Member of European Parliament Reinhard Bütikofer comments on the recent conclusions of the European Council : Thanks to this tweet by Alice Stollmeyer for the link. Let’s have a look at some of the conclusions. stepping up the role and rights of consumers, including change of...
IP Watch
May 24, 11:51 PM PDT
Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) met this week to discuss possible amendments to the regulations under the treaty. Among issues discussed were possible fee reductions, the proposed formal integration of the Patent Prosecution...
Patent Docs
May 24, 8:50 PM PDT
Strafford will be offering a webinar/teleconference entitled "Post-Grant Patent Proceedings Before the PTAB" on June 12, 2013 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm (EDT). Scott A. McKeown and Greg H. Gardella of Oblon Spivak McClelland Maier & Neustadt will discuss the new post-grant patent practice...
Apparently, some car dealers in the American State of North Carolina are trying to purchase legislation that would make it illegal for Tesla to sell their award-winning cars in the State. This article at Huffington Post by a young woman race car driver called Leilani Münter describes these...
I have done a physical Bitcoin autograph of my second global warming science fiction novel “Tasneem” ( FREE PDF file here ). It just arrived at its destination. I have sent 0.1 Bitcoin from my address 1MXLh9u36HPRzjY7j9qJ5jDdkJexrmZBA2 to the address...
IP Watch
May 24, 11:18 AM PDT
Taking the World Health Assembly by surprise, the US delegation today made a proposal to advance progress on the monitoring, coordination, and financing of health R&D in committee discussions today. Their suggestion to convene an advisory meeting is being discussed in an informal...
Taking no chances: this is a photo of Rihanna hiding behind the tree on the left ... Publicity-shy: no; publicity-conscious: yes. Famed (or infamous ?) US-based singer Rihanna is apparently preparing for a new career as a UK litigant, it being reported that the Barbados-born...
The International Energy Agency seems to have prepared a “Policy Review” of German energy policy, and “Executive Director” Maria van Der Hoeven has given a speech at the German Ministry of Economy to introduce some of their ideas. For people not so familiar with the details of...
IP Watch
May 24, 1:36 AM PDT
Bordeaux, France - In a stronghold of French gastronomy and famous regional products an industry organisation lobbying for the protection of geographical indications chose this week to convene its general assembly and set the goals for future actions. Related Articles: GIs Closer To...
IP Watch
May 24, 12:33 AM PDT
"Bad Science" adversary and journalist, Dr Ben Goldacre, this week challenged WHO Director of Ethics and Social Determinants of Health, Dr Rüdiger Krech, on his understanding of published evidence. Related Articles: WHO Director Highlights Noncommunicable Diseases...
Groklaw
May 23, 8:31 PM PDT
The judge in Apple v. Samsung II asked the parties to narrow their claims, so they did but now Apple would like to add more claims [PDF], specifically to include the Galaxy S4. Samsung just sold 10 million S4s in less than a month, and Apple's hair must be on fire . Would you like to know...
In re Bilski
May 23, 5:42 PM PDT
By: Robert R. Sachs Judge Mayer, along with Judges Dyk, Prost, Lourie, are "Normativists," who see § 101 as defining what inventions and claims "ought" to be. The Normative approach imposes an extrinsic value judgment—from a source unspecified—as to what kinds...
IP Watch
May 23, 4:35 PM PDT
The issue of access to medicines is on the agenda at this week’s World Health Assembly (WHA) and public health advocates are seeking greater clarity and detail about the latest member state effort to address failings in the global system of research and development for medical...
IP Watch
May 23, 3:19 PM PDT
The European Patent Office is continuing to grant patents on conventional plants despite demands from the European Parliament and the German Parliament that the patent office refrain from granting such patents, the coalition of nongovernmental organisations called "No patents on...
IP Watch
May 23, 2:27 PM PDT
The European Parliament today voted in favour of a resolution welcoming the start of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). With 460 votes in favour, 105 against – mainly the Green Party Group and the Left - and 28 abstentions, the resolution passed after a heated...
EFF.org Updates
May 23, 10:20 AM PDT
The patent troll problem is not new. Trolls have been targeting companies large and small for some time, dragging productive businesses into court and extorting licensing fees that have become a nearly unavoidable tax on innovation. This is wrong. But even worse are the trolls...
Last week, fellow Kat Neil delighted us with a brilliant post on one of the biggest nightmares of IP lawyers, who are so often confronted with the wisdom of the crowd. “But everyone else does it” is not only the client’s dreaded response to an advice he dislikes. It works equally well (or bad) to...
Patent Arcade
May 23, 1:28 AM PDT
CLS Bank v. Alice Corp. was a deeply fractured en banc decision of the Federal Circuit, in which they couldn't agree on anything. Seriously. The per curiam decision of the court was one paragraph affirming the lower court's decision finding the claims ineligible subject...
