Patent Law

Microsoft accuses ex-employee of trade secret theft in case related to patent infringement action

Posted on January 31, 2009
Microsoft has charged former employee Miki Mullor with breach of contract, fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and unjust enrichment related to Mullor's alleged theft of confidential documents unrelated to his job about technology that Microsoft offers to computer makers...

Univ of Missouri sues ChemE prof over patent rights

Posted on January 29, 2009
AP notes: The University of Missouri system filed a lawsuit Monday [Jan. 26] in federal court in Kansas City against chemical engineering professor Galen Suppes. The university system claims Suppes won?t release the rights to more than 30 inventions and 11 potential patents it says were developed in his Columbia campus labs...

Patent Hawk on Lemley, Cotropia on copying

Posted on January 29, 2009
In "Non-copyists," the PatentHawk blog discusses the recent paper by Lemley and Cotropia titled: "Copying in Patent Law." While not favorable to Lemley and Cotropia, egIt's unfortunate not knowing about patent copying only because knowing could engender even woollier thinking, and an even more theoretical paper, than Cotropia and Lemley were able to write this round...

TechCrunch's Arrington takes break

Posted on January 28, 2009
AFP reported: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington announced Wednesday [Jan. 28] he is taking a break from writing for his influential technology blog after being spat on at a conference and getting death threats.Writing on techcrunch.com, Arrington, 38, said an unidentified man "walked up to me and quite deliberately spat in my face" on Tuesday at the Digital, Life, Design conference he was attending in Munich, Germany...

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Lemley, Sampat: experienced examiners allow more [?]

Posted on January 28, 2009
The 271blog notes an SSRN paper by Lemley and Sampat titled Examiner Characteristics and the Patent Grant Rate with abstract:In this paper, we show that there are important differences across patent examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Of!ce (USPTO), and that these relate to the most important decision made by the USPTO: whether or not to grant a patent...

Texas professor accused of plagiarizing a grant proposal

Posted on January 28, 2009
Rambis Chu, a physics professor at Texas Southern University, is accused of copying a proposal written several years earlier by John Miller, a physics professor at the University of Houston. Chu's proposal was submitted to the U.S. Army Research Laboratory...

CAFC revises Comiskey panel opinion on 26 Jan 09

Posted on January 27, 2009
A slight change was made.

AP confused on PCT process?

Posted on January 27, 2009
An AP report concludes with the sentence: For a flat fee of 1,330 Swiss francs ($1,166) companies can file a request for patent protection in any or all of the 139 countries that have subscribed to the U.N.'s Patent Cooperation Treaty, avoiding the need to make individual filings in each country...

"Quantum vacuum energy extraction"

Posted on January 26, 2009
The abstract for published application 20070241470 [Quantum vacuum energy extraction] states:A system is disclosed for converting energy from the electromagnetic quantum vacuum available at any point in the universe to usable energy in the form of heat, electricity, mechanical energy or other forms of power...

BusinessWeek on Pfizer buying Wyeth

Posted on January 26, 2009
With a headline Pfizer CEO: Wyeth Takeover Will Be Different, BusinessWeek quickly noted:Nevertheless, cost-cutting there will be. Pfizer expects to achieve about $4 billion in "synergies" by 2012, enabling it to reduce the combined workforce of the two companies by 15%, or some 20,000 jobs...

"Center for Patent Innovations"

Posted on January 26, 2009
Michael Schultz of Message Infusion, LLC emailed, noting that the New York Law School and its Center for Patent Innovations (people behind Peer-to-Patent along with the USPTO) have just launched a new initiative with a focus similar to that of Article One...

Obvious?

Posted on January 25, 2009
The following is from a thread concerning possible patent litigation by Apple against iPhone competitors:Here's a relevant quote from that seminal book on Interaction Design, Alan Cooper's The Inmates are Running the Asylum: "If, as a designer, you do something really, fundamentally, blockbuster correct, everybody looks at it and says, 'Of course! What other way would there be?' This is true even if the client has been staring, empty-handed and idea-free, at the problem for months or even years without a clue about solving it...

Biofuel skepticism within Waltz's "Biotech?s Green Gold"

Posted on January 25, 2009
Tobias Thornblad at intangitopia wrote: In the latest issue of Nature Biotech there is an interesting article written by Emily Waltz called Biotech?s Green Gold. The article starts by the interesting observation that more than a 100 third generation biofuel companies (so-called algae-to-fuel companies) have popped up during the last few years worldwide, but not a single commercial facility has been built...

"How Juror Misconceptions Affect Patent Trials" [?]

Posted on January 25, 2009
Joe Mullin's How Juror Misconceptions Affect Patent Trials notes that proof of intentional copying is not an element of patent infringement BUT THEN makes a big deal that in most patent cases "formal allegations and findings of copying are actually quite rare...

Schiff/Issa patent bill re-introduced

Posted on January 25, 2009
CNET writes on 23 Jan 09: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) reintroduced legislation this week that would start a 10-year pilot program to educate district judges on patent issues. Judges from courts that meet certain criteria would be able to opt into the program, which would provide funds for them to pursue educational opportunities such as patent seminars...

