Patent Law

A Note About Civility

Posted on January 17, 2008
It is absolutely unacceptable for people to post threats in the comments. They will be deleted as soon as I see them. I was just made aware of one such threat posted over a month ago, and was appalled. I don't care if the threats are meant to be sympathetic towards me, it will be deleted...

Oral Argument in Quanta v. LG

Posted on January 16, 2008
The Supreme Court had oral argument this morning in Quanta v. LG, the patent exhaustion case. Maureen Mahoney of Latham & Watkins argued for Quanta. Thomas G. Hungar, Deputy Solicitor General, gave the United States' views on behalf of Quanta. Carter G...

Patent Exhaustion Takes Center Stage at SCOTUS

Posted on January 16, 2008
I'm pushing the survey results back until Friday because (1) I'm out of the office this week, (2) I haven't figured out how to share my results yet, and (3) I had forgotten that today is the Supreme Court oral argument in Quanta v. LG. I previously posted about the case here and here, but for the really best summary, I have two words for you: SCOTUS Wiki!!! Seriously, today is the first I have ever checked out this really cool website...

Is the United States Navy the Latest Patent Troll?

Posted on January 15, 2008
Network Signatures, LLC of Rancho Santa Margarita, California, is the exclusive licensee of U.S. Patent 5,511,122, a patent which is owned by the U.S. Navy. This patent relates to secure communication and authentication methods involving the use of public and private keys...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

New York Times Article Sets the Stage for Upcoming Patent Reform Debate Renewal

Posted on January 14, 2008
The New York Times had an interesting feature on the soon-to-be-renewed fight in Washington over patent reform. The reporter, John Markoff, highlighted that the big corporations were for patent reform, and that certain individual inventors are against it, and summarized some of the reasons given for the positions of both sides (e...

Troll Call and Other Statistics for December 2007

Posted on January 11, 2008
We reached the end of 2007. All the other blogs are reporting an overall decrease in IP litigation, a cutback from 2006, or are reporting the slightest of increases in patent filings from 2006 to 2007. That's simply not true. By the real count -- the number of defendants sued for patent infringement -- 2007 was a record year...

Global Patent Holdings Sues Boca Raton Resort & Club

Posted on January 10, 2008
Check out all of those JPGs on the website at the Boca Raton Resort & Club. I guess somebody had a bad stay there or couldn't get a good tee time, for on Tuesday 1/8, Global Patent Holdings asserted its JPEG-on-a-website patent in SDFL against the Club...

Wednesday Miscellany, 1/9/08

Posted on January 09, 2008
A bunch of tidbits today, mainly thanks to reader tips. Before I get to them, if you haven't done so already, you have two days to take my Patent Troll Tracker Blog Survey before it closes. I'll provide the results next week.1) My post last Friday on Mondis prompted Inpro to take Dechert off of its "extended team" on its website...

Number of Utility Patent Claims Issued By USPTO Per Year Has Quintupled in 30 Years

Posted on January 08, 2008
Dennis Crouch had an interesting post from December 23 on rising claim counts. Dennis provides a graph showing that the number of average total claims in a U.S. Patent rose from about 10 in 1976, to 15 in 1995, to nearly 20 in 2004.Looking at 1976 through 2006, we can go here to find the number of utility patents issued per year, and multiply it by Dennis's number, to get roughly the following graph, of the number of patent claims issued per year, over a 30-year period (imagine that there are actually readable numbers along the x-axis representing years from 1976 to 2006 - it's amazing I was even able to figure out how to do this graph - can't figure out how to get the years on it so anyone can read them, but you get the picture)...

Rembrandt's Interesting Injunction Strategy (Possibly)

Posted on January 07, 2008
There is one patent troll case (that I know of) going to trial this month in the Eastern District of Texas: Rembrandt v. Ciba Vision. Rembrandt may be up to something interesting.Besides Rembrandt's foray into high tech patents, Rembrandt also bought contact lens patents, and put them in a shell named Rembrandt Vision Technologies, L...

4 Interesting New Cases From Last 2 Weeks of December

Posted on January 04, 2008
Well, what do we have for you today? How about the Rothschild family investing in a Eurotroll, and suing in Marshall, Texas? How about an ex-Fish & Richardson associate buying patents for millions of dollars (while an associate) and being D/J'd in Sherman, Texas after trying to shake down an EDTX company? How about a couple of lawsuits by a guy who, with related patents, has made the Electronic Frontier Foundations' 10 Most Wanted Invalid Patents? How about yet another Scott Harris/J-Beau/Ray Niro lawsuit? Yeah, you could read those other ABA-nominated patent blawgs, but I've got your juicy patent news right here!WIAV Solutions: Choongsoo ParkLet's start off with the D/J case of American Microsystems Ltd...

Acacia December 2007 Update

Posted on January 03, 2008
Turning to our busiest patent troll in 2007, Acacia, it kept up momentum in December with new lawsuits.Acacia's new subsidiary Coronary Stent Visualization Corp., established in Delaware on 11/19/07 with a principal place of business of 500 Newport Center Drive, 7th Floor, Newport Beach, CA, filed a lawsuit less than a month after formation...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.