Patent Law

It's the battery, stupid!

Posted on April 26, 2009
Within an article titled Report: Hanging on to Old Notebooks a Bad Idea, one has For example, most firms don't think about battery replacement as a cost issue, but it happens. The average is about 300 recharge cycles, meaning one or two years' lifespan before a new battery is needed...

Flap over Lord Monckton testifying before Congress

Posted on April 25, 2009
Those who have followed "patent reform" know about how Congressman Berman declined to allow critics of patent reform to testify before Congress. A similar matter has arisen in the discussion of climate issues.From ClimateDepot:UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington...

More activity in lithium battery litigations

Posted on April 25, 2009
An IPBiz reader noted that a re-examination certificate was issued on 22 April 09 on Armand's patent titled CATHODE MATERIALS FOR SECONDARY (RECHARGEABLE) LITHIUM BATTERIES [6,514,640]. See 90/008,205.According to a document filed 22 Dec 2008, claims were amended...

FAX only?

Posted on April 25, 2009
IPBiz notes text in a recent IAM post:I was somewhat baffled when calling multinational company DuPont this afternoon. Trying in vain to speak to a member of its IP group about speaking at the upcoming IP Business Congress on green IP issues, I was informed by a very friendly and profusely apologetic receptionist that any correspondence concerning conferences must be submitted to the office via fax...

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Apple willfully infringed '291 snooping patent

Posted on April 25, 2009
A jury in ED Texas has found that Apple willfully infringed US 6,405,291 titled Predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated accesses with abstract:When a PCI-bus controller receives a request from a PCI-bus master to transfer data with an address in secondary memory, the controller performs an initial inquire cycle and withholds TRDY# to the PCI-bus master until any write-back cycle completes...

LA Times criticizes NIH stem cell policy

Posted on April 25, 2009
In an editorial on April 25, the Los Angeles Times wrote:The new NIH rules would not allow the use of federal money for studying stem cell lines derived from embryos created specifically for research. Such research might involve attempts to produce genetically matched organs for transplant or stem cell lines that reflect racial and ethnic diversity...

Judge Posner finds glass sex toy obvious

Posted on April 25, 2009
In Ritchie v. Vast Resources, we have Judge Richard Posner (of the 7th Circuit, sitting by designation at the Federal Circuit) reviewing a decision on obviousness in a case on sex aids arising from the Middle District of Florida. Judge Posner sets up the case:The plaintiffs own a manufacturer, called Know Mind Enterprises, and the defendant, doing business under the name Topco Sales, is another manufacturer...

BusinessWeek flubs discussion on patents

Posted on April 24, 2009
In an article in BusinessWeek titled The U.S. Is Losing Its Lead in Patents , Michael Arndt writesLast year, for the first time, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued more patents to foreigners than to Americans. IPBiz suggests that "last year" is not the first time non-US entities received more US patents than US entities...

After USAir incident, FAA releases data on animal/plane collisions

Posted on April 24, 2009
Remember the fuss to get the USPTO to make issued patents available on the internet? It took the USAir incident to get the FAA to release data on airplane/animal collisions, which showed (among other things):The data shows that since 2000, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York reported at least 30 accidents where damage was either substantial or the plane was actually destroyed...

Another university president accused of plagiarizing his Ph.D. thesis

Posted on April 23, 2009
In 2007, IPBiz noted a report in the Birmingham News: Jacksonville State University officials are investigating other newspaper columns that appeared under the byline of school President William Meehan after a second instance of plagiarism was brought to their attention...

Problems presented by the backlog of unexamined patent applications

Posted on April 23, 2009
In discussing aspects of the patent application backlog problem, IPWatchDog notes:For better or for worse, investors are not always able to make their own independent judgments with respect to the quality of an underlying technology that is the basis for a start-up company...

CSIRO gets settlement in WiFi wars

Posted on April 22, 2009
The Australian reported on 22 April 09: AUSTRALIA'S top science agency has walloped some of the world's biggest industrial giants in the US patent courts to bring the country a pay check worth up to $1 billion over the next five to 10 years.The CSIRO has won its long-running battle to enforce a patent on technology used in Wi-fi connections that have become virtually ubiquitous in laptops and other devices around the world...

Nobel plagiarism?

Posted on April 22, 2009
MonstersAndCritics says: A decade-old plagiarism case could be reopened in Spain against 1989 Nobel Literature Prize winner Camilo Jose Cela, the daily El Pais reported 21 April 09.**In passing, note a "dreamworld" discussion of plagiarism in the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, titled No 2nd chance in the case of plagiarismNewsflash: Joe Biden, who committed plagiarism at Syracuse Law, got a second chance and is currently Vice-President...

Stephanie Meyer (Twilight) accused of "idea infringement"?

Posted on April 21, 2009
Hollyscoop reports:Heidi Stanton, who studied alongside Meyer at Brigham Young University in Utah claims Meyers stole the vampire story from her because it's very similar to a short story she wrote while they were attending college together. Stanton filed her lawsuit against Meyer in Utah last Tuesday, April 14th alleging idea infringement...

Bodog dispute settled?

Posted on April 21, 2009
from PR Newswire: "While the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group was not the judgment debtor, the MMGG is the exclusive licensee of the "Bodog" brand within the region and, as such, activities that impact the brand necessarily impact our businesses. We are pleased to have worked constructively with 1st Technology and its principals to bring an end to this protracted dispute...

