« May 2008 | Main | July 2008 »
June 30, 2008
Debauchery
Hal
Wegner displays astonishing senility in a disjointed and practically
schizophrenic review of pulp fiction by academics Bessen and Meurer (B&M).
Wegner: "The U.S. patent system is not working. It stands accused on all sides
of stifling innovation instead of nurturing it. Some critics say the system is
fundamentally wrecked, others that it can be fixed."
Posted by Patent Hawk at 9:58 AM | The Patent System | Comments (1)
June 29, 2008
In Patents We Trust
The
Allied Security Trust is an alliance of computer-based technology companies,
aimed at buying patents to avoid having them asserted against them. The entrance
fee is $250,000, plus $5 million in escrow. Verizon, Google, Cisco, and HP are
reputed founding members. The natural recruiting ground comprises members of the
Coalition for Patent Fairness, the lobbying group for raising the cost of patent
enforcement beyond the grasp of grasping inventors.
Continue reading "In Patents We Trust"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 6:32 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (10)
Doubled Over
Boehringer Ingelheim sued Barr and Mylan for infringing 4,886,812 after
the two
filed ANDAs seeking to market generic versions of
Mirapex, used to treat
Parkinson's disease. Delaware district court Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. penned a
careful decision, invalidating the patent over nonstatutory double patenting.
Continue reading "Doubled Over"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 2:23 AM | Litigation | Comments (0)
June 27, 2008
Incensed
Fargo
Electronics sued IRIS for infringing
5,755,519 and
6,152,625, which claim a ribbon type sensor for a printer. IRIS sells
replacement ribbons compatible with Fargo printers. A couple of claims fell on
the reasonable repair doctrine. Incompetent prosecution, resulting in indefinite
claims, killed the rest of the assertion.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:50 PM | § 112 | Comments (0)
June 26, 2008
Supplied
i2
Technologies wrestled $83.3 million in a settlement from SAP for supply-chain
software patents. The case was in forced mediation in the Eastern District of
Texas.
In the late 1990s, i2 had been a successful pioneer in the area as a software vendor, but had its lunch eaten by larger enterprise resource-planning and workflow software companies like SAP after the dot.com crash at the turn of the millennium. Inexorable economics of scale crush small companies.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:15 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (2)
June 25, 2008
Bottled
Industrial
Dynamics (IDC) was found infringing
6,298,974, owned by Heuft Systemtechnik. The patents claim bottle handling
inspection for bottling plants. On appeal, IDC successfully challenged the claim
construction.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:39 PM | Claim Construction | Comments (1)
June 24, 2008
Tele-Cost
In their June newsletter/sobfest, POPA reiterates concerns over proposed changes to the PTO telework program. The proposed changes would eliminate the one-hour-per-week in office requirement for examiners, but would require examiners to cover all costs when traveling to the PTO headquarters on an "as needed" basis. POPA's concern: malicious supervisors interpreting "as needed" as "as wanted".
Posted by Mr. Platinum at 7:11 AM | The Patent Office | Comments (21)
June 23, 2008
In A Huff
Southern
California Judge Marilyn L. Huff, upholding a jury finding, ruled that Microsoft
must pay Alcatel-Lucent $357.7 million for infringing
4,763,356, claiming a user interface for choosing a calendar date from a
menu, used in Microsoft programs Outlook, Money, and Windows Mobile. Further,
infringing stylus patent
5,347,295 with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition comes with a $10.35 million
price tag. The $368 million tab inflates to $511.6 million with prejudgment
interest ($139.5 million). Needless to say, Microsoft vows appeal.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:23 PM | Damages | Comments (0)
Smoke Signal
Law
professors John Duffy, Dennis Crouch, Mark Lemley, and others, filed an
amici brief for certiorari before the Supreme Court, to toss the CAFC
mistake
In re Nuijten, which ruled that transient signals were not patentable
subject matter under
35 U.S.C. § 101.
Continue reading "Smoke Signal"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 9:53 PM | § 101 | Comments (1)
Carded
Realsource
asserted
5,732,136, claiming a debit card transaction method, against several
retailing chains, including Best Buy, Starbucks, Costco, Lowe's and others.
