Intellectual Property Law

Study: "Tough" IP Enforcement Not Only Keeps Competitors in Check, But Also Your Employees

Posted on February 14, 2008
"Don't let your employees do to you what you did to your former boss"- Golden Rule attributed to Roger Borovoy, former GC at IntelWith all the talk about "spreading innovation", one topic that doesn't get much coverage is one of the most common ways in which knowledge gets diffused throughout industries - employee defections...

Once Again: Claim Amendment Sinks DOE

Posted on February 12, 2008
International Rectifier Corporation v. IXYS Corp. (2007-1063), September 11, 2007Earlier, this case was tried before the CAFC, where the court vacated-in-part and reversed-in-part a summary judgment of direct infringement on patents relating to MOSFET technology...

Know When to Walk Away . . . And Know When to Run

Posted on February 12, 2008
Thomas & Betts Power Solutions v. Power Distribution, Inc., Civil Action No. 3:O7CV167-HEH, E.D. Va., February 8, 2008Thomas & Betts (T&BPS) filed a declaratory judgment action against Power Distribution (PDI), claiming patent noninfringement and invalidity...

In Re Nuijten: En Banc Denied

Posted on February 11, 2008
In Re Petrus A.C.M. Nuijten, (2006-1371) Fenruary 11, 2008In a 9-3 decision, the CAFC denied Nuijten's petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc. Judges Linn, Newman and Rader dissented from the denial, stating that the law surrounding 35 U.S...

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Tafas v. Dudas: Continuation Rules Oral Argument Recap

Posted on February 10, 2008
On Friday, Judge Cacheris heard oral arguments from Tafas, GSK and the USPTO on three motions for summary judgment regarding. As was expected, the blog coverage was fast and furious, but ultimately, Judge Cacheris decided to take the matter "under advisement," agreeing to issue an opinion at a later date, noting that "there is a lot of paper to consider" (see the court's minute entry here)...

E.D. Va: Contents of Inequitable Conduct Must Be Stated With Particularity

Posted on February 07, 2008
Applied Interact LLC v. Continental Airlines, Inc., Civil Case No. 2:07cv341 (E.D. Va., January 17, 2008)Applied Interact ("AI") filed a complaint against Continental and MN Airlines alleging that they infringed 5 patents "by [their] unlicensed use of printing boarding passes over the Internet," and infringing another patent "by [their] unlicensed use of sweepstakes conducted over the Internet...

Close Call at the BPAI - Near-Precedential Decision Sinks Computer Claim Under Utility Requirement

Posted on February 06, 2008
Ex Parte Nehls et al., Appeal 2007-1823, Decided: January 28, 2008After a busy Summer in 2007, the BPAI has been (ominously?) quiet as of late, issuing no precedential opinions since Ex Parte Catan in July 2007, and only issuing 4 informative opinions during the same time...

Patent Reform - Letters Ho!

Posted on February 05, 2008
Now that S.1145 is heading into the final stretch, more and more position letters are being sent to congressional members and fellow practitioners, voicing support and opposition to specific provisions of the Act.Bush Administration Letter:Yesterday, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs Nathaniel F...

Ex-PTO Commisioners Weigh in on Patent Reform

Posted on February 01, 2008
Former Commissioners Gerald Mossinghoff & Stephen Kunin are preparing a position paper on various parts of the Patent Reform Act of 2007. In general, they support many of the provisions of the Act, while expressing their reservations on other provisions...

CAFC: Damage Apportionment in Action

Posted on January 31, 2008
American Seating Company v. USSC Group, Inc. (2007-1112) January 39, 2007USSC appealed a jury verdict which awarded American Seating damages for patent infringment relating to tie-down wheelchairs for mass transit transportation. Likewise, American Seating was appealing a JMOL that reduced damages due to convoyed sales being improperly included in the calculations...

Tensions Rise as Patent Reform Hits "The Final Stretch"

Posted on January 30, 2008
On Monday, various companies, industry groups and universities are reported to have met to discuss the Patent Reform Act, where Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared at the meeting. Hewlett Packard's GC Mike Holston, who spoke with Reuters recently about the meeting, commented that "we're 95 percent of the way there ...

N.D. Ga.: Supreme Court's Twombly Decision Doesn't Affect Pleadings in Patent Cases

Posted on January 29, 2008
CBT Flint Partners v. Goodmail Systems, Inc. (1:07-CV-1822-TWT) December 14, 2007CBT filed its complaint against Goodmail Systems and other parties alleging infringement of patents relating to methods for billing a fee to a party initiating an e-mail communication when the party is not on an authorization list...

CAFC Denies Patentee "Benefit of Ambiguity", Holds Patent Invalid Under 112

Posted on January 28, 2008
Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. v. M-I LLC (2007-1149), January 25, 2008Halliburton appealed a summary judgment decision from the ED Texas which held claims invalid for indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. 112(2). Halliburton's patent relates to oil field drilling fluids that are fragile gels...

Friday Post - Ringtones from the USPTO

Posted on January 25, 2008
The USPTO's website has a "Kids' Pages" section that contains a collection of sounds filed under a "Trademark Soundex." It's a collection of trademarked sounds in MP3 and WAV formats. According to some readers, the site makes for a good source of ringtones for your cell phone...

ISO Pushing Forward to Establish International Standard for Patent Valuation

Posted on January 25, 2008
In an ambitious effort, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is moving forward to establish an international standard for patent valuation. According to an email letter from the project?s leader Alexander Wurzer (received yesterday at the IAM blog), the ISO is seeking participants to help in this projectThe International Organization for Standardization, ISO, has published a new work item proposal for the standardization of patent valuation processes...

