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Wednesday Shorts

By Peter Zura

USPTO Issues Warning on Patent Drafting Outsourcing: The PTO issued a "reminder" in today's Federal Register that foreign patent prosecution remains subject to 15 CFR 730-744, and that technology exports must be pre-approved approval by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the Department of Commerce. Penalties include patent invalidation, fines up to $10k, and imprisonment of not more than 2 years. Read the notice here.

Litigation Support Outsourcing May Waive Fourth Amendment Protections As Well: Over at the Electronic Discovery Law Blog, a very interesting case is discussed where a law firm has filed a federal lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in order to determine whether the electronic transmission of data from the United States to a foreign legal services provider waives Fourth Amendment protection with respect to the data that is electronically transmitted. Read the blog post here. See the amended complaint here.

Patent SNAFU's - A Class Action Frontier? This is the question being asked by Law.com in Monday's story about chip manufacturer rivals engaged in a patent fight, where the chief scientist of one company admitted that he developed the patented technology while he was the rival's employee. Of course, this meant the patent belonged to the rival. The company's stock dropped 40% when the news broke. A securities class action suit followed. The judge gave preliminary approval last week for the company to pay $13.5 million to settle the suit.

Indian Drugmaker Openly Plans for Release of Copycats: Cipla Ltd, India?s second largest drug maker by sales, may launch copycat versions of 20 patented drugs of leading global drug makers, after securing similar-sounding trademarks for its copy brands.

Cipla ?may launch these generic brands in the market as and when the opportunity arises?, claimed a company executive, who didn?t want to be named. ?It doesn?t necessarily mean the company doesn?t respect a patent regime, but the move will benefit poor patients who cannot afford an essential drug just because of a patent, which is not always as justified as it seems.?

Read more from WSJ's LiveMint.com publication here.

Full post as published by Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).