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October 6, 2009

Blow Job

GE blew Mitsubishi into the ITC for infringing wind turbine patents 5,083,039; 6,921,985; and 7,321,221. Mitsubishi was initially found in violation for '039 and '985. Then the political breeze blew in. ITC's Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII), assigned to represent the public interest, disagreed with the initial finding. The OUII petitioned the full commission to blow the matter away. Now two Senators are breaking wind over it. Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore, with vested interests in wind power, are urging an airing out by the ITC. A Mitsubishi wind turbine complex is installed in Oregon. A wedge issue is whether GE met the requirement of practicing the claimed inventions domestically. It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way this wind blows.

Posted by Patent Hawk at 12:42 AM | ITC | Comments (9)

October 2, 2009

Claim Aneurism

Edwards Lifesciences sued Cook over four patents claiming intraluminal grafts to treat aneurisms. The claimed invention was construed to require a "malleable wire," which the accused products lacked, having instead "self-expanding wires." Hence non-infringement. In summary judgment. Affirmed on appeal because the specification narrowly disclosed the claimed invention, which the prosecution history corroborated.

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Posted by Patent Hawk at 11:10 PM | Claim Construction | Comments (1)

October 1, 2009

The One That Got Away

Leland Stanford Junior University and Cetus researched HIV in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Written "agreements provided Cetus with licenses to technology that Stanford created as a result of access to Cetus's materials." In December 1991, Roche bought the part of Cetus's business involved in that research [the PCR division], and started making HIV detection kits. Stanford filed the parent to the patents at issue in May 1992. In 2005, after getting multiple patents in the family, Stanford sued Roche for infringement. Roche's winning counter-punch was that Stanford lacked standing.

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Posted by Patent Hawk at 9:13 PM | Standing | Comments (0)