Patent Law

Obviously Flowing

Posted on January 09, 2009
Tokyo Keiso tried pipe-hitting SMC for infringing 5,485,004, claiming a pipe volume flow meter. Figuring Obzilla would take the "predictable next step", the district court found "the '004 patent obvious as a matter of law." No argument from the CAFC on that...

'Peter Principle' Poster Boy Moves On

Posted on January 07, 2009
USPTO Director Jon W. Dudas is rumored to be resigning. Since taking office in July 2004, Dudas has displayed unprecedented aptitude for infantile outbursts against PTO employees and patentees; instilling opacity in agency operations enviable to Soviet apparatchiks; astonishing duplicity in diminishing patent quality while paying lip service to it; illegal, albeit futile gestures in changing examination rules; slave-driving employees with counterproductive production goals at the expense of decent examination; bodacious benign neglect of patent pendency, a tacit admission that the PTO is a lousy place to work, and nothing to be done about that except frenzied hiring; and roiling the patent community into a state of nonplus...

Post-Board Muleage

Posted on January 06, 2009
Examiners consistently rely on baseless rejections, hoping applicants won't realize examiner ignorance, explore examiner incompetence, nor argue against examiner authority. Often, applicants amend or file RCEs, allowing examiners to milk applicants for all the counts they're worth...

Patent Power

Posted on January 05, 2009
IEEE has declared Microsoft numero uno in 2007, by a wide margin, for "adjusted pipeline power" software patenting. So-called pipeline power is a measure of patent count, technology range, and influence (patent citation by others)....

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Cutting Farts

Posted on January 05, 2009
Whining has become the American way. U.S. car makers, uncompetitive for over 30 years, fly to Washington in private jets to beg for spare change - just enough to fill their golden parachutes before bankruptcy. High-tech computer companies spend hundreds of millions to whine at Congress because of highfalutin inventors wanting to enforce the patent laws...

Shiver

Posted on January 03, 2009
"Abstract software code is an idea without physical embodiment." So opined the Supreme Court in Microsoft v. AT&T, 2007. The high courts in recent years have done what they could to denigrate software as unpatentable, most recently in a stunningly incoherent ruling at the CAFC In re Bilski...

Rear View 2008

Posted on January 02, 2009
Patent reform fell off Congress' radar while the USPTO hit a nadir in bad management. The Supreme Court was mercifully mum, except for exhausting patents, while the CAFC went into the weeds on more than one occasion....

Nailed

Posted on January 01, 2009
Acumed sued Stryker over 5,472,444, which claims an orthopedic nail for mending the upper arm bone. Acumed got a permanent injunction, which was trashed by the CAFC in the wake of eBay's strict four-factor metric. On remand, same result: permanent injunction...

Get Out of Town

Posted on December 29, 2008
Lear sued TS Tech for patent infringement in the Eastern District of Texas. Judge T. John Ward denied TS Tech's transfer motion. In a ruling of thin logic, failing to explain its reasoning beyond trivial convenience, Lear's interlocutory petition for writ of mandamus is granted by the CAFC...

Not Blissed

Posted on December 27, 2008
Sundance sued DeMonte for infringing 5,026,109, claiming a retractable tarp. "Demonte's patent law expert, Daniel Bliss, opined that one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine" two prior art references to render '109 obvious...

Mundane

Posted on December 27, 2008
Indubitably unbiased, InformationWeek's Microsoft blogger, Dave Methvin, laments small fry with software patents. "It seems like every few months, some obscure company is awarded a patent for some relatively mundane idea, then turns around and sues the companies that have been using it...

Gin Rummy

Posted on December 25, 2008
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows it knows how to stew analytic gumbo - its recommendations for the USPTO seamlessly blend fact and fiction....

Driving

Posted on December 25, 2008
Ricoh sued Quanta for infringing four optical disc drive patents. 6,631,109 was stomped by Obzilla. 6,172,955, 5,063,552 and 6,661,755 were found not infringed. The appeals court thought Ricoh should have gotten a better shake on '522 and '755, particularly with contributory and inducing infringement...

Funked Koo Kung Fu

Posted on December 22, 2008
IBM inventors Fred Koo and Ting Leung got their database query modification patent application sua sponte kicked in its Bilski on BPAI appeal. The decision shows how moronically the CAFC In re Bilski ruling is being applied. Not that something better could have been expected...

Sour Grapes

Posted on December 21, 2008
6,673,064 claims a laser catheter. Dr. Peter Rentrop sicked '064 on Spectranetics, and copped a cool half million. Spectranetics, after sloppily stirring as much trouble for Rentrop as it could, appealed losing on obviousness, among other profundities...

