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April 30, 2006
Patent Litigation in China
Litigating a patent in China is a different dragon altogether than in the
U.S. With both patent grants and litigation rising, the legal system China has
now is a wild frontier for protecting inventions.
Continue reading "Patent Litigation in China"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 2:17 PM | International | Comments (1)
April 27, 2006
Big 2G Deal
Finnish
cell phone maker Nokia has settled a
long-smoldering dispute with
InterDigital Communications over InterDigital's 2G TDMA patent portfolio,
and it only cost Nokia $253 million to put out the fire.
Continue reading "Big 2G Deal"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 9:56 PM | Patents In Business
April 26, 2006
Bankruptcy Auction
Xybernaut,
a maker of wearable computing devices, went bankrupt last July. To help put
itself back on its feet, Xybernaut is
auctioning its "Waypoint" patent portfolio, which includes
6,480,713 &
6,681,107. The Waypoint patents enable location-based services to wireless-enabled mobile
devices, such as plopping ads onto a PDA for nearby restaurants and shops;
potentially useful and annoying.
Continue reading "Bankruptcy Auction"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:03 PM | Patents In Business
April 24, 2006
PTO Democracy At Work
The
patent office put out a
media advisory
Friday about a "town
hall" meeting on Tuesday at agency headquarters "to educate the public on
USPTO's plans to streamline the application review process." Short notice, and
with good reason.
Continue reading "PTO Democracy At Work"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:10 PM | Prosecution
April 21, 2006
Dance Class
John
Quincy St. Clair wants a patent [US20060014125;
pdf] for a training method to learn to walk through walls. Specifically, it will
help you "acquire sufficient hyperspace energy in order to pull the body out of
dimension." Personally, I go to my spiritual chiropractor when that happens.
Continue reading "Dance Class"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:51 PM | Prosecution
April 20, 2006
Accessible Prior Art
In Bruckelmyer
v. Ground Heaters, the CAFC gives broad latitude to what constitutes "publicly
accessible" prior art. The court
decided that abandoned drawings of a foreign patent application were "publicly
accessible," because the file history could be located from the published
patent. The lynchpin seems to be whether the material, or even reference to the
material, has been catalogued or
indexed, not whether the material itself had ever been published.
Continue reading "Accessible Prior Art"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:35 AM | Prior Art
April 19, 2006
z4 Downs 2
David Colvin of Michigan-based z4, owner of software piracy patents 6,044,471 and 6,785,825, scored a preliminary $115 million dollar judgment against Microsoft, and an $18 million tab against Autodesk. It is shocking to think that an innocent waif like Microsoft could have been found to have willfully infringed, as did Autodesk, and so still faces the prospect of treble damages.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 7:56 PM | Litigation
Purgatory or Hell
Continuing
its gossipy coverage of patents, and even reporting from the future (April 24),
BusinessWeek poses that crucial legal question: is
burst.com an "Underdog
or Patent Troll?"
Continue reading "Purgatory or Hell"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:45 PM | Patents In Business
Lava Flow
Lava
Trading sued Sonic Trading Management and RoyalBlue for infringing
6,278,982, which claims an aggregating stock trading system. Lava lost on
claim construction, so appealed. The CAFC (05-1177)
found the flaw in the district court's construction, and remanded. What the CAFC
fails to see is its own flaw in claim construction logic.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:46 AM | Claim Construction
Universal Remote Control
Phillips
sued Contec and its suppliers for infringing two patents related to universal remote controls. The appeals court (CAFC
05-1351) upheld the Delaware district
court's summary judgment split decision based upon claim construction.
Continue reading "Universal Remote Control"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:40 AM | Claim Construction
April 14, 2006
Working Prior Art
Fabio Marino, with broad experience, and a specialist in strategic IP counseling, is moving to Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe from Bingham McCutchen. Among other skills & talents, Mr. Marino has an appreciation for working prior art.
Continue reading "Working Prior Art"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 3:44 PM | Prior Art
April 13, 2006
Desperate Victory
TiVo
pulled out a $74 million win from larger rival EchoStar Communications in patent-holder
heaven, the Eastern District of Texas, but the victory smacks of desperation.
