring freeze: lifted in 2001 but what about 2009?

Posted on July 19, 2009
IPBiz notes that on July 19 someone in the vicinity of Arlington, VA [66.171.212.# (VERIZON AVENUE) ] did a search -- us patent and trademark office hiring freeze lifted -- The first hits obtained pertained to events that happened in the year 2001:Oversight Hearing on the United States Patent and Trademark Office dated June 7, 2001U...

Self-plagiarizing law prof snagged

Posted on July 19, 2009
In the time prior to Poshard's plagiarism at SIU, one had the matter of Walter Wendler, who self-plagiarized (copied his own earlier stuff without attribution) but who defended himself by saying "one cannot plagiarise oneself." Now, in South Korea we have the Hyun Byung-chul matter...

On guys who know things: Einstein was a patent clerk, sort of...

Posted on July 18, 2009
In an article titled The Rise Of Techno-Cheating & Fall Of Memorization [which contained survey results on how teens cheat at school using cell phones], there was an interesting COMMENT:In NO industry is collaboration considered cheating. Only in SCHOOL is this a problem...

Teleflex loses in patent case against Spire

Posted on July 18, 2009
In a July 10 ruling by U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock of D Mass, claims of a patent to Teleflex, in the area of catheters used in hemodialysis, were found invalid.

Cronkite

Posted on July 18, 2009
In a NY Times article Cronkite?s Signature: Approachable Authority, one had the text:When Mr. Cronkite was No. 1, the nightly news mattered. College students nowadays get their information from blogs and Comedy Central, not CBS. Families don?t gather in the den to eat dinner in front of ?World News Tonight With Charles Gibson...

Patent pendency

Posted on July 18, 2009
On July 17, 2009, Patently-O discussed results on a database of 20,000+ randomly selected patent applications and issued patents filed 2000 - 2007. For each of case, [Dennis] tallied the final status as of mid-July 2009. (Status is either patented, abandoned, or pending)...

"What if" Ohio University were in China?

Posted on July 16, 2009
In the past, IPBiz covered the Ohio University plagiarism business, which largely involved copying without attribution, by MS students, of background material into their theses.A story in the Shanghai Daily on July 16 begins:A top university official has had his PhD qualification and postgraduate tutorship revoked after an investigation confirmed he plagiarized his doctoral thesis...

The patent assets of a company in market failure

Posted on July 16, 2009
A post titled Patent Perishables at ipeg goes into "what happens to IP" when a company faces bankruptcy, illustrating with the company Qimonda AG, Germany?s DRAM made as (sort of) an example. Some colorful text:A large chunk of patents, no doubt as your main intangibles assets...

Do statins cause transient global amnesia?

Posted on July 15, 2009
Within a report titled Are Clinical Trial Results Compromised By Money? at the denvernewschannel, one finds the text:After astronaut and flight surgeon Duane Graveline's cholesterol went up from 230 to 270, NASA doctors put him on Lipitor. But an under-reported side effect changed his life...

IBM loses to Asus at ITC

Posted on July 14, 2009
PC World reported: The U.S. International Trade Commission on 13 July 2009 rejected an IBM request to review a decision that denied the company's attempts to block the import of hardware made by Asustek on patent infringement grounds.IBM in January of last year filed a patent infringement complaint with the ITC, alleging that Asus was importing and selling infringing products in the U...

IBM asserting its invulnerability to Bilski?

Posted on July 14, 2009
Back in March 2009, IPBiz noted that IBM, caught with its hand in the business method cookie jar, quickly retracted a business method application:In the flap that followed IBM's patent application on outsourcing methods (20090083107), IBM spokesman Steve Malkiewicz said Monday, 30 March 09 the application would be withdrawn because it "is contrary to our patent policy on business methods...

Korean comments on plagiarism

Posted on July 14, 2009
Kim Tae-ick at Chosun Ilbo began a column on plagiarism with the words:The word "plagiarism" comes from a Latin for "kidnapper." The derivation obviously equates the theft of other people's intellectual properties with kidnapping their ideas.This text confuses plagiarism (copying without attribution) with intellectual property (copyright infringement: reproducing copyrighted material without permission)...

Mosaid goes after IBM over DRAM

Posted on July 14, 2009
DowJones reported:MOSAID Technologies Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit [on 13 July 09] against International Business Machines Corp. , after claiming it was unable to reach a settlement with the tech giant after many years of negotiation.The Canadian patent licensing and intellectual property development company said IBM had infringed on six of its U...

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