Patent Law

More Alternative ADR Practices: Preventing Patent Shark Attacks

Posted on June 20, 2008
If your company's business revenue depends to any degree upon its valuable patent portfolio head on over to the Harvard Business Review website and read "Patent Sharks" by Joachim Henkel and Markus Reitzig.Henkel and Reitzig make the following recommendations to help companies avoid patent shark attacks: Move away from amassing huge patent portfolios for cross-licensing with competitors Simplify standards and create more-modular designs cooperate with competitors early in the R&D process Foster interdepartmental and intercompany cooperation Stop flooding patent offices with insignificant inventions...

The Other ADR: Insurance and Indemnity Agreements

Posted on June 20, 2008
(right:  Blackberry design patent from Patently-O article on the RIM settlement) Though the term "patent terrorist" is hyperbolic, the points made in How to fight against patent terrorism by Richard Wilder, a partner  with Sidley Austin and IP counsel for the Association for Competitive Technology provides valuable advice about ways to protect your company from the expense of patent infringement litigation when the process server knocks on your company door...

IP ADR: Pool Patents for Protection, Prevention and Profit

Posted on June 09, 2008
Check out this week's Harvard Business School Working Knowledge article:  Monetizing IP:  The Executive's Challenge here.  As patent protection becomes more and more costly and less and less certain, innovators are pursuing collaborative agreements to prevent disputes from arising in the first instance...

A PLEA TO IP LITIGATORS: DRAW ME PICTURES!!

Posted on June 08, 2008
Hap tip to Corner of Lex and Biz for Drawing that Explains Copyright Law with link to Eric J. Heels' Copyright rights, unregulated uses, and fair use whose drawing appears below.  This is a plea from your mediator.  Yes, I love the well-wrought narrative and yes I am a sucker for persuasive prose...

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Oldies but Goodies: Negotiate Better with Socrates and the Negotiation Guru

Posted on May 30, 2008
(Socrates image links to a fine article on "Intellectual Cheerfulness" here)As Dr. Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University has informed us, only seven percent of negotiators seek information that would reveal the other parties' true goals and aspirations when it would be dramatically helpful to do so...

Counterfeit Handbags, Mediation and the Rule of Law

Posted on May 30, 2008
Mediating a fairly run-of-the-mill commercial case – a fight over the sale of an import business --  a federal settlement officer slowly begins to conclude that the parties are bargaining over the value of a business that trades in counterfeit Louis Vuitton and Gucci handbags...

It's Not "Just About Money" for Corporate Counsel's Best Legal Department of 2008

Posted on May 20, 2008
Qwest Communications is Corporate Counsel's Best Legal Department of 2008.  And it's not because Qwest is the fiercest fighter in the litigation jungle.  It's partially because Qwest used its in-house negotiation talent to settle a $40 billion lawsuit for $400 million...

Negotiating Patent Infringement Settlements

Posted on May 17, 2008
This treatise assumes you've reached agreement in principle or won a judgment or verdict in a patent infringement dispute.  Looks like an invaluable resource.  Patent Infringement Compensation and Damages.  Link here.  Publisher's description below...

IP ADR Blog Selected as "Top Blog" for LexisNexis Copyright Law Center

Posted on May 15, 2008
Take a look at the new LexisNexis Copyright Law Center where we're pleased to be featured along with our friends at IPKat, the first Blog to welcome us to the IP Blogosphere.  Here's what LexisNexis has to say about its new Copyright Law Center:We take pride in associating with the best talent in the legal world, so we are thrilled to include you as part of this dynamic new platform that features commentary from experts and gives visitors to the site the ability to interact with the content and one another...

More on the Absence of a Harry Potter Settlement

Posted on May 07, 2008
I've always said that the biggest lie in any business is "I don't take it personally."It seems that some personal-offense-taking may be one of the reasons the lawsuit between billionaire J.K. Rowling and Fan-Lexicon-Site-Builder Steve Vander Ark has not settled (covered by our own Mike Young here and here)...

IPKat Announces the Official Launch of ACID's Mediate to Resolve

Posted on May 07, 2008
A little slow on the uptake here in alerting U.S. readers to the official launch of the Anti Copying in Design organization's U.K. Mediate to Resolve service.  Illustration and excerpt direct from IPKat.  Mediate to Resolve's list of Mediators here...

The Chicago IP Litigation Blog Includes Settle It Now in the Carnival of Trust

Posted on May 05, 2008
R. David Donoghue over at the Chicago IP Litigation Blog is hosting a "Carnival" of Blogs that is new to me -- The Carnival of Trust.  As David explains:The Carnival of Trust is a monthly, traveling review of ten of the last month's best posts related to various aspects of trust in the business world...

Greek Island Seeks to Bar Gay Women from Using the Term "Lesbian"

Posted on April 30, 2008
Too busy to comment, but couldn't resist posting this one.  Comments from the IP crowd?  Ideas for interest-based solutions from the ADR posse?  Mike Young?ATHENS, Greece - A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women...

Improver Licenses: a Way to Reward Innovation without Stifling It?

Posted on April 23, 2008
Check out Cumulative and Overlapping Innovation by Adam B. Jaffe and Josh Lerner over at  Harvard Business School Working Knowledge here as well as Jaffe and Lerner's book Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It, one of the Economist's Best Books of 2004, Economics and Business Category...

