« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 »
July 30, 2005
Wily Foreign Company Traps
Under the title "China-made chips infringe on no foreign intellectual property", China View reports the highly tuned sensitivities of the Chinese to intellectual property rights.
Continue reading "Wily Foreign Company Traps"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 7:06 PM | International
July 28, 2005
On-Sale Bar Fine-Tuned
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (CAFC) has tuned the on-sale bar standard for 35 U.S.C. §102(b) in its ruling of Electromotive Division of GM v. Transportation Systems of GE (CAFC 04-1412).
The relevant portion of §102(b), commonly called the on-sale bar, provides for invalidating a patent if "the invention was ... in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States".
Continue reading "On-Sale Bar Fine-Tuned"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:01 PM | Prior Art
July 27, 2005
Wayback
It's still salad days where patent product prior art posted on the Internet might be useful anticipatory art. The problem is that companies continually update their sites with the latest offerings, shucking antecedents.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:47 AM | Prior Art
July 25, 2005
Overcoming §112 ¶ 2 Rejection
35 U.S.C. §112 ¶ 2: "The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention."
Process/method claim rejections may be off-base if the rejection complaint is that the claimed method is not enabling, or even that the claimed method is not self-sufficiently comprehensible.
Continue reading "Overcoming §112 ¶ 2 Rejection"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:05 AM | Prosecution | Comments (1)
July 22, 2005
Unloading the Dice
How issues are framed determines the measures that Congress considers in legislation. Step one for political lobbyists is framing the issue, so as to ease the real task - swallowing the biased proposal for change. Biasing framing the issue leads to a connect-the-dots to the desired change (desired by the lobbyist's client). What a crooked game with loaded dice.
Continue reading "Unloading the Dice"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:02 AM | The Patent System
July 20, 2005
Staking a Claim
CNET News published a quite interesting article today: Staking a claim in the patent gold mine. The comedy segment is provided by commenters to the article.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:49 AM | Patents In Business
Oh Say Can You See
A Library of Congress report, titled Patent Reform: Innovation Issues, well researched and written by Wendy Schacht and John Thomas, is crucial reading for anyone interested in the U.S. patent system and reform thereof.
Continue reading "Oh Say Can You See"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:02 AM | The Patent System | Comments (1)
July 18, 2005
Tighten Up
Just a Patent Examiner (JAPE) is a self-deprecatingly titled weblog that is blowing my mind with candor.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:00 AM | Prosecution | Comments (1)
July 17, 2005
Savvy Bill Thompson
Snooping across the puddle, encountered an excellent opinion piece by Bill Thompson about EU software patents, published by BBC News. For the digital literati, check out Bill's weblog, The BillBlog.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 3:45 PM | International
July 16, 2005
Claim Construction Priority Stack
Phillips v. AWH hopefully marks a watershed ruling on claim construction. Let's begin by reviewing the highlights of Phillips v. AWH, then mix in NAC v. Plastipak. To finish the meal with some fruit, some comments on Judges Mayar's and Newman's raspberry in Phillips v. AWH.
Continue reading "Claim Construction Priority Stack"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:30 AM | Claim Construction
July 15, 2005
Not Dissing Dictionaries
If you saw the adjective "generally" in a patent claim, how would you define it? What method would you use for claim construction?
Continue reading "Not Dissing Dictionaries"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:07 AM | Claim Construction
July 14, 2005
Microsoft Grovels For Longhorn
The way to get Microsoft to bend over and pay out in a patent case is to flash some strong cards on a technology that Microsoft really cares about. The two gazillion-dollar money-spinners that Microsoft really cares about: its OS, and Office. Alacritech had a decent patent poker hand to play against Microsoft, holding patents for faster networking that were being sewn into Longhorn, Microsoft's upcoming OS.
Continue reading "Microsoft Grovels For Longhorn"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:21 AM | Litigation
July 13, 2005
Incredible Weasels
Make no mistake - Microsoft regularly exhibits psychopathic behavior, with little regard for the comity of corporate social responsibility. Here we have another little chip on the pile of evidence for that characterization.
Continue reading "Incredible Weasels"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:45 PM | Litigation
July 12, 2005
Dissing Dictionaries
In a long-awaited en banc appeals court ruling, which drew numerous
amicus
briefs, the CAFC inks an overwrought claim construction classic over the
meaning of the term "baffles," declaring a priority stack, from intrinsic to
extrinsic evidence, for construing disputed claim terms. Dissent finds the
surface shiny, and the core rotten.
Continue reading "Dissing Dictionaries"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:45 PM | Claim Construction
July 10, 2005
Do you want kimchi with that?
The South Korean government was planning on testing a new system to identify fake resident registration cards. Not so fast.
Continue reading "Do you want kimchi with that?"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:00 AM | International
July 8, 2005
U.S. News & Jackass Report
U.S. News & World Report is an exemplary case study in American news periodicals, particularly its descent from being one of America's few respected "hard" news journals in the 1960's into something else entirely: "People" for business people, by the end of the 1970's. Of course, circulation and popular taste dictate success; hence the change in "tone". Decades later, the slide continues; at least some things are predictable.
Continue reading "U.S. News & Jackass Report"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:10 AM | Prosecution
Hypothetical Projections
Honeywell sued Hamilton Sunstrand Corp. (“HSC”) for patent infringement. Never mind the technicalities; the juicy fruit relates to infringement damage calculation, specifically "...the question presented to the court is whether sales projections that were unavailable at the time infringement began may be used as a royalty base to calculate damages." (District of Delaware July 5, 2005 decision in case 03-1153)
Continue reading "Hypothetical Projections"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:00 AM | Damages | Comments (1)
July 7, 2005
Printing Money
DataTreasury has a license to print money, in the form of two patents: 5,910,988 and 6,032,137. "Check 21" is a federal law, effective October 2004, which requires that paper checks become replaceable by digital versions. Essentially, DataTreasury patented the law.
Continue reading "Printing Money"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 9:31 AM | Patents In Business
July 6, 2005
EU Software Patent Goose Cooked
The European Parliament rejected harmonization of software patents throughout the EU by a vote of 648 to 14. Oliver Drewes, a spokesman for EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, told a news conference: "Patents will continue to be issued by national patent offices and (the) European patent office under existing law... It means fragmentation. It means 25 different systems competing ... and less clarity for operators and for member states."
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:55 PM | International
Strasbourg Foie Gras
Strasbourg, in eastern France, is famous for pâté de foie gras. On Wednesday, July 6, it's going to be famous, or infamous, depending on point of view, for a different sort of pâté - software patents for Europe. Just like pâté de foie gras, someone's goose is going to be cooked, or so the opposing sides on this issue think.
Continue reading "Strasbourg Foie Gras"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:01 AM | International
July 5, 2005
Prosecution Estoppel - A Sea Change
Seachange sued C-COR for patent infringement (5,862,312) for a video server system. The district court found for Seachange, and the Appeals Court (CAFC) (04-1375), in a sea change finding of non-infringement, tilted for C-COR, based upon prosecution estoppel that significantly limited the scope of the asserted claim.
Continue reading "Prosecution Estoppel - A Sea Change"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:00 AM | Case Law
July 3, 2005
Impermissible Hindsight
The issue pondered is to what degree patent examiners understand case law with regard to 35 U.S.C. 103(a), particularly combining prior art references as a basis to reject claims. Anecdotal personal experience is stacking up that examiners are willy-nilly silly when it comes to combinations - that is, impermissible hindsight comes easy.
prior art search + 
Newsfeed (RSS)