Patent Law

The following is excerpted from a February 9, 2009 Article One Partners' press release at PR Newswire:

Article One Partners, LLC, a global community working to legitimize the validity of patents, today announced seven new patent studies, as well as two winners who will share the $50,000 prize for discovering prior art in Article One's Garmin/SP Technologies Patent Study. The Study relates to a graphical interface providing a touch screen keyboard display that may not be minimized, maximized, closed or deleted. In a 2008 complaint filed in federal court in Chicago, SP Technologies, LLC (SPT) accused Garmin Limited and Garmin International, Inc. of infringing SPT's patent. Garmin is a market leader in the portable navigation devices market.

The determination of winners was based on Article One's analysis, including review and analysis of outside counsel, leading Article One to reach the opinion that the prior art is invalidating because it teaches what is claimed in the subject patent U.S. Patent No. 6,784,873 B1. Article One believes that the claimed inventions would have been obvious to persons of ordinary skill in the relevant art at the time of the inventions. The Study was won by Article One community members, called Advisors, from the United States. Two Advisors submitted publicly available evidence, known as prior art, that predates the subject patent. The first prior art reference is a 1991 international (WIPO) publication of a pending patent application assigned to MicroSlate Inc.; and the second is an excerpt from an out-of-print 1998 textbook on a Microsoft Windows Operating system, Windows CE.

Importantly, only a U.S. federal court or the U.S. Patent Office can invalidate a U.S. patent. Article One is announcing only its own opinion based on its analysis of the prior art for purposes of determining winners to its Patent Studies. A court or the Patent Office may disagree with Article One's opinion. The prior art is listed in the announcement of the winning Patent Study and may be viewed on Article One's website.

Read the full press release here.