Patent Law

Feeling Taxed

Posted on May 05, 2009
The same companies that crusade to evade paying any "patent tax" to inventors are now crusading to evade corporate income tax. On Monday, President Obama outlined proposals for cracking down on overseas tax havens, and eliminating tax breaks for U...

All Hat, No Cattle

Posted on May 04, 2009
200 years ago this week, Ms. Mary Dixon Kies became the first American woman granted a patent. Ms. Kies invented a way to weave silk with straw. She aspired to apply her invention in the booming hat industry. But her patent never made her any money.....

Shameless

Posted on May 04, 2009
Former Intel honcho Andy Grove, now 72, but still sucking corporate teat, had a very public senior moment over patents: "Patents themselves have become products. They're instruments of investment traded on a separate market, often by speculators motivated by the highest financial return on their investment...

Practicing

Posted on May 04, 2009
The objection absurd, but patents as tradable commodities has raised some ruckus, even as the loudest howler monkeys are disingenuously self-serving. The flip side of that same fake coin is that patent holders, including inventors, should be required to commercialize their invention...

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Reasonable Royalty

Posted on May 02, 2009
35 U.S.C. §284 awards damages "in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer." Reasonable royalty is thus the lowest award possible for patent infringement, and in no way bounds what infringement should cost...

Lunatic

Posted on May 01, 2009
David Simon, Chief Patent Counsel at Intel, in testimony today before the House about pending patent legislation, comes off as a raving sociopath. Let's begin with his corporate arrogance, a pandemic disease among his Coalition brethren. "As one of America's leading innovators, Intel recognizes the critical importance of a strong and effective patent system that protects actual inventions and thereby provides an essential incentive for inventors...

Cents-less

Posted on May 01, 2009
Every Penny Counts, founded by spare change king Dr. Bertam Burke, sued debit/credit card vendors for its patented "method for donating 'excess cash' to charities and savings accounts." "He describes his invention as a way of solving this 'problem of loose change...

Corrected Vision

Posted on April 30, 2009
Revolution Eyewear myopically started a patent fight with competitors, including Contour Optik. Revolution's assertion went blind, but Contour saw 20/20 money with RE37,545. On appeal, "the only matter left in this lawsuit is Contour's '545 patent infringement action...

Con Man

Posted on April 30, 2009
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), Senate Judiciary Chairman, attempts to sew a silk purse from a sow's ear with proposed patent legislation, disingenuously spinning in Business Week that it gives "ingenuity freer rein." "It has been more than 50 years since Congress significantly updated the patent system...

Troubling

Posted on April 30, 2009
"A strong and predictable patent system fosters the collaborative development and funding required to transform basic research into commercially viable technologies and stable, high-paying jobs. It is troubling to many small technology companies that, at a time of such grave economic uncertainty, Congress would seek to fundamentally alter the economic structure of our nation's patent system...

On the Make

Posted on April 30, 2009
Apple is trend setting again: following the model of Qualcomm, and more recently, AMD, into design house and patent provocateur, leaving the nasty risk of manufacturing to cost-conscious Asians. Apple has been hiring semiconductor engineers for many moons, building a cadre for designing next-generation chips...

In the Wind

Posted on April 29, 2009
The Open Invention Network,  Linux advocacy group, is publicly tilting at the big windmill: looking for prior art to invalidate the three file management patents that Microsoft asserted against TomTom. Keith Bergelt, CEO: "The patent vetting activity offered by the Linux Defenders portal offers a unique opportunity to bring to bear the collective knowledge, passion and ingenuity of the Linux community to better explore the validity of the patents...

Seeking Reversal

Posted on April 28, 2009
"A patent by its very nature is anticompetitive." So the CAFC remarked last October in allowing reverse payment by Bayer to generic drug makers, so that Bayer could keep its patented monopoly over antibacterial Cipro® for a bit longer. Stanford law professor Mark Lemley has penned a petition to the Supreme Court, to lay the burden of overturning reverse payments before the august body, this nation's numero uno woolly bully...

Squall Calmed

Posted on April 27, 2009
Skipping church to tithe in another way, on Sunday, Qualcomm agreed to pay Broadcom $891 million to settle their patent dispute. $200 million passes hands next quarter. Its kitty bulging, the Wall Street Journal thinks Broadcom "primed to start executing on its wireless strategy...