Tate & Lyle loses (again) on sucralose at ITC

Posted on April 21, 2009
IndyStar reported: Heartland Sweeteners said April 20 the United States International Trade Commission unanimously upheld an initial ITC ruling that found Heartland did not infringe Tate & Lyle patents for sucralose. See previous IPBiz post:http://ipbiz...

CBS Radio and others sued in ED Texas over US 6,577,716

Posted on April 21, 2009
RadioInk reports: Aldav LLC has filed suit against Clear Channel, Cumulus, Citadel, CBS Radio, Entercom, Saga, Cox Radio, Univision, Regent, Gap, Radio One, and the Aloha Station Trust, claiming that, by replacing advertising and other content in their online streams, the broadcasters are infringing on a patent on which Aldav holds a license...

"60 Minutes" favorable to cold fusion on April 19, 2009

Posted on April 20, 2009
A videoclip and a transcript of the favorable piece (titled Cold Fusion Is Hot Again ) appear on the cbsnews website.Within the text: Scientists today like to call it a nuclear effect rather than cold fusion. At least 20 labs working independently have published reports of excess heat - heat up to 25 times greater than the electricity going in...

The CAFC considers patent pools in Princo case

Posted on April 20, 2009
In Princo v. ITC, the CAFC discussed patent pools:Jefferson Parish Hosp. Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U.S. 2, 40-44 (1984) (O?Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (?Tie-ins may entail economic benefits as well as economic harms, and . . . these benefits should enter the rule-of-reason balance...

Attendance at San Diego trade show snags Brazilian company

Posted on April 20, 2009
As a warning to foreign companies, note that attending trade shows in theUS can create specific jurisdiction. The CAFC noted in SYNTHES v. GMReis of specific jurisdiction:We have, however, outlined a three-factor test for specific jurisdiction, which considers whether (1) the defendant purposefully directed its activities at residents of the forum, (2) the claim arises out of or relates to the defendant?s activities with the forum, and (3) assertion of personal jurisdiction is reasonable and fair...

New directions in the iPhone?

Posted on April 19, 2009
CNET notes:The blog MacRumors.com reports that Apple has published two patent applications in the past few weeks that focus on features that incorporate motion and gesture user interfaces. The published applications are:2009008820420090100384

Coskata receives unfavorable Office Action on clostridium (11/441,392)

Posted on April 19, 2009
On 24 Feb 09, Coskata was mailed a non-final Office Action, rejecting all pending claims in the case involving Clostridium(application 11/441,392). Rejections included 101, 112, and 102.Separately, some of their bioreactor applications have published...

The relationship between the IP world and the mainstream media

Posted on April 19, 2009
The IAM blog had a further post on the general topic of "journalism of patent matters." IPBiz agrees with the final paragraph:There are a lot of similarities between the C-suite executive and the business journalist who do not "get" IP. They both need a narrative that resonates so that their interest can be sparked...

The return of the Mashelkar report on pharma patenting in India

Posted on April 19, 2009
In a post titled The "Mashelkar Committee Report" on Pharma Patenting Resurfaces! , Spicy IP discusses how the Indian government "finalized" the Mashelkar report. The punchline:In short, the Committee notes, and rightly so, that any attempt to exclude an entire class of inventions i...

Prior art subtraction/essential features

Posted on April 18, 2009
Rooklidge and Shah wrote in the March 2009 IPT: [Leahy] suggested that the "Supreme Court?s Quanta decision may offer a useful way of describing the truly inventive feature of a patent," referring to the Supreme Court?s recent Quanta Computer, Inc. v...

"The Pirate Bay" sunk?

Posted on April 18, 2009
The Pirate Bay lost at trial in Sweden. InformationWeek reported: Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstroem were sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay compensation and damages totaling $3.6 million. There will be an appeal...

Anti-patent diatribe on californiastemcellreport

Posted on April 17, 2009
The folks in California, like IBM's Kappos, have taken a schizophrenic view of patents: those of my competitor are bad, and mine are good. In a post titled New Stem Cell Patent Ruckus in California, Dave Jensen wrote of an issue involving Stem Cells Inc...

Tweeting

Posted on April 16, 2009
Inside Track on a comment by Holland & Knight spokeswoman Aimee Steel about tweeting:Asked about the tweeting, Steel said, ?We are aware of it, and believe that any intelligent person would immediately question the credibility of anonymous bloggers such as this...

CSI-AstroQuest: "ideas are a dime a dozen"

Posted on April 16, 2009
On 16 April 09, CSI had a show featuring Star Trek themes, but the underlying murder was about idea-stealing. The guy who says "ideas are a dime a dozen" gets whacked by the idea-originator.from scifiwire:We screened the episode and were surprised to see not only Battlestar Galactica cast member Kate Vernon, but also cameos by a couple of other Battlestar players: Ronald D...

InformationWeek clueless on patent procedure?

Posted on April 16, 2009
Dave Methwin writes:The past week has delivered yet another example that our patent system is horribly broken. On April 9, a jury found that Microsoft infringed on Lucent/Alcatel touch-screen patents. But wait! On April 13, news stories reported that a March 26 re-examination by the US Patent Office said aspects of the patent were "an obvious variation of know-how that was public...

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