Realsource might have had a real invention, but like so many, the prosecutor was
sloppy with language, and did not bother disclosing possible alternate
embodiments. Enforcement floundered on claim construction.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:40 PM | Claim Construction | Comments (0)
June 21, 2008
Spread Spectrum
Ottawa-based
Wi-LAN, holding spread spectrum patents
5,282,222 and
RE37,802, thinks it has a lock on wireless standards 802.11 and CDMA2000. Wi-LAN
has over 25 companies under the gun, including Apple, Sony, HP, and Intel.
Earlier this week Wi-LAN stuck it to a fellow Canadian company, everybody's favorite
wireless patent piñata, Research in Motion (RIM), as well as Motorola and UTStarcom.
Continue reading "Spread Spectrum"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:52 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (0)
June 20, 2008
Sauce For The Goose
Damien
Geradin, Anne Layne-Farrar, and A. Jorge Padilla, in "Elves
or Trolls? The Role of Non-Practicing Patent Owners in the Innovation Economy":
Clearly, patents in the hands of non-practicing entities can increase competition, lower downstream prices, and enhance consumer choice... Clearly, patents are a complex subject that cannot be portrayed as either all good or all bad; tradeoffs will always be involved. Without a better understanding of the many complicated effects of patents in high technology markets, we run the very real risk of misguided policy decisions.
It's much simpler than that.
Continue reading "Sauce For The Goose"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:24 PM | The Patent System | Comments (2)
June 19, 2008
Examine This
While
Jon Dudas,
head of the USPTO, blames idiot inventors with their bad ideas and pathetic
prosecutors pushing punk paper as the cause of the pendency problem, head of the
European Patent Office Alison Brimelow blames the European Patent Office. How
refreshing. "I am worried. You cannot pretend the patent system is maintaining
its integrity if you are looking at global backlogs."
Continue reading "Examine This"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:44 PM | International | Comments (11)
Balled Out
Wily
guys Mork & Beaty of Scanner Technologies got semiconductor packaging inspection
patents. I thought it was
Mork and Mindy, but I was wrong again. In the patenting process, they got
hot under the collar about a competitor's product, hastening prosecution with a
"make special" petition. Enforcing the patents, which were about ball grid
arrays (BGA), turned out to be not such a ball. Defendant ICOS fought back with
an affirmative defense of bad juju, patent street jive for inequitable conduct. Courts
love street jive. Works every time. Well, not this time. At least, not for that.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:19 PM | Inequitable Conduct | Comments (1)
June 18, 2008
Afloat
A
further bit of evidence that Wall Street floats on an ocean of dumb money flowed
in earlier this week. Tessera has an
enforcement campaign for semiconductor packaging patent
6,433,419. The patent, currently under reexamination, is invalid.
Patent Hawk provided the ammunition.
Tessera announced that the reexam, which they expect to go to appeal, will take
so long that the patent will expire before that shooting match is over. Tessara
shares jumped 8.4% on that bit of tripe.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:35 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (2)
June 17, 2008
Fully Blown
Ole
Nilssen, patent goofball extraordinaire, in rather massive assertion against
Osram Sylvania, was found to have committed inequitable conduct in multiple
ways, a ruling affirmed on appeal. In awarding attorney fees in this exceptional
case, Nilssen's conduct went beyond inequitable conduct, to litigation
misconduct, the trial court judge ruled. 2-1, the CAFC agreed. The CAFC puts
plaintiffs on notice that prosecution and litigation tactics that resemble
shenanigans parades will not be tolerated.
Continue reading "Fully Blown"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:49 PM | Inequitable Conduct | Comments (0)
Oops
Allied
Signal, owner of
6,287,955, failed to pay its maintenance fee, abandoning the patent.
Changing its mind after the fact, the lament was that the lapse was
unintentional.
In short, when this patent was not deemed to be profitable, a plurality of employees of the Assignee determined that this patent should be allowed to expire, and an intentional decision was made that the maintenance fee should not be submitted to the Office. However, now that it has been learned that there is commercial interest in this patent, the Assignee seeks to characterize the intentional decision to allow this patent to expire as "unintentional."
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:34 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (6)
Fact & Fiction
Democratic
nominee for President
Barack Obama:
I'm going to make... judgments not based on some fierce ideological pre-disposition, but based on what makes sense. I'm a big believer in evidence. I'm a big believer in fact... We've got offices like the patent office that are outdated to take advantage of new discoveries here in the United States.
