Patent Law

Phoning in Junk

Posted on October 07, 2008
Pitiable pukes who poot about patent trolls are merely mouthing mega-corporate mush. Notwithstanding that patents are a tradable commodity, with any owner having the same right of enforcement as the original inventor, consider the flip side - corporations strong-arming their brethren with nothing but trash talk...

Flash of Genius

Posted on October 04, 2008
The movie Flash of Genius, about intermittent windshield wiper inventor Bob Kearns, is sketchy, edgy, and uncomfortable. Bob becomes obsessed with righteousness over his invention, e.g. 4,339,698, stolen by Ford Motor Corporation, and quickly adopted by other auto makers...

Inequitable Conduct

Posted on October 04, 2008
Professor Lisa A. Dolak of Syracuse law school has given considerable research and thought to what amounts to a death sentence for patents. Excerpts from a paper presented last month - There is no question that inequitable conduct allegations drain resources and inject uncertainty into litigation...

What Goes Around...

Posted on October 03, 2008
Much sourness has been provoked in recent years, and legislation mooted, that would radically alter patent law. From one writer regarding the current public temper - To put the matter very frankly, the attitude of many people in the country today with regard to patents is a petulant, irritated mood...

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Enabling

Posted on October 03, 2008
In a typical drug patent case, Impax wanted to barge in on Aventis' patented treatment for Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), vis-à-vis 5,236,940, so Impax filed an ANDA, then a DJ motion, charging invalidity and unenforceability for inequitable conduct. The judge didn't buy it...

Rogue Outfit

Posted on October 02, 2008
In John Hopkins University v. Datascope, Judge Newman fingered the overbearing injudiciousness of the Court of Appeals panel in which she sat: There is no sufficient ground for this court's independent appellate trial of the factual issues that were decided by the jury and sustained by the district court...

Not Biting

Posted on September 30, 2008
"Every day we're amazed at how victories in court don't necessarily lead to settlements. We really need the courts to help force these parties into settlement talks. We're not having as much momentum in signing new business as we've liked."...

Tanked

Posted on September 29, 2008
Praxair sued Advanced Technology Materials (ATMI) for infringing three patents: 6,007,609; 6,045,115; and 5,937,895. All claim pressurized storage tanks. '609 and '115 went down on inequitable conduct, '895 on §112 ¶2 indefiniteness. On appeal, '609 and '895 popped back up from the grave, while '115 remained buried in a 2-1 split decision...

Life Support

Posted on September 28, 2008
Transmeta, a creative Silicon Valley chip designer, had a promising future when it started in 1995. It developed CPUs with low power consumption, perfect for laptops. Intel infringed its patents, thus undercutting Transmeta's marketing edge....

Flashback Foresight

Posted on September 28, 2008
World War II was coming to an end, Bing Crosby was playing on the radio, and Patent Office Commissioner Casper W. Ooms was professing: It has been brought to my attention that the practice prevails [in] the Patent Office of measuring the "amount of work accomplished" by Assistant Examiners during particular periods of time by assigning quotas of production...

In the Fire

Posted on September 27, 2008
Broadcom and Qualcomm have a cell phone chip patent war going on. A major clash was appealed, with blood spilled. Broadcom got a permanent injunction, even though it didn't practice the claimed invention. While the courts found it "generally in the public interest to uphold patent rights," an injunction would not have been granted if not for giving Qualcomm a "sunset provision" to wean itself from infringement...

Moral Hazard

Posted on September 25, 2008
This is a patent weblog, so pardon me. But the proposed $700 billion dollar bank bailout plan is astonishing in its giveaway to the financial industry. It's nothing but a bank holiday with taxpayers footing the tab. Let the banks fail. Greedy bastards made their bet, let them go bankrupt...

Sound & Fury

Posted on September 25, 2008
AT&T developed digital audio compression technology, for which it got patents. In 1988, to further the work, AT&T entered a joint development agreement with German company Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. The result was the MP-3 standard, as well as more patents covering the standard...

No Petty Bone

Posted on September 24, 2008
Electronic game machine maker Aristocrat sued International Game for infringing 7,056,215, a blemished patent. The blemish was to futz reviving the patent application after abandonment during prosecution. The district court turned the blemish to cancer, killing the patent...

Clay Pigeon

Posted on September 24, 2008
"September 24 Is World Day Against Software Patents," booms Stop Software Patents. Benjamin Henrion, initiator of the StopSoftwarePatents coalition effort, explains "The aim behind StopSoftwarePatents is to gather a worldwide coalition of businesses and civil society in order to get laws which clearly exempt software from patentable subject matter...