Continue reading "Desperate Victory"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:55 PM | Damages
Confidence Game
Today
MicroChip Technology sued rival Luminary
Micro in Arizona court. What's odd is that the three asserted patents:
5,847,450,
6,483,183 and
6,696,316, are all currently under reexamination in the patent office.
Continue reading "Confidence Game"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 3:21 PM | Litigation
April 11, 2006
Spilling More Ink
Seiko
Epson continues to hammer competitors with infringement suits over its
ink cartridge patents. Having
recently forayed towards two dozen companies, Epson now adds two dozen more,
in a fourth lawsuit of a prolonged and multi-pronged enforcement campaign.
Continue reading "Spilling More Ink"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:28 PM | Litigation
April 9, 2006
Mary Kay, Sour Puss
Mary
Kay, cosmetics pink lady, has been ordered to to pay TriStrata Technology
$40 million for patent infringement related to skin cream used to treat wrinkles. This is an
interest add-on from a March 2005 $26 million judgment over patented alpha
hydroxy acid technology.
Continue reading "Mary Kay, Sour Puss"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:15 PM | Patents In Business
April 7, 2006
Patent Auction Ripple
Ocean
Tomo's first patent auction didn't create the bidding tsunami many sellers
hoped for. Then again, it was an odd bird: a live event for diverse technologies. The scene did attract widespread attention, and drew several
hundred attendees. For publicity value alone it can be considered a success. As
to the patent sales, not so good.
Continue reading "Patent Auction Ripple"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:03 AM | Patents In Business
April 6, 2006
University Patents
The patent office
released its collation of the top ten U.S. universities
receiving patents in 2005. The University of California topped the list for the
12th straight year.
Continue reading "University Patents"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:43 PM | Prosecution
Gateway Really Cowed
As
reported a few days ago, Gateway got slammed for bad faith conduct facing IP
theft from Phillips Adams. After opening arguments in the trial, Gateway lawyers
approached opposing counsel and offered to settle on Adams terms. The judge
warned they better close the deal by the next morning, or trial would continue.
Deal done.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:05 AM | Litigation
April 5, 2006
Replay
For
the second time, Lucent and Microsoft are heading to court over Lucent's
5,227,878. A typo prevented a showdown the first time. Now xBox 360 is in
the dock.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 3:11 PM | Litigation
More Settling In
Two more patent spats settled for big-name defendants Google and IBM.
Continue reading "More Settling In"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:55 AM | Patents In Business
Full Service Patent Evasion
TradeCard owns 6,151,588, "Full service trade system," which claims online trading of goods and services. TradeCard sued Bank of America and rival S1 Corporation in March 2003 for patent infringement over S1's Purchase Order Processing Systems (POPS), which B of A uses. Yesterday came a surprising verdict.
Continue reading "Full Service Patent Evasion"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:41 AM | Litigation
April 4, 2006
Settling In
A
patent litigation news koan: where's the newsworthy flash of a patent
settlement? It happens so often, it's hardly news. Here are a few recent greased
wheels....
Continue reading "Settling In"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:08 AM | Patents In Business
April 3, 2006
Patent Pain
Frank
Hayes of ComputerWorld
likes it when companies pay for patent licenses. "We
like it when vendors wave a big check at a problem and make it go away. Sure,
we'll foot the bill if it means the result is a clean, simple, effortless (for
us) solution." What irks Frank is when they pay, and get nothing for it, except
passing the pain on to consumers.
Continue reading "Patent Pain"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 6:09 PM | Patents In Business
Gateway Cowed Again
March
was a bad month for Gateway Computers. First we hear that
Gateway
paid $47 million to solve their patent infringement problems with HP. Then,
in another case of intellectual property theft, we learn that Utah District
Court Judge Ted Stewart slammed Gateway for destroying evidence "in bad faith."
Continue reading "Gateway Cowed Again"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:48 PM | Litigation
April 2, 2006
Both Sides Now
Lorraine
Woellert stirs a patent gumbo in her
March 31 BusinessWeek "news analysis" of eBay v. MercExchange. "Patent
trolls don't get much sympathy -- except maybe from the Supreme Court." Is
Lorraine suggesting the heresy that lack of sympathy for patent trolls is
misplaced? That patent trolls deserve the same legal rights as any patent owner?
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