Continue reading "Fact & Fiction"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:08 PM | The Patent System | Comments (13)
June 16, 2008
Thrashed
Innovation
Technologies sued Splash! Medical Devices for infringing
5,830,197, which claims a method for irrigating wounds. Innovation got
cold feet and backed out, giving Splash a pass. Splash moved for attorneys fees
and expenses, a $144,350 tab. Granted. Vacated and remanded on appeal, because
the district court judge didn't explain his reasoning.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:53 PM | Case Law | Comments (0)
One Forward, Two Back
The US patent system is unraveling as the USPTO desperately clings to the telework thread as a last hope for reducing pendency. POPA reports that "management has proposed legislation which would allow the agency to permit employees to telework from anywhere in the United States". Yet POPA laments that this latest effort "would not require the agency to pay for employees' travel when the agency requires them to report to USPTO headquarters" and that "management also wants to pay telework employees according to the locality in which the employees actually live and work".
Continue reading "One Forward, Two Back"
Posted by Mr. Platinum at 12:57 PM | The Patent Office | Comments (11)
Bilskiwhacked?
The USPTO has chimed in on the
Bilski case on its internal website.
The USPTO has done its best to follow the guidance in State Street and AT&T, which some believe state that any useful series of steps is patent-eligible. However, the USPTO does not believe that such a broad reading of those rulings is consistent with the Supreme Court's views on the eligibility of "process" patents, as set forth in Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981).
Continue reading "Bilskiwhacked?"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:11 PM | § 101 | Comments (0)
Impropriety
Praise be to Kevin E. Noonan at Patent Docs for follow-through on the low-down of the apparent improprieties by the dastardly Dudas and the USPTO in the NTP v. RIM litigation and reexamination.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 10:43 AM | The Patent Office | Comments (0)
Investing in IP
David
S. Ruder, author of
Strategies for Investing in Intellectual Property, with deep IP
investment experience, ought to know his stuff. But he has written a peculiar
book. His case-based approach is familiar to MBA wanna-be's, and often
enjoyable, but it obscures some big points in the details. It's not clear that
Ruder even knows the definition of intellectual property, and the one thing the
book largely covers in the breach are strategies for investing in IP.
Continue reading "Investing in IP"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:10 AM | Patents In Business | Comments (0)
June 15, 2008
Answers, Of A Sort
House
Judiciary Subcommittee Chair Rep. Berman posed
questions
to the Jon Dudas patent cabal last month. Dudas
dutifully replied.
Continue reading "Answers, Of A Sort"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:11 PM | The Patent Office | Comments (1)
The Snake
Criticism
of the USPTO has reached comical proportions, and the joke is on us: inventors
and prosecutors. When there is a universal howl from the U.S. patent bar about
the agency, while the PTO itself crows about a lurch down in allowance rate,
and a federal court rules that the PTO acting illegally, you may think something afoot.
Joff Wild of IAM
Magazine, sitting comfortably across the pond in merry old England, wonders.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:55 PM | The Patent Office | Comments (6)
June 14, 2008
Obzilla Revisited
The
Patent Prospector plastered the Supreme Court for its inept KSR ruling regarding
obviousness. For those wishing to visit old stomping grounds, Lewis & Clark Law
School held an
Obzillafest last October, though they were too stiff to call
it that. Insomniacs may get some relief, as well as insight, from the collected
works.
Continue reading "Obzilla Revisited"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 7:24 PM | Prior Art | Comments (0)
Nunchucked
Traditional
nunchucks, a martial arts weapon, are two sticks connected by a short chain
or rope. Modern-day nunchucks act as videogame controls. LA-based Nyko makes a
wireless nunchuck, and won an award for it at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show
in Viva Las Vegas. Nyko's nunchuck resembles a wired predecessor made by
Nintendo, holder of nunchuck design patents
D556,201 and
D556,760. Nintendo's complaint was filed June 10th in the Western District
of Washington against Nyko's unlicensed version. Nyko may be in for a different
kind of award.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:31 PM | Design Patents | Comments (0)
June 13, 2008
Display Package
Design
patents seem like a little brother to utility patents, all form and no
substance. But aesthetics spin money. Even the presentation of a product can
help it jump off the shelf and make the cash register ring. So
Monster Cable, which packs its cables
into a tidy product display, understandably complained that
Timex has copied its display package to retail kids' watches.