What happened to the guy who developed Lipitor?

Posted on January 24, 2009
Within an article concerning expected job cuts that will arise if Pfizer buys out Wyeth, one finds the text:After several years of eliminating jobs that once totaled 3,600 at that company's [Warner-Lambert's] Ann Arbor, Mich., facility, Pfizer announced its closing in January 2007...

Accused plagiarist UTexas prez announces retirement

Posted on January 21, 2009
InsideHigherEd reported: In her announcement [of retirement on 20 Jan 09], Blandina (Bambi) Cárdenas made no direct reference to the plagiarism allegations. ?The pressures of the last several months have seriously taxed my health and well-being and impaired my ability to lead the university with the intensity and focus I believe necessary...

"Shifting strategies in patent law"

Posted on January 21, 2009
Topics in the Santa Clara symposium on Friday, Jan. 30, 2009 are defined by the sentence: A dramatic rise in filings with the International Trade Commission for patent infringement suits, an increased prevalence of Non-Practicing Entities, and frequent use of inequitable conduct as a defense to patent infringement have significantly affected the evolution of patent law today.

Coffee patent wars over?

Posted on January 20, 2009
Drinks Business Review writes: The Procter & Gamble Company, or P&G, has reached a settlement with Kraft Foods regarding P&G patents to plastic packaging for roast and ground coffee.There is a quote:Steve Jemison, P&G's chief legal officer, said: "We are delighted by the terms of this settlement and will not hesitate to do what it takes to continue to protect our intellectual property...

GeoPharma does deal with Schering over Clarinex

Posted on January 20, 2009
Reuters notes: Under the settlement, GeoPharma can commercially launch its generic product, with 6 months marketing co-exclusivity, on July 1, 2012, or earlier in certain circumstances.See alsohttp://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/12/dr-reddys-settles-with-schering-over...

Joseph Lowery's benediction

Posted on January 20, 2009
The high rhetorical point on 20 Jan 09 may have come in the last minutes of Reverend Lowery's benediction:'Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around...

Obama and Lincoln

Posted on January 19, 2009
A post by Leonard Pitts Jr includes the text: Of course, Lincoln freed no slaves. That's the myth. His Emancipation Proclamation was a military measure to demoralize and destabilize the rebellious South; it covered states he did not govern but did not apply in slaveholding states that remained under his jurisdiction...

Biden invites Kinnock to inauguration

Posted on January 19, 2009
FirstPost reports: Neil Kinnock is flying to Washington today [Jan. 19] with his wife Glenys for the inauguration on Tuesday of President-elect Barack Obama as the guest of Joe Biden, the Vice President-elect FirstPost repeats the "old saw" that the problem with Biden's use of Kinnock's speech was plagiarism...

Dan Burger on IBM patents, applications

Posted on January 19, 2009
IPBIz does not know "where" to begin in the morass of false statements in IBM Piles on the Patents, Promises to Publish Plenty.One has: In 2009, we should see somewhere in the vicinity of 3,000 of its patented technical inventions published, which means they become public property...

Joff Wild fulminates on qualifications for USPTO director

Posted on January 19, 2009
Joff Wild at IAM continues to sound the trumpet for a non-patent attorney USPTO director:And just like the US Chamber of Commerce, what the ABA fails to do is explain why "any person selected to be Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks be a lawyer having experience in patent and trademark law"...

Tim Lee on Menell on patent lawyers

Posted on January 19, 2009
Timothy Lee has a piece at TechDirt which includes:If I'm right that, as I argued on Friday, there's a cultural gap between the patent bar and the technology industry on the subject of software patents, an interesting question is how we got them in the first place...

PatentHawk on Michel/Lichtman interview

Posted on January 19, 2009
The Patent Hawk blog has a post on an interview of Chief Judge Michel by Professor Doug Lichtman, once of the University of Chicago (now at UCLA). One needs to read the post. Some text on patent litigators:The attorneys don't bring us the issues, don't frame up the issues in the tribunals below, and don't present these fundamental issues to the court, particularly whether the court should rehear...

"Top seven alternative energies" from Stanford

Posted on January 15, 2009
The link begins: The US could replace all its cars and trucks with electric cars powered by wind turbines taking up less than 3 square kilometres ? in theory, at least.Mark Jacobson noted: "Some options that have been proposed are just downright awful...

Plagiarist prof at University of Florida retires

Posted on January 15, 2009
Jack Stripling noted that admitted plagiarist UF professor James Twitchell was suspended for five years without pay, and opted to retire.See alsohttp://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/04/uflorida-prof-admits-plagiarism.htmlA different outcome than with Glenn Poshard, plagiarist President of SIU...

Advaxis beats Anza at EPC

Posted on January 15, 2009
NJBiz reports: Biotechnology firm Advaxis Inc. of North Brunswick, New Jersey announced on Jan. 14 victory in a patent challenge in the European Patent Court in Munich, Germany, over its antigen, called Lovaxin C. In what it claimed is a final ruling that cannot be reversed in the European Union, the court reversed a patent challenge from Anza Therapeutics Inc...

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