Designing Law

Posted on September 23, 2008
Egyptian Goddess sued Swisa for design patent infringement. The Goddess stumbled. On appeal, in a 2-1 panel brawl, the CAFC ginned up a new standard for design patent infringement. En banc rehearing resulted in the CAFC rebuffing itself, with the design patent standard rewound to 1871...

Microsoft's Patent Tax

Posted on September 21, 2008
Microsoft appears to have mastered the art of the patent squeeze. A recent convert from being something other than a patent piñata, since 2003, the inception of its patent licensing program, Microsoft has wrestled innumerable cross-licensing agreements from a wide variety of technology companies...

Accel Excels

Posted on September 20, 2008
Having recently completed an Accelerated Examination filing, I am convinced that this is the way to go, especially under ideal circumstances. Accelerated Examination (AE) has taken quite a lashing on this blog, with one muffin-head professing: "Forget accelerated examination...

Packaged

Posted on September 19, 2008
Tessera asserted semiconductor chip packaging patents against Siliconware, Motorola, and Qualcomm, including 6,433,419. Patent Hawk was put on the case. Reexamination ensued. '419 rejection is now final, and heading to the patent appeals board....

Buffaloed

Posted on September 19, 2008
CSIRO sued Buffalo in the Eastern District of Texas for infringing 5,487,069, claiming a technique for wireless networking. After claim construction, cross-motions for summary judgment left Buffalo holding the short straw: the patent valid and infringed...

The Black Bird

Posted on September 17, 2008
The Wall Street Journal shines a spotlight on a tranquil troll, Intellectual Ventures (IV), lurking under the bridge of litigation, at least for now: Nathan Myhrvold [of Intellectual Ventures] has quietly amassed a trove of 20,000-plus patents and patent applications related to everything from lasers to computer chips...

Inexhaustible

Posted on September 16, 2008
Hapless Excelstor, a Chinese company, wanted to sue its patent licensor, Papst, for not notifying it of a patent license agreement that Papst had for the same patent Excelstor licensed. The district court pitched the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction...

Peer-to-Pissant

Posted on September 15, 2008
A Peer-to-Patent email, picked up by several newspapers: Some of the biggest players in the technology industry complain that the U.S. patent system is broken -- putting too many patents of dubious merit in the hands of people who can use them to drag companies and other inventors to court...

ROI

Posted on September 15, 2008
Beyond simple counting, number fumbling is a human constant. Wall Street floats on an ocean of dumb money. And bean counters, the pros that run the banks... Well, let's just observe that the deepest and longest lasting recessions/depressions in this country have been lit by what is quaintly referred to as a "bank panic...

Going Down the 112 Way

Posted on September 14, 2008
Following up on his §101 ramble, USPTO policy maven John Love put out the hard word in a memo duet on §112: ¶2 indefiniteness for numeric imprecision, and for means claims, which nominally fall under ¶6....

Scarecrow

Posted on September 12, 2008
Duratech Industries jumped the gun and got North Dakota district court to grant non-infringement declaratory judgment protection from 6,375,104, owned by Bridgeview Manufacturing. '104 claims a hay bale handler. But Duratech put up a straw man for claim construction, construing a means-plus-function limitation that wasn't...

On Display

Posted on September 11, 2008
Medical Solutions (MSI) sued C Change Surgical (CCS) for patent infringement "because CCS both "used" and "offered to sell" the allegedly infringing product at [a] trade show." MSI had sued CCS in D.C., where the trade show was. But neither company is based there...

Refusal To License

Posted on September 10, 2008
The Justice Department just issued a report: "Competition and Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act." One issue discussed was whether refusal to license patents was ipso facto monopolistic action. In a broader context - The general right of a firm freely to determine with whom it will and will not deal was first established by the Supreme Court nearly nine decades ago...

Written Description Bug

Posted on September 09, 2008
5,126,270 and continuation 6,017,745, claim turning bacteria into enzyme factories. Patent owner Carnegie Mellon University sued Roche for infringement. Roche got a claim construction that led to summary judgment of non-infringement, and invalidity for "lack of written description in light of...

Educational Savvy

Posted on September 09, 2008
From a public-interest standpoint, the blessing of blogging has been to demonstrate how the mainstream press is filled with hacks on assignment. While bloggers live and breathe their subject matter, "professional" media do topical cameos, resulting in nicely wrapped provocative stories, at a slanted angle, but with a garnish from "the other side" for the illusion of a "fair and balanced" perspective...

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