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November 30, 2006
Unwired
Maurice
Mitchell Innovations LP sued Intel in
December 2004 in the Eastern District of Texas for infringing
4,875,154, which claims bus switching for a CPU. The problem was that the
disclosure wasn't fully wired for the claims.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:05 PM | Claim Construction
Pay Up
USPTO
management secured a 7% across-the-board pay raise for examiners effective the
last pay period of the year.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:00 AM | The Patent Office
November 29, 2006
Implicit Pressure
Even
before the Supreme Court further mucks up the § 103(a) obviousness standard via its Teleflex v. KSR ruling, fear by the
appeals court of the Supreme Court mucking up the obviousness standard has
already warped interpretation of the law.
Continue reading "Implicit Pressure"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 6:44 PM | Prior Art
November 28, 2006
Supreme Court Obviousness Motivation
Excerpts from the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in KSR v. Teleflex,
KSR seeking to upend the § 103(a) obviousness standard; the following excerpts giving a flavor of the
proceedings.
Continue reading "Supreme Court Obviousness Motivation"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:31 PM | Prior Art
Lost In Translation
Last
Friday the Supreme Court of Korea affirmed patent infringement by Microsoft of
Korean patents for automatic Korean to English translation, used in the local
version of Microsoft Office.
Continue reading "Lost In Translation"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:07 PM | International
November 21, 2006
Alcatel
French
monopolist Alcatel, sucking in $18 billion
in annual revenues, is unabashedly aggressive. Alcatel has an ongoing patent
battle with Foundry Networks, and has now added Microsoft as a mark for some of
the same patents. This is in addition to the patent suit over video-decoding
technology that Lucent
Technologies, an Alcatel acquisition, has asserted against Microsoft for its Xbox
video game machine.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:36 PM | Litigation
November 20, 2006
Anticipation Needn't Be Effective
Generic drug-maker Impax filed an ANDA to make riluzole tablets,
which are used to
treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In doing so, it was heading for a
confrontation with patent holder Aventis Pharmaceuticals. So Impax preemptively
slammed Aventis patent
5,527,814 for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement,
invalidity, and unenforceability. Impax got nowhere crying noninfringement or inequitable conduct, but, on appeal, its prior art
argument got traction with the
CAFC (05-1313),
after having failed with the district court. The CAFC ruled that, to
anticipate, a prior art reference only has to enable creation of a drug for
treatment, but need not go so far as to indicate that treatment using the drug would be effective.
Continue reading "Anticipation Needn't Be Effective"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:13 PM | Prior Art
November 19, 2006
The Lash
USPTO
management insists on cracking the whip, destroying morale among examiners in
the name of productivity.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:01 AM | The Patent Office
November 18, 2006
Function Over Form
PHG
has two design patents for medical labels:
D496,405 and
D503,197. PHG sued St. John, a competitor, for its medical label sheets, and
got a preliminary injunction from the district court. St. John had argued that
the design patents weren't valid, because they had a functional aspect. The
appeals court took a look (CAFC
06-1169), and
decided St. John might have gotten short sheeted.
Continue reading "Function Over Form"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:53 AM | Design Patents
November 16, 2006
Death Rays
Optivus
Technology and Loma Linda University Medical Center sued Ion Beam Applications (IBA)
for violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, violation
of the California unfair competition law, violation of the Lanham Act, and for
intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. Oh, yeah, and
patent infringement:
4,870,287 and
5,260,581. A slightly mixed ruling by the
CAFC (05-1518), but
the patents were hit with prior art death rays.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:58 PM | Prior Art
Tackling Chinese Infringement
China's
State Intellectual Property Organization (SIPO) offers low cost patent
enforcement: though limited in power, it's fast and cheap. And it's underused by
American and European companies, who more regularly go with costly lawsuits.
Continue reading "Tackling Chinese Infringement"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:00 AM | International
November 15, 2006
Knocked Out
Abrasix/AstraZeneca
successfully sued Mayne Pharma for infringing
5,714,520,
5,731,355, &
5,731,356, covering the intravenous anesthetic Dirprivan®, getting literal
and doctrine of equivalents (DOE) judgments in district court. Mayne appealed,
and got a crucial claim construction reversed, but that did not overturn the DOE
infringement. (CAFC
06-1118)
Continue reading "Knocked Out"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:34 AM | Claim Construction
November 13, 2006
Detachably Secured
Akeva
sued Adidas for two athletic shoe patents:
6,662,471 &
6,604,300, specifically improved heels. In a non-precedential ruling, the
CAFC (06-1090)
affirmed a district court claim construction restricting the meaning of the term
"secured" to its specific usage in the specification.
Continue reading "Detachably Secured"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:54 AM | Claim Construction
November 12, 2006
Overcoming Obviousness
§103(a) has
become a scourge of prosecution (some would say it has been for years). With the CAFC pretzel preening
in anticipation of the Supreme Court going bananas with KSR v. Teleflex,
examiners feel even more emboldened to sling obviousness rejections with aplomb.
