Patent Law

Churchill wins case against CU, and $1

Posted on April 05, 2009
The Los Angeles Times discussed the victory of Ward Churchill over the University of Colorado:Jurors in the wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by Ward L. Churchill agreed with the embattled professor's contention that he was the victim of a "howling mob," not the perpetrator of academic misconduct...

Summers and conflicts and other dullness

Posted on April 05, 2009
Politico raises some conflict issues concerning Lawrence Summers:Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, pulled in more than $2.7 million in speaking fees paid by firms at the heart of the financial crisis, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Corp...

Conflicts of interest: remembering the past?

Posted on April 05, 2009
In a post on californiastemcellreport titled Angell, Corruption and Medical Research, Dave Jensen began:The former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine weighed in on the ?smell of corruption? in medical research earlier this year in a piece that has some implications for the California stem cell agency...

It's the battery, stupid!

Posted on April 05, 2009
Bob Park wrote on 3 April 2009:China says it plans to become the leading producer of hybrid and all electric vehicles. That's not good news for General Motors which aims to dig its way out of a hole by going more heavily into electric vehicles such as the plug-in Volt...

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At the USPTO on 3 April 2009

Posted on April 05, 2009

IBM to withdraw second patent application on outsourcing

Posted on April 05, 2009
Christine Young writes in the recordonline:The same day the Times Herald-Record reported IBM had applied to patent a computerized system to help businesses outsource offshore jobs while maximizing government tax breaks, Big Blue did an about-face.The application "was filed in error and will be withdrawn," IBM spokesman Steve Malkiewicz said Monday, 30 March 09...

IAM on IBM's Kappos, not touching the political or patent pulse?

Posted on April 05, 2009
Of the possibility of Kappos as USPTO Director, IAM wrote:That said, I would be very intrigued to see the reaction if Kappos gets the nod. IBM has spent the last few years courting the open source community. Back in 2007 Kappos himself proposed what he termed the European Interoperability Patent - a right granted to applicants on the basis that it would be freely available for others to use on payment of a reasonable royalty...

Hatch on Stevens: "he was screwed"

Posted on April 02, 2009
WashingtonPost: After the news broke that the charges would be dropped, Stevens "sounded elated," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). "Here's a guy who gave 60 years of service to this country, and he was screwed [by federal prosecutors]. . . . How does he get his reputation back?"Note to Senator Hatch: after 200+ years of service to this country, small inventors should not be screwed by "patent reform...

University solar patent smoked in Europe

Posted on April 02, 2009
On 31 March, the EPO revoked a solar photovoltaic technology patent that had been issued to the University of Neuchatel and licensed exclusively to Oerlikon Corp.The patent holders had gone against users of the "SunFab" thin-film process.See also:http://ipbiz...

Kaminsky on Conficker

Posted on April 02, 2009
Ars Technica wrote of containing Conficker:Based on what we've seen today, the answer is a very cautious "maybe." Conficker is awake and has been seen "in the wild" as various infected systems reached out to the control servers for data. New scanning technologies developed by Dan Kaminsky at Dox Para in cooperation with Felix Leder and Tillmann Werner have made it possible to detect a Conficker-infected system based on how it responds to certain queries...

S.515 working its way through Senate?

Posted on April 02, 2009
ITBusinessEdge notes:Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania says:"I believe that we are on the brink of an accommodation here."One recalls that Sen. Specter put the brakes on S.1145 the last time patent reform was up:http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/04/patent-reform-slip-sliding-away-arlen...

Stem cell therapy to grow bigger breasts?

Posted on April 02, 2009
The TimesOnline had a post: Stem cells to grow bigger breasts, which includes text:The cells will be isolated from a woman?s spare fat, once it has been extracted from her thighs or stomach, using equipment owned by GE Healthcare, a technology company...

Global Patent Holdings loses appeal

Posted on April 02, 2009
Global Patent Holdings, represented by Niro Scavone, lost an appeal at the CAFC.Elsewhere, in the stent wars, Cordis Corporation (?Cordis?) appeals, and Boston Scientific Corporation and Scimed Life Systems, Inc. (?Boston Scientific?) cross-appeal, from a final judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware...

Digene loses appeal at CAFC

Posted on April 02, 2009
Digene Corporation (?Digene?) appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin holding that Third Wave Technologies, Inc. (?Third Wave?) did not infringe the Digene patent in suit. Digene lost.Prosecution disclaimer arose -->See Spectrum Int?l, Inc...

CAFC interprets assignment contracts: ambiguity issue

Posted on April 02, 2009
At issue in Euclid Chemical was ambiguity in the words in a patent assignment document:the Assignment provides: I, JACK BENNETT, whose full post office address is 10039 Hawthorne Drive, Chardon, Ohio 44024, in consideration for $25,000.00 and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged do hereby sell and assign to VECTOR CORROSION TECHNOLOGIES LTD...

TomTom turns tail?

Posted on March 31, 2009
One week after joining OIN, TomTom settled with Microsoft. Dana Blankenhorn at zdnet wrote:So that?s it, then. TomTom folded like a house of cards. See alsohttp://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2009/03/tomtom-joins-oin-on-march-23-2009.htmlhttp://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2344104,00...

