Patent Law

Bias in grant review by California's CIRM?

Posted on September 21, 2008
From a post at californiastemcellreport:Simpson [John Simpson of ConsumerWatchdog, formerly FTCR] noted that some companies earlier had "groused" about their treatment [in review of their grant proposals to CRIM]. And he asked, "Did the companies get a fair shake or not?"We queried all 18 concerning the grant reviews...

Hwang Woo Suk stem cell patent to issue in Australia

Posted on September 21, 2008
Dong-A Ilbo reports:Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, which he heads, said 21 Sept. 08, ?The Australian patent office decided to accept Dr. Hwang?s patent application for the cloned human embryonic stem cell May 18. Then it posted the decision on the Web June 12...

Donald Trump on Biden's plagiarism

Posted on September 19, 2008
Newsbusters captured an interesting exchange between Donald Trump and Wolf Blitzer on the Biden plagiarism in law school:BLITZER: What do you think of his (Obama's) decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate?TRUMP: I really don't know Senator Biden but I know one thing...

"Scientists have an absolute obligation to honesty"

Posted on September 18, 2008
The 5 Sept 08 issue of the journal Science has an editorial by Bruce Alberts which contains the text:The publication of a scientific article is less a way for scientists to earn recognition and advance their careers than it is an engine of scientific progress...

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Inventorship dispute between Future Fiber Technologies and Optellios

Posted on September 18, 2008
MarketWatch notes:[In a lawsuit filed in MD FL] Future Fiber Technologies [FFT] claims that it is the rightful owner of United States Patent No. 7,142,736, and that Optellios is guilty of infringing that patent. The '736 patent relates to improvements in the optical fiber-based intrusion detection system pioneered by FFT in the late 1990s.

Philip Walker gets it wrong on Biden's law school plagiarism

Posted on September 18, 2008
Philip Walker writes in the Macon News:As far as the two allegations of plagiarism, he was cleared of all charges by a panel under the authority of the Delaware Supreme Court. [of the second allegation-->]Public officials often use speech writers. When these writers use material that is plagiarized it is the public figure that looks bad...

Is patenthawk snarky on peer-to-patent?

Posted on September 18, 2008
A student of Noveck's commenting on PatentHawk's criticism of peer to patent wrote:Indeed, Phawk I like your blog for what you deliver but your commentary is overly snarky. They are entitled to their opinions of the system just as you are entitled to your opinion...

CopyScape site helps track down internet plagiarists

Posted on September 18, 2008
More than two years ago, IPBiz noted the plagiarism by the onlypunjab website of an ezine article by LBE (see for example the IPBiz post, JEB Stuart travels to India.In an article at womencorp, John Rothko identifies copyscape as a service that helps authors track down plagiarists...

EETimes focuses on patent buying activities of RPX Corp.

Posted on September 18, 2008
Shortly after the Wall Street Journal did a story on Intellectual Ventures and Nathan Myhrvold, we have a story by Rick Merritt in EETimes amplifying on RPX Corp., a patent acquisition company formed by people FROM Intellectual Ventures, including John Amster...

Specific personal jurisdiction issue

Posted on September 18, 2008
The CAFC noted in Campbell Pet Co. v. Miale:As the district court noted, even where general jurisdiction is not available, specific jurisdiction may be exercised by a district court in the forum state if the state?s long-arm statute would permit service of process on the defendant under the circumstances of the case, and if due process considerations would permit the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the defendant under those circumstances...

Intel folks did NOT invent the term "patent troll"

Posted on September 17, 2008
One IPBiz reader made comments about three different posts-->On the Obama use of the Toles cartoon material, looks like Obama did give credit in an interview on MSNBC on Sept. 8th:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26612909/. On a much more stale item (from an August 29 post in your blog), I find it funny that no one seems to be able to give proper credit to the person who actually was the first to use the term "patent troll...

No one is desperately seeking Joe Biden

Posted on September 17, 2008
IPBiz previously noted that Barack Obama correctly foresaw that Joe Biden's past plagiarism was not going to be a big issue in 2008. The problem is that nobody seems to care much about Biden at all -->Sarah Palin ranked first in political search terms in a recent measurement of Web political usage...

No federal jurisdiction for licensee-plaintiff

Posted on September 17, 2008
The CAFC tackled a federal jurisdiction issue in the case Excelstor v. Papst . When licensing deals go bad, one is apt to end up in state court. Here, the licensee tried to obtain federal jurisdiction via patent exhaustion. It didn't work-->But there is no federal cause of action for collecting royalties twice on the same goods...

WSJ discusses Intellectual Ventures, Myhrvold

Posted on September 17, 2008
The WSJ writes:Unlike most other pure licensing companies, Intellectual Ventures hasn't filed patent-infringement lawsuits to help force settlements. But the group lobbying on behalf of tech companies in Washington, the Coalition for Patent Fairness -- which includes several companies that have been approached for licensing deals by Intellectual Ventures -- says it is only a matter of time...