Continue reading "Display Package"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:08 PM | Design Patents | Comments (0)
June 12, 2008
Through Its Hat
Linux
purveyor Red Hat found its open source a bit too loose, so it settled two patent
infringement suits with DataTern. One of the suits was brought by FireStar,
which later assigned
6,101,502 to DataTern. DataTern steered '502 and
5,937,402 into the black from Red Hat. Delusional, Red Hat expressed belief
that its settlement will serve as precedent to discourage similar suits. More
likely, Red Hat has painted itself as an easy mark.
Continue reading "Through Its Hat"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:19 AM | Patents In Business | Comments (2)
June 10, 2008
Wireless Pool
Intel,
Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Sprint Nextel, Samsung, and Clearwire are forming a
patent pool to collectively license WiMAX wireless technology patents. The
alliance plans to collect patents essential to WiMAX and license the pool to
consumer electronics manufacturers. The aim is to advance the widespread
adoption of WiMAX, which has competition from another standard. The patent pool
approach for promoting standards has a successful track record, including MPEG
video compression.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:15 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (0)
Compact Appeal
Facing
an onslaught of appeals because of abysmal examination, the USPTO has new rules
to streamline the appeal process. Appeals in a single round. Gone: examiner
response to an appeal brief, and the ability to raise new grounds of rejection
in examiners' answers.
From the
announcement:
Briefing requirements that were not necessary for the appeal - such as the "summary of the claimed subject matter" - are no longer required. The facts and arguments required in the brief are focused on distilling the issues of the dispute and establishing where the examiner erred in the rejection. Finally, page limit requirements ensure concise and clear arguments.
Continue reading "Compact Appeal"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:53 PM | Prosecution | Comments (4)
June 9, 2008
Numptys
Hal
Wegner:Broadside criticism of individual examiners doing their daily tasks should be out of bound (sic) and, a fortiori, spineless, anonymous criticism of individual examiners by a practitioner either crosses an ethical or disciplinary line - or such a line should be sharply drawn to deal with such reprehensible conduct.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:08 PM | The Patent Office | Comments (13)
Exhausted
Justice
Thomas, delivering the 9-0 opinion in Quanta v. LG Electronics:
For over 150 years this Court has applied the doctrine of patent exhaustion to limit the patent rights that survive the initial authorized sale of a patented item. In this case, we decide whether patent exhaustion applies to the sale of components of a patented system that must be combined with additional components in order to practice the patented methods. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the doctrine does not apply to method patents at all and, in the alternative, that it does not apply here because the sales were not authorized by the license agreement. We disagree on both scores. Because the exhaustion doctrine applies to method patents, and because the license authorizes the sale of components that substantially embody the patents in suit, the sale exhausted the patents.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 3:22 PM | Exhaustion | Comments (0)
June 8, 2008
Enough
In a lucrative win-win only for respective law firms representing nimrod
HP and upstart Acer, HP, with more to lose, backed down. The two computer firms
have settled their patent spat. Terms undisclosed. HP had asserted ten patents against Acer in East
Texas in March 2007, as well as sprouting an ITC investigation. Taiwan-based
Acer counterclaimed in July with its own East Texas suit of seven patents.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:37 PM | Litigation | Comments (0)
Cleaning Up
Filthy
earth monkeys have soiled the planet. Belatedly, checking their virtual diapers,
remorse comes in the form of adopting so-called "clean" technologies. A whole
new area of patent infringement blossoms.
Continue reading "Cleaning Up"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 2:40 PM | Patents In Business | Comments (0)
June 7, 2008
Chorus
Patent
licensing company Rembrandt IP cut its
teeth in 2004, buying a nine-patent portfolio from Paradyne for $1 million. Paradyne was an
AT&T spinoff. Eight of those patents went to cable modems, one to digital TV.
Rembrandt then started an enforcement campaign, suing Comcast, Time Warner,
Cablevision, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications, as well as the TV
channels ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:49 AM | Litigation | Comments (0)
June 6, 2008
Demo Derby
Brian
L. Evans let his oversized ego get in the way of a grab at the brass ring of
patent payout.
4,398,735 claims a truck assembly for roller skates and skateboards. Evans
was the inventor. Evans insisted in acting as his own attorney in convoluted
litigation over a licensing agreement dispute with Roller Derby Skate, in
violation of the "longstanding rule that corporations and other unincorporated
associations must appear in court through an attorney."