IBM's published patent application 20090083107 on outsourcing

Posted on March 30, 2009
Much is made of IBM's being the top recipient of issued US patents. Not so much is made of what is in the patents. Published US application 20090083107, titled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR STRATEGIC GLOBAL RESOURCE SOURCING , is worthy of note.Paragraph 2 states:An important challenge in shifting to globally integrated enterprises is planning the location and capacity of the global workforce...

Bad lawyering for ColoradoU in Churchill mess?

Posted on March 30, 2009
The Denver Post wrote of questioning of accused plagiarist Ward Churchill by a CU attorney:Patrick O'Rourke, a CU attorney, saw his questioning backfire at one point when he asked Churchill if he was really arguing that he didn't recognize the Cohen essay when he had edited it once before, for another book, just months earlier...

LA Times column rips California's CIRM

Posted on March 30, 2009
In a column titled California stem cell program needs a new treatment, Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times takes a whack at California's CIRM, concluding Proposition 71 endowed the program with what looked like an embarrassment of riches. The danger is that, without better oversight and broader debate about its policies and goals, it will become simply an embarrassment...

In an alternate universe, maybe ...

Posted on March 29, 2009
Law review article--> 58 Emory L.J. 181 (2008) LENGTH: 8029 words The Future of Law, Religion, and the Family A 25th Anniversary Symposium: sponsored by The Center for the Study of Law and Religion Emory University: Article and Essay: Is the Patent Office a Rubber Stamp? NAME: Mark A...

If we don't cite it, it doesn't exist?

Posted on March 29, 2009
Footnote 14 of Lemley and Sampat's Emory "Rubber Stamp" states:For a nice analysis of the problem, see Bruce A. Kaser, Patent Application Recycling: How Continuations Impact Patent Quality & What the USPTO Is Doing About It, 88 J. Pat. & Trademark Off...

DOE head Chu proposes sharing of IP protection in some energy areas

Posted on March 28, 2009
ANDREW C. REVKIN AND KATE GALBRAITH in dot earth ran a piece titled Energy Chief Seeks Global Flow of Ideas which included recent statements relating to DOE head Steven Chu:Some energy experts say that a lack of intellectual-property protection in China is a big impediment to advancing and disseminating designs for less-polluting power plants and the like...

Krivit on Park on "cold fusion"

Posted on March 28, 2009
New Energy Times ran a piece on Bob Park titled: Bob Park Concedes: LENR is Real Science which included text in Park's WN:Incredibly, the American chemical Society was meeting in Salt Lake City this week and there were many papers on cold fusion, or as their authors prefer LENR (low-energy nuclear reactions)...

Do grade schoolers know that plagiarism is wrong?

Posted on March 27, 2009
A column by Dave Schlencker on 27 March 09 observed:Condemning plagiarism is an easy saber to rattle. It's not a journalism thing; it's a common-sense thing. Grade-schoolers know better. And with the Internet, plagiarism is not only easy to do, it is easy to expose...

Churchill plagiarism investigation the flip side of Poshard story?

Posted on March 27, 2009
Remember when defenders of SIU's Glenn Poshard complained about the manner in which Poshard's plagiarism came to light?Fast forward to March 2009 and see how Ward Churchill, a politically problematic plagiarist, is treated:And just because the misconduct investigation [of Churchill] grew out of the firestorm over the essay ? which CU later determined to be protected free speech ? didn?t mean the university could disregard the information it was getting about Churchill?s scholarship, [Michael] Carrigan testified...

Awards to Ocala Magazine rescinded after plagiarism revealed

Posted on March 26, 2009
AFTER an anonymous source revealed plagiarism in articles written by Heather Lee of Ocala Magazine, THEN the North Central Florida Society of Professional Journalists Professional Chapter rescinded awards given for her work. The REAL STORY is why the North Central Florida Society of Professional Journalists Professional Chapter gave the awards in the first place...

"Cold fusion" hits ACS national meeting in Salt Lake City in March 2009

Posted on March 26, 2009
There is a link to a press conference about a symposium at the American Chemical Society on LENR ("cold fusion"), which took place in Salt Lake City in March 2009.One talk was about the measurement of neutrons. This work arose from the Space Warfare Systems Center, San Diego (SWSCSD), and previous work had been presented at the APS in 2007...

Time to end patent examinations?

Posted on March 26, 2009
The IAM blog had a post: Is it time to end patent examinations? which included text from Bowman Heiden:In the knowledge economy patents need to take on the role of building rather than blocking. To create such a world firms will need to focus more on developing their patents focused on business goals not bonus schemes, as well as spending a great deal of time understanding the patents of others...

What one learns at a conference can be held against one as to inequitable conduct

Posted on March 26, 2009
The 271blog discusses Golden Hour Data Systems, Inc. v. emsCharts, E.D. Tex and writes:Shortly after the application was filed, the inventors and prosecution counsel received a brochure on the AeroMed system at a conference. The brochure indicated that the AeroMed system did indeed provide the features discussed in the application.

SIU plagiarism policy to be unveiled

Posted on March 25, 2009
SIUDE noted: The committee charged with revising the university?s plagiarism policy is expected to release a final draft this week, administrators said Monday.If all goes to plan, the draft would be given to constituency groups this week and a final report be presented to the SIU Board of Trustees during its May 7 meeting...

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