FTC Asserts Antitrust Authority on Patent Licenses in Standardized Technologies

Posted on January 24, 2008
In the Matter of Negotiated Data Solutions LLC (File No. 0510094)In an unusual move, the Federal Trade Commission decided in a 3-2 ruling that the FTC had the authority to file a complaint against company Negotiated Data Solutions ("N-Data") for allegedly charging "excess" licensing royalties for patents related to Ethernet technology in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act...

USPTO Clarifies "Duty to Disclose" Language in Oaths/Declarations

Posted on January 23, 2008
The USPTO has indicated that, in order to comply with 37 CFR 1.63(b)(3), an oath or declaration must acknowledge a duty to disclose information material to patentability as defined in 37 CFR 1.56:All oaths or declarations filed on or after June 1,2008, will be required to include the language expressly set forth in 37 CFR 1...

Reid: Patent Reform a Top Priority (Sort Of)

Posted on January 22, 2008
Sen. Harry Reid made a statement today on the floor of the U.S. Senate, outlining Democrats? legislative priorities for the first session of 2008. While patent reform was mentioned as a "priority" in Reid's speech, it appears that it will have to wait its turn in the legislative agenda:Together we must address these growing challenges, both foreign and domestic...

Petitioner Seeks Certiorari on 11th Amendment Immunity on Patent Cases

Posted on January 22, 2008
Biomedical Patent Management Corporation v. State of California (on cert.)States have become major players in the patent market. Many of the largest universities and research institutions are state-owned, and their inventions increasingly contribute substantial revenues to the state...

Is the Media Convincing the Public that the Patent System is "Broken"?

Posted on January 21, 2008
It's been common knowledge that, generally, as a subject becomes more esoteric, the public relies more greatly on mainstream press coverage to formulate opinions. The recent media coverage of the U.S. patent system has caught the attention of scholars, practitioners and entrepreneurs, where commentators have increasingly referenced media coverage that casts the patent system in a negative light (e...

Article Looks at Effects of NPE Patents on Innovation

Posted on January 20, 2008
Different entities use the patent system in different ways, depending on their respective business models. A recent paper, titled "Don?t Feed The Trolls?", written by economists John Johnson, Gregory K. Leonard, Christine Meyer and Ken Serwin, acknowledged this dynamic briefly and looked at the propriety of reforming the patent system to combat "trolling" or promoting other goals...

Quanta Oral Arguments: Will the Supreme Court Clarify the Exhaustion Doctrine?

Posted on January 16, 2008
By Charles R. Macedo, Esq., Joseph Casino, Esq., Michael Kasdan, Esq., and Howard Wizenfeld, Esq. (link)Today, for the first time in half a century, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on the extent to which a patentee can license its patents to different members of the same sales chain for the same product...

Seagate Wipes Out Willfulness in the ND Illinois

Posted on January 16, 2008
Trading Technologies International Inc. v. eSpeed, Inc. (04 C 5312), Jan. 3, 2008At trial, the court instructed the jury in light of the Seagate standard on willfulness. After trial, the jury rendered a verdict that defendants willfully infringed plaintiff's patents...

Draft Report of S. 1145 is (Unofficially) Available

Posted on January 15, 2008
The IPO recently reported that a draft of the Senate Judiciary Committee's report on S. 1145 has been circulated in the Washington lobbying community and on the internet. The draft report provides some interesting insight on the bill approved by the Senate on July 19, 2007, but does not contain any new or compromise provisions...

IFI Releases Top Patent Filers For 2007

Posted on January 15, 2008
IFI Patent Intelligence announced its annual compilation of the world?s top-ranked U.S. patent holders for 2007. According to the report, most of the top 25 companies attained fewer grants in 2007 than in 2006, with five exceptions including Samsung (up 11%), Microsoft (up 12% and now in the top 10), Denso Corp...

Patent Litigation Down? "Bollocks!" Says the Troll Tracker

Posted on January 14, 2008
While early reports are indicating that the number of patent cases have dipped slightly in 2007, the Patent Troll Tracker has done what few others have done, and has looked at patent litigation for 2007 according to the number of defendants named in complaints...

EPO Proposes Punitive Fees for Excess Claims

Posted on January 13, 2008
The European Patent Office has announced a new fee schedule that plans to go into effect on April 1, 2009. Under the new schedule, applicants filing more than 15 claims in an application will pay a fee of 200 ? ($ 287) per each excess claim. If the claims exceed 50, the "per-claim" fee jumps to 500 ? ($ 717) for each excess claim...

CAFC: Unindexed Document on FTP Server Questioned as Publicly-Accessable Prior Art

Posted on January 13, 2008
SRI International v. Internet Security Systems, Inc. (2007-1065) January 8, 2008Prior to filing its patent application, SRI posted a document on an FTP server pursuant to ongoing research. The document contained subject matter that overlapped the filed application...

Picking and Choosing Your Battles in the ED Tex.

Posted on January 12, 2008
Blackboard, Inc. v. Desire2Learn (9:06-CV-00155) December 3, 2007Heading into summary judgment, Judge Clark let the parties know that, when it comes to choosing issues to argue before the court, less can be more in most cases:The parties in this case have, between them, filed 48 motions, responses and replies in less than 14 months, which, including attachments and exhibits, comprise no fewer than eleven thousand pages...

W.D. Wisconsin - Disclosure in Specification Limits Claim Term, Vitiating Infringement

Posted on January 07, 2008
Netcraft Corp. v. eBay, Inc. (3:07-cv:00254-bbc), December 10, 2007Netcraft Corporation owns several patents related to internet billing methods. It argued that Ebay, Inc. and PayPal, Inc. are infringing its patents by providing a third party payment system to customers wishing to make secure purchases over the Internet...

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