Patent Law

CAFC test: whether a reasonable examiner would be so befuddled

Posted on April 20, 2010
The issue in the case pertained to "incorporation by reference" of an applicationfiled on the same day, at a time when the application number of the incorporatedreference was not known.Within the CAFC decision in Harari v Hollmer :In other words, the relevant inquiry is whether a reasonable examiner would be so befuddled by the language of the original disclosure, despite the explanation provided in the transmittal and preliminary amendment, that he could not determine what document was intended to be incorporated by reference...

Do exclusive licenses block competition in the gene testing market ?

Posted on April 20, 2010
There's some buzz on Gene patents and licensing: Case studies prepared for the Secretary?s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society by Robert Cook-Deegan, MD, and Christopher Heaney, BA, with abstract:Researchers at the Center for Public Genomics at Duke University analyzed how patenting and licensing affect clinical access to genetic testing in the United States...

CBS copying CBS?

Posted on April 19, 2010
The Backfire episode of CSI: Miami on April 19, 2010 starts with a flaming home, with a child inside, and some interesting flame special effects. The kid is saved, but later is pronounced dead. Borrowing a page from CBS GhostWhisperers/Medium shows...

iPads Problematic at Princeton

Posted on April 19, 2010
from TechNewsDaily :The problem stems not from the iPad's popularity but from the way it connects to wireless networks. Princeton University in New Jersey has blocked 20 percent of the iPads on campus because of "malfunctions that can affect the entire school's computer system...

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Bernards man victimized by volcano

Posted on April 19, 2010
Of a New Jerseyan stranded in Europe because of the Icelandic volcano, AP wrote:Many stranded travelers are also fretting over lost paychecks. Tom Napier - an American stuck in Oslo, where he had been visiting a friend - said his prolonged absence from his job as a high school history teacher in Bernards, New Jersey, will "more than likely" affect his salary...

Judge Michel to speak on April 20: ?How to Revise the PTO and the Patent System?

Posted on April 19, 2010
Chief Judge Michel?How to Revise the PTO and the Patent System? Tuesday, April 20, 2010Madison Auditorium South10:00 am ? 11:00 amChief Judge Michel is the recipient of the 2009 PTOS Federico Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the Patent and Trademark Systems of the United States of America...

Toyota to accept fine over sticky pedals?

Posted on April 19, 2010
Back on 23 March 2010, Jerry Flint had a piece in Forbes titled: Toyota, Flying Saucers And Bigfoot which included text about the Toyota acceleration issues:Then The New York Times ran an op-ed piece by a UCLA psychology professor (emeritus) questioning all such claims...

Cheating at Stanford

Posted on April 19, 2010
From an article in networkworld by Carolyn Duffy Marsan:Stanford University disclosed in February that 23% of its honor code violations involved computer science students, although these students represent only 6.5% of the student body. Of 123 honor code violations investigated last year by Stanford's Judicial Panel, 28 involved computer science students...

Monsanto gets whacked at European Court of Justice on soybeans

Posted on March 09, 2010
Monsanto's European patent for the trait that makes soybeans resistant to Round Up doesn?t extend patent protection to soy meal made FROM the patented seeds, according to a decision at the European Court of Justice.Soy meal from Argentina, where Monsanto has no relevant patent, had been impounded in Amsterdam harbor

Concerning confronting plagiarism

Posted on March 09, 2010
from the post, Confronting Plagiarism by Tracy Mitrano :Let?s stop the cover up of plagiarism. Much of it occurs, I am learning, in freshman and sophomore introductory courses filled with large numbers of students, taught by junior faculty under tremendous pressure not to make waves while under scrutiny for tenure...

How VCs pick companies: finding entrepreneurs who aren't going to fail

Posted on March 09, 2010
From a post titled How Pandora Slipped Past the Junkyard :Meanwhile, he [Tim Westergren] appealed to venture capitalists, charged up 11 credit cards and considered a company trip to Reno to gamble for more money. The dot-com bubble had burst, and shell-shocked investors were not interested in a company that relied on people, who required salaries and health insurance, instead of computers...

No breadcrumb trail?

Posted on March 08, 2010
A story on Nokia's piezoelectric / energy recovery patent application includes the following text:How seriously Nokia ? which has a history of pursuing environmentally minded projects ? is taking the idea is unclear, though the patent doesn?t leave much of a breadcrumb trail for others to follow...

A general practitioner's practice

Posted on March 08, 2010
In an article about the impact of proposed cuts in Medicare, one GP's practice was described:Schreiber sees 120 patients a week. About 30% of them are enrolled directly in Medicare, while another 65% have private insurance plans that peg their payments on Medicare's rates...

TechDirt on the Coalition for Patent Fairness: facts not a strong suit

Posted on March 08, 2010
In a comment on TechDirt to a post Patent Reform Bill Released: More Of The Same , Mike Masnick wrote in response to certain statements of Ron Riley:--[Riley] There is nothing good in the bill which was written by and for the Coalition for Patent Piracy & Fairness and then high-jacked by the Coalition for 21st century Patent Deform & HARMonization...