Pole Position

Posted on December 20, 2008
Gary Wheeler cast for a fishing pole patent, and got snagged by the patent appeals board, which found Wheelers illuminated transparent pole anticipated by fishing pole with a light bulb attached to the tip. The CAFC illuminated the pathetic shambles that the rejection-crazed patent office has become: they dont even comprehend §102...

Loop in the Lasso

Posted on December 20, 2008
35 U.S.C. § 271 defines "infringement of patent." ¶ (f) closed a dodge: foreign assembly that would be infringing if done domestically. The Supreme Court, in Microsoft v. AT&T, declared software an exception to that - one could skirt process infringement by shipping a software disc out of the country...

Patent Law Outline

Posted on December 19, 2008
The best patent law blogs act as a ready reference for case law. The Patent Prospector attempts this by covering CAFC cases with copious quotation, the entries categorized. Michael G. Sullivans The Power of the Outline takes a different, rather extraordinary approach, beguiling in its simplicity...

Vaccination

Posted on December 19, 2008
Bilski has no basis in statute, and by any reasonable metric of jurisprudence, is downright bad case law. That's right, Chief Judge Michel, I am addressing you, sir. You are just making stuff up willy-nilly. But it doesn't help that prosecutors draft jackass claims, which examiners let pass, and then, rather than sicing the big-footed Obzilla on them for a good stomping, it's just too easy to rule: "damn, son, you can't patent that...

Chucked

Posted on December 18, 2008
In June, Nintendo sued Nyko for its award-winning Nunchuk video game controller, Nintendo calling Nykos version a copycat of its patented design. Wednesday they settled, in an agreement undisclosed, other than Nyko can sell a redesigned version....

Tossed

Posted on December 17, 2008
Asokkumar Pal looked away from the screen and wiped his eyes. He was tired. Hed been with the agency 25 years. A long haul. Now it had crumbled away, as if he was a wad of paper, to be used and tossed. It wasnt right. He did the best he could. His resolve stiffened...

Nearly Done Deal

Posted on December 17, 2008
Reflecting Alcatel-Lucent circling the wagons, they settled with Microsoft on six patent litigations dating back to 2002, before Lucent was acquired by Alcatel. One still-outstanding tab is a $ half-billion trial verdict overhang against Microsoft on touch-screen technology...

Nipped in the Bud

Posted on December 17, 2008
Anheuser-Busch settled a lawsuit brought by a Quebec company asserting 6,852,191, claiming a double-sided label technology. The only comment on the settlement from a relieved A-B attorney was "mutually agreeable terms," and perhaps a mumbled "it's Miller time...

Jurisdiction

Posted on December 16, 2008
The appeals court is sponsoring a shell game against folks threatened with patent infringement by foreign companies. Aten, a Taiwanese company, affiliated with IOGEAR, sent threatening letters of infringement regarding patented KVM switch technology. Recipient Avocent sought declaratory judgment in Alabama, where it is located...

Fingered

Posted on December 15, 2008
Welker Bearing sued PHD for infringing patents claiming clamping fingers securing a work piece for welding. The disputed claim term was "mechanism for moving said finger," construed as a means-plus-function claim. While "means for" typically signals the claim form, "mechanism" is a sometimes substitute term for "means...

Falling

Posted on December 14, 2008
Nortel and Alcatel are exemplary telecom and network companies falling fast in the wake of the world recession. Nortel is even facing demise. Once fierce in their patent bite, they are now looking mostly just long in the tooth....

Blue Grass

Posted on December 14, 2008
iLOR sued Google for infringing 7,206,839. Losing claim construction, the Kentucky district court judge denied iLOR's preliminary injunction motion, granted Google's summary judgment of noninfringement, and sua sponte dismissed the "action" with prejudice...

Backlog

Posted on December 14, 2008
The root problem with patent quality has always been with the patent office. The current USPTO administration has rightly received nothing but criticism for its high-handed rules changes, poisonous work environment leading to massive attrition, shoddy examination regime, and blame game on applicants...

Unpredictable

Posted on December 12, 2008
Apotex tried to muscle in on the market for Plavix, a blood clot treatment, by challenging the validity of 4,847,265, owned by Sanofi. '265 claims a chemical compound, which Apotex argued anticipated in the prior art, and obvious. The courts sided with Sanofi...

In the Pool

Posted on December 06, 2008
Stanford University academics Ryan Lampe and Petra Moser, in "Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation?": Regulators favor patent pools to encourage innovation in industries where overlapping patents and excessive litigation suppress innovation...

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