Smoked

Posted on April 27, 2009
Humans have grossly overfished the oceans, all the while treating the seas as one huge toilet. Tuna, for example, is so polluted with mercury that even the U.S. government warns against its frequent consumption. But let that not affect claim construction in a patent case...

China Ascendant

Posted on April 26, 2009
In the 18th century, America was the world's leading intellectual property thief: appropriating copyrighted works and infringing patents as part of its economic development. That same disapprobation has been applied to China in the past decade, as it was to Japan in the 1950s...

Toyed

Posted on April 24, 2009
Mind Enterprises successfully sued Vast Resources for its patent claiming a lubricious glass rod with a bulbous tip, the patent titled "Sex aid".  On appeal, the defendant was able to convince the CAFC that there was nothing new to getting nude with attitude, even if the gist had a probing assist...

Buy

Posted on April 23, 2009
According to a recent poll of  small and mid-sized computer technology companies, 64% were interested in buying patents this year, up from a trough of 32% last year. Of those responding with interest in acquisition, 39% reported as planning to buy, with 25% considering the possibility...

Sagging

Posted on April 23, 2009
For the first time, the USPTO "issued more patents to foreigners than to Americans," reports Business Week. "[T]he slippage comes amid recent reports that show the U.S. losing its edge when it comes to innovation." South Korea, China, and Japan are becoming more productive inventors...

Peeing on the Pool

Posted on April 22, 2009
Four companies pooled patents covering the industry standard for music and data CDs. The standard, set in the early 1990s, was codified in the "Orange Book." The Orange Book standard created compatibility for CD readers and writers, thus creating a single market...

Advanced

Posted on April 22, 2009
Qualcomm announced that it is in "advanced" talks to settle its long-running patent war with Broadcom. Both sides have taken hits and scored wins, but Broadcom has chalked up a better score to date. Qualcomm postponed it Q2 earnings announcement until next Monday...

WaMu

Posted on April 17, 2009
Washington Mutual (WaMu) is a poster child of the mortgage lending irrational exuberance that led to the current economic depression. A run on the bank last September led to its wrenching government-mandated rescue by JP Morgan Chase. WaMu was the biggest bank failure in U...

History Lesson

Posted on April 17, 2009
"Five years ago, a group of 15 corporate giants, which ironically had built their success on patents but now rely primarily on their market power and acquisitions for growth, wanted to weaken the U.S. Patent System and the protection it offered the new generation of innovators...

27

Posted on April 17, 2009
Gary Odom was a software developer for 20 years, and had some patentable ideas beginning in the late 1980s, but lacked the resources to patent them. When he got a chance to work in the patent field, he jumped on it. Months after going to work for a patent boutique in Portland Oregon, he started filing, pro se, patents of his own inventions, starting with modular software construction, then web personalization...

Potato Row to be Hoed in Seattle

Posted on April 16, 2009
In the case of Pace International LLC v. Industrial Ventilation, Inc., currently planted in Washington State, Judge Lasnik recently denied Defendants' motion to transfer the case to the Idaho, despite all the spuds being based there....

Star Crossed

Posted on April 15, 2009
In 2001, smokeless tobacco maker Star Scientific sued R.J. Reynolds over patents for lower carcinogens while curing tobacco. Maryland district court Judge Marvin Garbis found Star guilty of inequitable conduct. In a landmark ruling, the CAFC overturned...

Low Blow to MoFo

Posted on April 14, 2009
Last Wednesday, former Morrison & Foerster client Ecast sued MoFo for no mojo in Ecast's to-and-fro with Arachnid and Rowe, who had sued Ecast for jukebox patent infringement. Ecast, claiming legal malpractice, wants its money back: a "staggering" $4...

Hunkering Down

Posted on April 13, 2009
The USPTO is battening the hatches for the turbulent waves of the current economic storm. Herein, today's "USPTO Weekly Extra - Budget Update: Supplemental on Training and Other Issues."...

The Garden of Invention

Posted on April 12, 2009
The Garden of Invention by Jane S. Smith is a captivating biography of Luther Burbank, esteemed botanist. But more than a biography, as it chronicles the science and business of plants during Burbank's lifetime. Admittedly, the book's appeal relies upon one's interest in the topic...

Double Patenting Dilemma

Posted on April 12, 2009
Takeda Pharmaceutical filed a patent application for cephem antibiotic compounds, and the process for making those compounds, in Japan, in December 1974. Takeda in 1975 filed corresponding applications in the UK and US. The US family started with 4,098,888 & 4,298,606...

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