URochester's patent was invalidated by "old" interpretation of written description

Posted on September 16, 2008
In the context of a discussion on the Patent Hawk blog about an article in the New York Times on the Bayh-Dole Act, one had the following commentary about University of Rochester v. Searle, 358 F.3d 916 (CAFC 2004):The Rochester patent was invalidated (properly) in part under an interpretation of written description law not developed until long after the patent was filed...

NJ US Prosecutor Buchanan to Jenner & Block

Posted on September 15, 2008
From MarketWatch:Michael F. Buchanan, an experienced white-collar criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor with a substantial background in patent law and engineering, has joined Jenner & Block's office in New York. He will be a partner in the Firm's Intellectual Property and White Collar Criminal Defense and Counseling Practices...

Senator Biden the least favored dinner companion

Posted on September 15, 2008
A poll reported by the Wall Street Journal noted:Politics aside, Sen. Obama and Gov. Palin emerged in the poll as the most desirable dinner dates. Asked whom they would most like to have dinner with, 40% picked Sen. Obama. Gov. Palin was second with 33%...

Which Bush doctrine?

Posted on September 14, 2008
from Charles Krauthammer:[Gibson] asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense...

The reliance of the Carnegie-Mellon court on Eli Lilly

Posted on September 14, 2008
Written description cases cited in Carnegie-Mellon v. Hoffmann-LaRoche:[Roche argued for claims] invalid for lack of written description under our holding in Regents of University of California v. Eli Lilly & Co., 119 F.3d 1559 On June 27, 2001, relying on Eli Lilly, the district court granted Roche?s motion for summary judgment of invalidity with regard to the ?708 patent...

Obama plagiarizes political cartoon?

Posted on September 14, 2008
The Chicago Reader brought out this interesting comparison-->Obama on Tuesday, Sept. 9: "John McCain says he?s about change, too ? except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics...

Blame game in LA Metrolink train crash?

Posted on September 14, 2008
Metrolink seemed anxious to place blame on the engineer in the deadly train collision in the San Fernando Valley.

Forbes on Bayh-Dole Act

Posted on September 13, 2008
Forbes has an article titled Universities That Turn Research Into RevenueSome text from the article: You might expect a school named after Colonel John Stevens III, the founder of the United States' Patent and Trademark Office, to spin ideas into gold...

Shinya Yamanaka Kyoto work leads to Japanese patent on iPS

Posted on September 13, 2008
Some recovery time was needed after the horror show at the Homewood Suites. The Mainichi Daily News reported that Kyoto University and then Professor Shinya Yamanaka obtained a Japanese patent for a method of creating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells...

A must to avoid when in Baltimore

Posted on September 11, 2008
An observant patent lawyer, on reading the third paragraph, would note that the offer extended is feel free to ask, with no correlated promise that anything will be done. That cynical inference, in this case, is correct. One can "ask away" at the Homewood Suites, but don't have any expectations of corrective action...

University of Iowa sues Amgen over Enbrel, Vectibix

Posted on September 10, 2008
The LA Times reported: Amgen Inc., the world's largest biotechnology company, was sued by the University of Iowa over claims that the arthritis drug Enbrel and the colon cancer treatment Vectibix are made using a technique patented by the school.

On lawyers getting patents

Posted on September 10, 2008
Joe Mullin has a piece titled Some IP Attorneys Look to Make Their Mark as Patent-Holders which includes the textThe possibility of being accused of copying is one reason that lawyers will find it "fraught with peril" to obtain patents on their own inventions, says Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley...

Only in New Jersey

Posted on September 09, 2008
The following story appeared in the 8 Sept 08 issue of the Bridgewater Courier-News:According to a police affidavit filed in state Superior Court, Humphreys went to the Route 22 tavern at about 5:54 a.m. Aug. 24 to buy beer.When he discovered the establishment was closed, he walked to the rear of the building and saw a ladder leading to the roof, the affidavit stated...

Missing the point on Bayh-Dole

Posted on September 09, 2008
In early September 2008, the New York Times had an article titled When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder which was negative to the Bayh-Dole Act and included text such as The primary concern is that its original intent ? to infuse the American marketplace with the fruits of academic innovation ? has also distorted the fundamental mission of universities...

Fraud in the research on "DNA damage from cell phones"?

Posted on September 09, 2008
The August 29 issue of the journal Science has an article on page 1144 titled: Fraud Charges Cast Doubt on Claims of DNA Damage from Cell Phone Fields. There seems to be some uncertainty about what's going on. The senior author (Hugo Rudiger) of the two papers now has agreed to retract only one paper, but another author (Franz Adlkofer) has not agreed to the retraction...

On the Biden plagiarism incident at Syracuse Law School

Posted on September 09, 2008
The Buffalo News recounts Arthur M. Cooper's story of the Biden plagiarism incident at Syracuse Law in 1965-->Cooper was asked to recall the experience he last detailed during Biden?s 1988 presidential campaign. And while Biden?s alleged flirtations with plagiarism emerged as a major controversy back in 1988, Cooper now notes that it seems so tame in comparison with to-day?s political scandals...

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