Continue reading "Overcoming Obviousness"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:48 PM | Prosecution
November 11, 2006
Patent Death in Japan
Streamlining
patent litigation in Japan has spelled its demise. After creating a specialized
IP court system, the net effect has been to snuff patent enforcement.
Continue reading "Patent Death in Japan"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:13 AM | International
November 10, 2006
Raw Deal
USPTO
management continues to display astounding disregard for both patent quality and
retaining patent examiners. Agency management's current proposal to slam
examiners is flat-goal production quotas.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:06 AM | The Patent Office
November 9, 2006
Apparatus versus Process Use
The
appeals court ruled today in Abbott Labs v. Baxter Pharmaceuticals. This was the
second round of appeals of Abbott's assertion of
5,990,176 (CAFC
06-1021). In the first round, the CAFC remanded with a different claim
construction. In this episode, Abbott appealed noninfringement, and Baxter
cross-appealed validity. What the appeals court found was old news: new uses for
known processes may be patented, but a prior art device cannot be patented, even
if new uses of it are found.
Continue reading "Apparatus versus Process Use"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:22 PM | Prior Art
November 8, 2006
Dumb Luck
SRI
sued Symantec and Internet Security Systems for infringing four patents related
to real-time network surveillance. The defendants found some damning prior art
by the inventors in what SRI termed "dumb luck." Dumb indeed.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:03 PM | Prior Art
November 7, 2006
Atta Boy
One
of the 6,000 patent examiners is
selling on eBay the commemorative keyring that was provided as an
end-of-fiscal-year gift to PTO employees. The keyring was only half of the
gift; the other half was a chicken kabob pita sandwich. No word on the whether
there was pity for the pita.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:59 PM | The Patent Office
Political Creatures
That
USPTO top management are Republican troglodytes should come as no surprise;
their "the floggings will continue until morale improves" management style gives
them away. A Democratic Congress could lame some of the agencies "reforms," such
as limiting continuations.
Continue reading "Political Creatures"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:51 AM | The Patent Office
November 6, 2006
Proofreading
This claim has been making the rounds. A wily prosecutor snuck one in to see if the inventor bothered to read the claims. Apparently not.
Continue reading "Proofreading"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:55 PM | Prosecution
NTP Pops Palm
NTP,
who
successfully squeezed $612.5 million from Blackberry-maker Research in
Motion in the patent drama of the year, has slapped
Palm with an infringement suit for email
delivery to its Treo handheld. The quick odds assessment by the market left Palm
shares down 8%.
Continue reading "NTP Pops Palm"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 2:07 PM | Litigation
November 5, 2006
Rightfully Burned
Furnace
Brook owns
5,721,832, and is slinging it to see what it will stick on. After getting
tossed in summary judgment for its overreaching assertion against Overstock.com,
Furnace is on fire, sending out lowball solicitations to license. These clowns
are going to give patent trolls a bad name.
Continue reading "Rightfully Burned"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:42 PM | Litigation
November 3, 2006
The Media Trap
Paul
McDougall of Information Week gets the Bad Patent Article of the Week award.
Congratulations Paul! Paul titled his little ditty, "How
To Avoid The Patent Trap," but of course the article isn't about that; it's
a hodgepodge of Paul's confusion, carping, misinformation, and miscellaneous
tidbits, with, admittedly, a couple worthy paragraphs. Let's get bitchy...
Continue reading "The Media Trap"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:30 PM | The Patent System
Windows Kisses Linux
Microsoft played a radically different card in its dealing with Linux
Thursday. Novell struck a deal with Microsoft to pay ongoing royalties to 2012
to avoid the risk of having the SUSE Linux ox gored by Microsoft's patent
portfolio, particularly a mutual covenant not to harangue each others customers and developers with patent
assertions; no mention of not suing each other.
Continue reading "Windows Kisses Linux"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:04 AM | Patents In Business
November 2, 2006
Accelerated Examination Hell
Having
just attended the USPTO webinar on
accelerated examination
(AE), my impression is that the program is an admission of failure by the
agency, poorly thought through, expensive, and fraught with risk for the
applicant. AE use should be circumscribed to business necessity, such as to
secure additional funding. And AE should only be employed where a backup
continuation or divisional exists, but that only partly mitigates the risks.
Continue reading "Accelerated Examination Hell"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:27 PM | Prosecution
November 1, 2006
Forget Cashes Out
Forgent
Networks, who forged filthy lucre from
4,698,672, which covered the JPEG image compression standard, put out a
terse press release today, announcing having settled all outstanding assertions.
Enforcement being an increasingly bumpy ride, claim construction not going its
way, and with a reexam dragon breathing down its neck, Forget declares victory
and goes home.
Continue reading "Forget Cashes Out"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:45 PM | Patents In Business
EFS Pendency
Patent
pendency isn't just for examination any longer. The spirit of Soviet Union
bureaucracy, already embraced by USPTO management, has infected their online web
service, EFS. At least the agency is sending out emails acknowledging a problem.
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