Abbot Laboratories fought for 14 years (receiving 12 rejections) to get a patent allowed, only to have the patent found unenforceable because Abbot’s patent attorney withheld key information in connection with the patent filing. Lesson: disclose information which may be material to the patentability of any of your claims, as required under 37 CFR 1.56.
Links: Law.com article.
The former anonymous blogger of Patent Troll Tracker has been outed as a patent lawyer at Cisco Systems. He was unmasked after a $15,000 bounty was offered by a senior partner at a law firm criticized on the blog after he filed suit for a client against Google. The blog has been taken down.
Links: Patent Troll Tracker, law.com article.
A partial list of who is acquiring, licensing, and enforcing patents:
Acacia Research Corporation
IPotential
Inflexion Point
Altitude Capital Partners
Ocean Tomo
Rembrandt IP Management
NW Patent Funding Corporation
Intellectual Ventures
Gathering2.0 (online community for monetizing IP assets)
Articles:
Patent Attorneys, Clients Banking on IP Brokerages (law.com)
Patent Pirates (forbes.com)
U.S. District Judge James Cacheris granted GlaxoSmithKline’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from implementing the rules set to go into effect today. Glaxo filed its suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its director, Jon Dudas, earlier this month. The company plans to seek a permanent injunction.
Link: Law.com article.
Blockbuster and Netflix have settled their patent dispute stemming from a complaint filed last year by Netflix. Netflix alleged that Blockbuster was infringing on its patents US7,024,381 and US6,584,450.
Links: Complaint, US7,024,381, US6,584,450.
If you haven’t heard already, the Supreme Court’s recent decision makes it easier to invalidate already issued patents, and will likely make it more difficult to obtain patents. More to come later.
Links: KSR v. Teleflex decision, Transcript of oral arguments.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is posting oral arguments in mp3 format. All future argued cases will be available twenty-four hours after argument is completed.
The CAFC has nationwide jurisdiction in a variety of subject areas, including international trade, government contracts, patents, trademarks, certain money claims against the United States government, federal personnel, and veterans’ benefits.
If you would like to browse all cases, simply enter the letter “v” in the Caption field of the search page and click on “Search”.
Links: Oral Arguments MP3s, CAFC.
Websites such as shouldexist.org enable users to publish their inventive ideas and collaborate with others to refine and develop their inventions. Users may donate their time and money to the website and to specific projects. Of particular interest is that all discussions and projects are documented, dated, published on-line, and publicly available; this, and any other on-line publication, is considered prior art (MPEP 901.06, 2128 ). While it is unlikely that any patent office, patent attorney, or professional prior art searcher is currently searching this and similar websites, such sites should be searched prior to and during the drafting of any patent application. The public disclosures on sites such as shouldexist.org may also prove valuable in questioning the validity of patents during reexaminations and patent infringement proceedings.
Links: shouldexist.org, halfbakery.com, idea-a-day.com, brightidea.com, creativitypool.com, Idea Banks on dmoz.org, thinkcycle.org, globalideasbank.org.
The dispute with former Yale professor and Nobel Laureate John B. Fenn over a Nobel Prize winning invention has ended. Yale University was assigned ownership of a key patent and awarded $1 million in damages. John B. Fenn shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for his work in mass spectrometry.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is suing the Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for alleged trademark infringement. No matter who wins this one, there are many Jews Who Rock. Who said intellectual property is boring? Rock on.