OLEDs and TechnoCorp Energy and how to value patents

Posted on March 08, 2010
Once upon a time, the Kodak patent estate in OLEDs was viewed by some as an 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wanted to acknowledge. Kodak sold its OLED patent estate in late 2009, but the buyer of the patents, LG, did not want the associated people...

Handling plagiarism accusations

Posted on March 08, 2010
In a comment to an article titled Could Plagiarism Software Have Spared The Times an Embarrassment? , one had text concerning the response of Bill Keller of the New York Times to the plagiarism by Zachery Kouwe: The whole episode made Keller and the rest of the management look as managerial and in charge as David Paterson...

Do meetings foster entrepreneurship?

Posted on March 07, 2010
Those who recall President Obama's "state of the union" speech know that Obama never mentioned patents or the Patent Office. However, the speech contained the following sentence: We're working with Muslim communities around the world to promote science and education and innovation...

Judge Rader tosses an expert in ED Texas

Posted on March 07, 2010
The Patent Hawk blog has a post on Judge Rader disposing of a damages expert in a case in ED Texas, ending withThis court hereby precludes Mr. Gemini from testifying at the trial of this case or otherwise presenting his opinions on the issue of damages based on his current expert report...

For trademark people at the Oscars

Posted on March 07, 2010
Note the nomination of Logorama which features many iconic figures, including Ronald McDonald, the Michelin Man, and the Jolly Green Giant. The Esso (now Exxon) oil droplet appears, one of around 2500 tradenames in the short.And, the clip was removed from YouTube because of copyright issues.

Justice!

Posted on March 07, 2010
PBS has a series Justice! hosted by Professor Michael Sandel. In an episode, he noted Letterman makes $31 million and Judge Judy $25 million, and examines them in terms of the difference principle of John Rawls. Milton Friedman is quoted: "Life is not fair...

EchoStar loses

Posted on March 06, 2010
The beginning of the CAFC opinion states:Appellants (collectively, ?EchoStar?) appeal from the district court?s decision finding them in contempt of the court?s permanent injunction order. TiVo Inc. v. Dish Network Corp., 640 F. Supp. 2d 853 (E.D. Tex...

Plagiarist prof's PhD goes poof

Posted on March 06, 2010
The Mainichi Daily News reports:Anilir Serkan, 36, an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Engineering, was found to have copied about 40 percent of his 376-page doctoral thesis from other sources. It is the first time for the university to take back a doctor's degree due to the plagiarism...

A direct correlation between unemployment and breakfast sales

Posted on March 06, 2010
An inventor can disclose a brilliant invention, which can change the way we live (ie, be an innovation), but "changed circumstances" can intervene. During the Civil War, the introduction of the Spencer repeating rifle changed the way battles were fought [eg, East Cavalry Field, Selma] but the Army later decided repeating rifles wasted ammunition, and dumped them for a single shot Springfield...

Rearranging the deck chairs at California's CIRM

Posted on March 06, 2010
In a post titled School Children vs. Stem Cell Scientists; A Public Perception Problem , californiastemcellreport understates a rather obvious problem: how can CIRM justify spending $1 million on selling itself, or even spend other monies, when the state of California is in shambles?One wag likened the situation of California to that of Greece (wherein Germans suggested Greece sell off uninhabited islands): Along the same lines, the USA must consider selling California to the Chinese...

CJ Roberts is not about to retire

Posted on March 05, 2010
In a post titled Here's Why John Roberts Was Rumored To Retire, one has the text:Our criminal justice professor started our 9 am lecture with the news that roberts will be resigning tomorrow for health reasons ? that he could not handle the administrative burdens of the job...

Prisoner's dilemma

Posted on March 05, 2010
In a post titled Health Reform: A Prisoner's Dilemma , KAREN TUMULTY uses the imagery of the game theory problem "the prisoner's dilemma" to get across the point:The parallel here is that, in purely political terms, the easiest choice for endangered Democrats in swing districts is to vote against the bill--but only if it passesIPBiz notes that long before game theory and the prisoner's dilemma, strategic voting existed...

Do scholars own their ideas?

Posted on March 05, 2010
Brian Fisher on admissionsquest writes in the context of Hegemann's ?Axolotl Roadkill": A stronger, more viable concept [than authenticity], we see originality practiced and protected every day. Scholars, authors, film makers artists, scientists, and engineers produce original ideas every day...

IE6: a hard sucker to kill

Posted on March 05, 2010
In the post 'Funeral' being held today for aging Web browser, CNN notes a mock funeral for Internet Explorer 6, BUT at the end observes that "As many as hundreds of thousands of sites out there still support IE6 and in some cases were built specifically for it...

"Since water is warmer than air"

Posted on March 05, 2010
Within a news.yahoo story about an article in Science (co-authored by Natalia Shakhova ) on methane release from Siberia, one has the text:The release of just a "small fraction of the methane held in (the) East Siberian Arctic Shelf sediments could trigger abrupt climate warming," they wrote...

Rambus gets mixed bag from USPTO re-exam

Posted on March 04, 2010
After a successful initial effort at the ITC, Rambus lost one patent, and part of another, at re-exam, but still has one patent, and part of another.See Rambus wins over Nvidia at ITC

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