((red)) and the ownership of intellectual property

Posted on April 21, 2008
The significant problems we face cannot be solvedby the same level of thinking that created them.--Albert EinsteinLawyers, philosophers and scientists are all trained to question first principles.  The right of one individual to the absolute and exclusive right of dominion over property by virtue of creation or payment (by money or barter) is one of the first principles of capitalism and is rarely questioned...

Patent Trolls Getting You Down? Ask for a Re-exam

Posted on April 21, 2008
See The Unlucky Troll at Forbes.com, excerpt below:.[Chicago lawyer Anthony] Brown first noticed the JPEG patent after quitting his corporate law practice in 1996 and raising just under $1 million from friends and family to fund his new patent-licensing firm...

The Shape of Time (Because it's Sunday AND Passover)

Posted on April 20, 2008
. . . and because this puts everything else into perspective -- including our own ability to know anything other than our (highly flawed) perception of it  . . . .  which has to do with negotiating past impasse  . . . . . I'll let you decide why ...

Patent Construction Reversal Rate So High "You Can't Advise Your Clients on What's Going to Happen"

Posted on April 19, 2008
There are dozens of reasons why a negotiated settlement of a patent infringement case is superior to continued litigation, but only one reason why it's even better than winning.  As law.com recently reported, "over the last decade, 38 percent of the cases had at least one term found on appeal to have been wrongly construed [and] ...

Where Fantasy and Fair Use Collide

Posted on April 18, 2008
Harry Potter and Copyright Fair Use junkies know this already -- there is a firestorm brewing between the not insignificant powers (and financial resources) of JK Rowling and her Harry Potter franchise (which includes Warner Brothers) on the one hand and RDR, the wanna-be publisher of a fan's "Lexicon" or reference guide, on the other...

Do You Need a Magic Wand to Settle with a Billionaire?

Posted on April 18, 2008
A mere muggle gets it.  But will IP attorneys heed the call to mediate? In the epic Harry Potter copyright fair use battle now under way in a District Court in New York, the mortal judge is wondering out loud -- from the bench -- why these parties can't just settle their dispute...

IP Mediation Advocacy: CPR Master Guide to Patent Mediation

Posted on April 10, 2008
 Check out this book -- Patent Mediation, Better Solutions for Business -- and other resources at the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution here today!Provides a five-step roadmap for helping in-house counsel and corporate leaders utilize mediation, when appropriate, a strategy proven to substantially reduce the cost of patent disputes...

Hard Bargaining: What's Machiavelli Got to Do with It?

Posted on April 07, 2008
Former Executive Vice-President and General Counsel to The Walt Disney Company, entertainment law heavy-weight Lou Meisinger knows more about driving a hard bargain than anyone I know.  Yet it is Lou who taught me that the deal you drive too hard is the one that will come back to bite you...

Live Blogging from the ABA ADR Conference in Seattle

Posted on April 04, 2008
Former Federal Magistrate and IP ADR Blogger, John Leo Wagner and I presented Tactics of the Adept in Modern Mediation Practice today at the ABA ADR Convention in Seattle.  We had a lively discussion about the ways in which "at the table" tactics can be strategized in advance to assure that the right people are available for deployment at the optimal time to maximize the potential for the most effective and efficient settlement possible...

No You Can't Contract Your Way Around the FAA: Supreme Court Decides Hall v. Mattel

Posted on March 25, 2008
Here's the opinion:  comment soon.

Help! Your Federal Judges and Settlement Officers

Posted on March 23, 2008
Check out Federal Judges Speak Out On Intellectual Property Litigation at the Guiding Rights Blog.by Mark VB Partridge.Mark conveys the advice of three federal court judges:  Virginia Kendall, Rebecca Pallmeyer, and Matthew Kennelly as follows:  1...

. . . . and that you haven't violated my client's copyright in "Easter Bunny"?

Posted on March 22, 2008
by the incomparable Charles Fincher of LawComix!

Frankly, We're Surprised This Didn't Happen Earlier: Class Action Seeks to Stop RIAA Bullying

Posted on March 16, 2008
From Concurring opinions hereAs the folks at Recording Industry v. The People note, the 109-page complaint begins by invoking the RIAA's statement that it sometimes catches dolphins when fishing. It is a bold way to show the possible callousness of the RIAA and MediaSentry ...

IP Mediator Michael Young's "Girls Gone Wild" Commentary Catches Court's Attention

Posted on March 12, 2008
From ALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CONFLICT PREVENTION & RESOLUTION VOL. 26 NO. 3 MARCH 2008UPDATE: DESPITE MEDIATION RELATED INCARCERATION, GIRLS GONE WILD FOUNDER IS HEADED FOR MORE ADR A federal judge has rejected a recusal motion from the maker of the Girls Gone Wild videos, who challenged the judge’s impartiality for first ordering mediation, and then sending the producer to jail for contempt based on his ADR conduct...

USC IP Institute 17 and 18 March 2008

Posted on March 12, 2008
Mike Young writes to tell us that the USC IP Institute is coming up on March 17 and 18. See brochure below.  Mike is moderating a panel on fair use with a a group of experts, including Tony Falzone. Tony is with Stanford's Fair Use Project, and is currently in hot litigation with J...

Speedy Patent Trials? Check Out the Northern District of California

Posted on March 11, 2008
We mediators long for the day when we can no longer use the expense, delay and uncertainty of trial as a good reason to settle your patent litigation.  Why?  Because mediation, as Diane Levin recently wrote, is simply an alternative -- not necessarily the "appropriate" -- means of resolving your clients' dispute...

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