Posted by Patent Hawk at 6:16 PM | Litigation | Comments (0)
June 5, 2008
Reexamination
It has become a common tactic for a patent infringement defendant to request
a reexamination. Courts have no obligation to acknowledge such, but many will
stay proceedings pending reexam outcome if it occurs early enough in the
lawsuit. Courts also have no obligation to heed the results of a reexam. Once a
lawsuit is initiated, the court has jurisdiction to decide as it sees fit.
Continue reading "Reexamination"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:57 AM | Prosecution | Comments (0)
Interview First
The
USPTO has a pilot program for select art units, offering applicants the
opportunity for an interview prior to first office action. Of course, a
prosecutor could always voluntarily do the same. While pre-action interview may
be "in the interest of compact prosecution," under the current USPTO regime, it
is more a formula for vexation.
Continue reading "Interview First"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:53 AM | Prosecution | Comments (1)
June 4, 2008
Partially
Brocar
sued retailer Target and others for infringing
6,049,928, claiming a baby diaper changing station able to resist vandalism.
It's kiddie kung fu thing. Not really. Anyway, claim construction resulted in
noninfringement. On appeal, affirmed.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 5:40 PM | Claim Construction | Comments (0)
Out to Sea
Wall
Street floats on an ocean of dumb money. Patent purveyor Ocean Tomo has
patent-oriented stock indices,
supposedly taking the heavy lifting out of picking patent-heavy stocks.
Speculators, who may be hedge fund or large bank proprietary traders, or market
research fabricators, collar patent lawyers for quick steps up on a steep
learning curve.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:50 AM | Patents In Business | Comments (3)
June 3, 2008
Slow Boat Arrives
After seven years of pretrial jockeying,
Cornell University stuck HP with a $184 million tab, capping an eight-day jury trial in
North New York, CAFC Judge Randall R. Rader slumming as presiding judge.
Cornell succeeded with all five claims of the asserted patent. HP failed with
its invalidity, patent exhaustion, and implied license defenses.
Continue reading "Slow Boat Arrives"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:51 PM | Litigation | Comments (6)
Discovery
Bancorp sued Metropolitan Life Insurance for infringing
5,926,792, claiming
tracking the value of life insurance policies. Unsuccessfully in the first
round, as the district court judge granted summary judgment of non-infringement,
which failed on appeal, albeit on an affirmed claim construction, because of a
"genuine issue of material fact." Not to mention the district court not
affording Bancorp sufficient discovery.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:37 AM | Case Law | Comments (2)
June 2, 2008
Monopoly
To
FTC Commissioner
J. Thomas Rosch,
patents are inherently anti-competitive. To what degree depends upon the
situation. Rosch reserves special ire for patent holders of technology
standards, but would limit damages for inventors to what it cost to obtain a
patent.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 8:50 PM | The Patent System | Comments (10)
Coin of the Realm
The
candy company Mars sucessfully sued Coinco for infringing
3,870,137 and
4,538,719, claiming ways to validate coins put in vending machines. Mars
wanted damages on lost profits. After 15 years of enforcement action,
those damages looked more like a lost cause.
Continue reading "Coin of the Realm"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 4:33 PM | Damages | Comments (0)
June 1, 2008
Patent Retriever
Patent
Retriever is a free pdf patent download site that piggybacks on Google.
Because Google Patents takes too
many mouse clicks, gosh darn. Patent Retriever is good for US, EU, and WIPO.
Continue reading "Patent Retriever"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:19 AM | Patents In Business | Comments (10)
Marked
Thursday,
Stanford University had three HIV-monitoring patents invalidated in summary
judgment, letting Roche off the hook. Northern California Judge Marilyn Hall
Patel ruled that the Stanford patents were obvious in light of a 1991 prior art
article.
Posted by Patent Hawk at 1:32 AM | Prior Art | Comments (4)
Under Pressure
Paris-based
Alcatel SA bought the technology rump of Ma Bell in late 2006 - Lucent
Technologies. The firm has been hyperactive in asserting patents from the
combined portfolio. With good reason. Market capitalization has halved since the
merger. CEO Patricia Russo and Chair Serge Tchuruk are besieged by shareholders
for lack of performance.
Continue reading "Under Pressure"
Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:51 AM | Patents In Business | Comments (0)
Newsfeed (RSS)
Recommended:
Recommended:
Recommended:
Recommended: