Patent Law

Warren, NJ

Posted on July 13, 2009
Warren, NJ placed number 6 on CNN Money's "best places to live":Children, commuters, cul-de-sacs--sure, Warren has those. But it isn't the typical big-city suburb. Here, fields aren't used just to kick soccer balls but also to raise cows and crops, thanks to 72 working farms...

Patent pool on RNAi as to NTD?

Posted on July 12, 2009
Chris Reidy of the Boston Globe wrote that that Alnylam will contribute more than 1,500 issued or pending patents on its RNA interference (RNAi) technology patent estate to the patent pool established by GSK earlier this year for neglected tropical diseases (NTD).

"Guilty of misleading the American public"?

Posted on July 12, 2009
The text "guilty of misleading the American public" was at issue in the Lanham Act case Groden v. Random House, 35 USPQ2d 1547. IPBiz was reminded of this text when reading an account by Dan Wetzel of the recent Brock Lesnar incident in the UFC:And so that was the excuse...

"Patent quality index"?

Posted on July 12, 2009
Alison Frankel, in a post titled IP Litigators, Meet Your PTO Nominee, David Kappos of IBM , refers to the Foley webinar including Dave Kappos and writes:But we were most intrigued by Kappos's vision of an automated "patent quality index." As he explained it in the Foley webcast, the index would be created with data on the effectiveness, in terms of patent awards and court-determined validity, of various patent applications...

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Do inventive companies fear patent trolls?

Posted on July 12, 2009
An article in The Economist titled Red tape and scissors includes text?Patent trolls? pose another problem. These are firms that buy up patents, not to turn them into products but solely to sue other firms that may have infringed them. Since the United States Patent Office grants patents freely and courts enforce them zealously, every inventive company lives in fear of trolls...

Scope of appellate review limited only by common sense?

Posted on July 11, 2009
IN RE POD-NERS, L.L.C., an appeal of a re-exam result to the CAFC, is another case in which obviousness and KSR are mentioned.The reasoning for obviousness was not so clear at the lower level, but the CAFC wrote:In ruling that the claims would have been obvious, the Board did not explain its conclusion in detail...

Social security doomsday already coming true at USPTO?

Posted on July 11, 2009
On 7 July 2009, a bill passed the House to allow the USPTO to use money statutorily limited to its trademark side to pay for patent-related work. This money would have to re-paid by 2014, and the USPTO is authorized to establish a surcharge to re-pay the funds...

Bland blogs best?

Posted on July 10, 2009
In a post related to Galen Suppes of the University of Missouri [UM], PatentHawk (aka Gary Odom) writes:UM also forces Professor Crouch to write his blog entries using only the most bland language, and flogs Crouch to slave night and day over a hot Excel spreadsheet in preparation of marginally meaningful charts and graphs...

Fraser case: no fishing expedition in fish product preparation case

Posted on July 09, 2009
Within a diverse opinion in the FRASER case on a patent claim for a method of preparing a fish product, one finds an allusion to FRCP 56(f):Nor does this court find that the trial court ?deprived Appellants of the opportunity to have discovery.? Appellants? Br...

Google software for netbooks, a subsidized pricing model?

Posted on July 09, 2009
Related to an earlier post on IPBiz [ Google v. Microsoft: Android/Windows, Google/Bing ], Peter Glaskowsky has an article Google's Chrome OS strategy explained which notes: Linux may be free, but Google can undercut that price if it's willing to cut OEMs in on its ad revenue...

Pequignot loses patent marking case against Solo Cups

Posted on July 09, 2009
The case by attorney Matthew Pequignot against Solo Cups over patent marking went against Pequignot in ED Va.See earlier IPBiz post: Qui tam suit over patent marking on Solo cups

Star-Ledger on Vivian Sanks King

Posted on July 09, 2009
In the UMDNJ fraud saga, Josh Margolin wrote in July 2009 about a document from June 10, 2008 which indicated that Vivian Sanks King [former general counsel of UMDNJ) would not be prosecuted.Margolin included Christie's take on the matter:"As general counsel, Ms...

Mullin's "Prior Art" blog tries to smoke Ebert

Posted on July 09, 2009
On July 8, Joe Mullin, in an article titled Good Magazine Goes Bad: The Ethics of Patent Trolling leveled criticism against an article in "Good Magazine" on Erich Spangenberg, described by Mullin as one of the most successful "patent trolls."The Mullin article does not name the author of the Good Magazine piece, but does state:I know the writer was aware of my blog ["The Prior Art", TPA], and TPA posts alone could have provided her with plenty of leads to the litigation record, including the Wisconsin opinion where Spangenberg was found shuffling his patents around to repeatedly sue the same defendants, and where a judge found Spangenberg had engaged in witness tampering (that case is noted in the comments of the Good story, which are universally negative...

The "patent control policy" of World War II and US 2,852,687

Posted on July 06, 2009
The PBS show "History Detectives" had an episode relevant to patents which aired in the NJ area on 5 July 09. The patent in question was US 2,852,687 titled Isotope separating apparatus. which issued to Michael K. Kudravetz and Harold B. Greene on September 16, 1958...

Martin in IDEA on "first to invent"/"first to file"

Posted on July 06, 2009
In a July 5 post titled Patent Americana , PatentHawk (aka Gary Odom) extracts material from a law review article by Michael Martin, sometimes a contributor to the blog.The law review article, titled THE END OF THE FIRST-TO-INVENT RULE: A CONCISE HISTORY OF ITS ORIGIN, 49 IDEA 435 (2009), has a "conclusion" which states:Along with a summary of the history, I have argued in this article thatthe federalist structure of government in 1791?in particular, the dual sovereigntyof states and federal government?presented a practical obstacle thatprevented the patent board from adopting a first-to-file rule of priority...

Max Planck GmbH goes after MIT, Whitehead, UMass

Posted on July 05, 2009
In an article titled Biting hands that feed , Steven Syre of the Boston Globe writes on a patent rights/patent prosecution dispute among Max Planck GmbH and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. on one side and MIT, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, and the University of Massachusetts, on the other side...

Microsoft and Google's Android

Posted on July 05, 2009
Back in 2007, Ed Burnette was addressing whether Microsoft loved or hated Google's Android. In that context, he got into the concept of a "fork," which is relevant to IP discussions:Furthermore, Android does not have a line of code in common with Sun?s Java ME...

Sarcasm or stupidity?

Posted on July 05, 2009
In a post on Kappos, ManagingIP repeats text from a COMMENT on the 271Blog, which separately had appeared on IPBiz:I've been managed by Dave Kappos during 6 years : he is brilliant, even absolutely amazing, always kind with his team, open to discussions, and a great manager...

Cartoons on science themes

Posted on July 05, 2009
Vadlo cartoons:**on negative datahttp://vadlo.com/cartoons.php?id=36**on perpetual post-docs:http://vadlo.com/cartoons.php?id=43**on the journal Naturehttp://vadlo.com/cartoons.php?id=64**on publishing bad articles in stem cell researchhttp://vadlo.com/cartoons...

"What wrong did Enron or Madoff do?"

Posted on July 05, 2009
Refer to livemint.com, with the following text:"They promised payback in this lifetime", says the British Nobel laureate Sir Harold Kroto, with a pun on the way humans are destroying the planet with blatant disregard for future generations.IPBiz notes that Sir Harold told us buckyballs were major components of soot.

Apple's non-user-replaceable batteries

Posted on July 05, 2009
As most iPhone users know, the battery within the iPhone is non-user-replaceable. When the battery goes, your iPhone is gone. Separately, currently, battery problems are causing discoloration on the white model iPhone 3GS. A recently published patent application [SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MONITORING AND RESPONDING TO FORCES INFLUENCING A BATTERY, 20090169977 based on 12/242898]suggests Apple is aware of some of the difficulties...

TG Daily on plasma patents, single molecule transistors

Posted on July 05, 2009
LG Electronics and Hitachi have settled their disputes in the plasma display area.TG Daily concludes its report with the text:There are so many patent battles going on between Japanese and South Korean companies that it's hard to keep up. They nearly always result in cross licensing and a secret deal...

UIowa takes a whack at Abbott/Humira

Posted on July 04, 2009
The UI [University of Iowa] Research Foundation is going after Abbott Labs for alledged infringement in the context of Humira of patents to UI microbiology Professor Mark Stinski related to CMV Promoter. Abbott already took a beating from J&J in the Humira area over patents originating at New York University exclusively licensed to Centocor Ortho Biotech.

"Peer review within science journalism"?

Posted on July 04, 2009
A post by Steven Krivit at New Energy Times titled Peer Review From Science Fans was critical of Charles Petit at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker:Petit is the "lead tracker" for the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, an MIT program that performs "peer review within science journalism...

Alabama punts in Meehan matter

Posted on July 03, 2009
More discussion of the Meehan plagiarism matter in Alabama, from the Crimson White:?The University is aware of and has looked into the situation,? said Cathy Andreen, director of media relations. ?Under the circumstances, we are not inclined to go behind the decision the dissertation committee made 10 years ago to approve the dissertation...

Apple's tactile feeback

Posted on July 03, 2009
Apple's published patent application 20090167704, titled Multi-touch display screen with localized tactile feedback, has a first claim:A method for enabling non-visual use of an electronic device, comprising:presenting a visual display, wherein the visual display includes a virtual button;associating a haptic feedback response with the virtual button; andproviding the haptic feedback response enabling a user to feel the location of the virtual button...

Old Navy and the $1 US flag tee shirts

Posted on July 03, 2009
A number of websites were talking about Old Navy selling US flag tee shirts on July 3, 2009 for $1.00.Dropped by the store in Watchung, New Jersey and was told that this sale was only going on in Canada (which does celebrate "Canada Day" on July 1, presumably without US flags and likely not interested in flag tees 2 days after Canada Day)...

Rahm Emanual reprised?

Posted on July 02, 2009
In January 2009, IPBiz included a picture of Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual:In June 2009, LBE thought he saw Mr. Emanual on the way to CN Tower in Toronto:

Straight faces, winners, and losers

Posted on July 02, 2009
IPBiz found the following from yahoo finance (via Fortune) of interest:Following a speech at Peking University on his first trip to China as Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner was asked to share his thoughts about the safety of Chinese investments in the United States...

See no evil?

Posted on July 01, 2009
A piece from "The Huntsville Item" from 20 Dec 2007 states:The Huntsville Item will move into the new year continuing its efforts for quality local news with Dennis Garrison as publisher.Garrison will assume his new role effective today.In June 2009, about one and a half years later, Editor & Publisher noted that :an article ran in The Huntsville (Texas) Item on June 25, that is almost identical, word for word, to an article earlier initiated by the Financial Planning Association...

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