IPKat
May 22, 11:21 PM PDT
This cat can attest that the state of Vermont is not only one of America's loveliest states, with big lakes and green mountains, but one of its quirkiest too. The place has a penchant for electing socialist Senators and hosting " Bread and Puppet " theatre and has a strong independent...
EFF Deeplinks
May 22, 8:12 PM PDT
In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing "Talk" platform with a new one called "Hangouts" that sharply...
EFF.org Updates
May 22, 3:25 PM PDT
According to the New York Times , President Obama is "on the verge of backing" a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA . CALEA forces telephone companies to provide...
EFF.org Updates
May 22, 1:37 PM PDT
Today, EFF filed a motion in a secret court. This secret court isn’t in a developing nation, struggling beneath a dictatorship. It’s not in a country experimenting for the first time with a judiciary and the rule of law. And, as Wired recently noted , it’s “not in Iran or Venezuela, as one...
Patently-O
May 22, 12:17 PM PDT
In CivPro II (a 2-hour course), we covered civil procedure issues related to class actions, discovery, summary judgment, JML, new trial, appellate jurisdiction, and preclusion. Here is the two-hour exam. – Dennis ===== Dent sued Baker in the United States District Court for the...
IP Watch
May 22, 11:31 AM PDT
Members of the World Health Organization this week have made noncommunicable diseases a top priority, and work on a draft resolution and action plan is being carried out by a drafting group that will report back later in the week. Related Articles: World Health Assembly: Members Adopt...
IP Watch
May 22, 10:06 AM PDT
Members of all political party groups in the European Parliament in a debate in Strasbourg yesterday asked the European Commission to scrap several conditions demanded by the European Union and other Western countries in the World Intellectual Property Organization...
Queijo de Cabra Transmontano: non-minor-amended PDO Around the weblogs . Until this Kat met Meera Nair, he was unaware of her copyright law and policy weblog Fair Duty. Well, here it is , and it's definitely worth taking a look at. Meanwhile, the MARQUES Class 46 European...
IP Watch
May 22, 3:28 AM PDT
The pace to negotiate bilateral or plurilateral free trade agreements has been accelerating rapidly over the last month as the big trading blocs seem eager to position themselves in the race for market access and standards. China, Japan and Korea in March hurried to open their...
EFF.org Updates
May 21, 10:47 PM PDT
With patent trolls and patent wars creating a massive drag on innovation, a number of companies have investigated ways to navigate the patent system while still promoting openness and competition. Twitter has been especially active in this space—both by fighting back against patent...
Copyfight - The Politics of IP
May 21, 7:50 PM PDT
Last Sunday, Cory Doctorow posted a piece on Boingboing noting that (some) patent lawyers were going more or less off the deep end in overreacting to patent challenges around 3d printing . It's nice to know that not all lawyers share the particular brand of paranoid lunacy exhibited...
Patently-O
May 21, 4:18 PM PDT
By Jason Rantanen Motiva, LLC v. International Trade Commission and Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Fed. Cir. 2013) Download 12-1252.Opinion.5-9-2013.1 Panel: Newman, Prost (author), O'Malley In order to bring a section 337 action in the International Trade Commission to prevent...
Technology & Marketing Law
May 21, 10:44 AM PDT
By Eric Goldman Home Decor Center, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 2:12-cv-05706-GW-SH (C.D. Cal. May 9, 2013) Home Decor Center sued...
Against Monopoly
May 21, 6:20 AM PDT
Are you familiar with the ISBN? A unique identifier issued by the U.S. Government to identify books? Did you know that the U.S. Government has granted a private company Bowker a monopoly over issuing them? They are very proud of it...as if it is a good thing!
Against Monopoly
May 21, 6:14 AM PDT
If you read this blog you must have an internet connection, so presumably have heard of 3D printing. It is a very disruptive technology with potential to change manufacturing in a variety of ways - and indeed even things such as medicine. I recently had some correspondence with...
Against Monopoly
May 21, 5:57 AM PDT
I wanted to draw attention to a Libertarian Blog . It covers a lot of ground, but also IP issues from a libertarian perspective, including a recent interview with Stephan Kinsella.
I recall that I tried without success in February to find out how much nuclear energy was produced in 2012 from various nuclear lobby sites. Apparently it was more than they can manage to call up the less than 400 remaining electricity producing reactors and find out their numbers...
Groklaw
May 21, 12:32 AM PDT
The next phase of the Microsoft v. Motorola litigation in Seattle will begin on August 26th. It will be a jury trial, as Motorola requested. I hope some of you are nearby and can attend. This will be the part about Microsoft's claims of breach of contract based on its assertion that Motorola...
Patent Docs
May 20, 8:33 PM PDT
By Michael Borella -- A previous post presented the background of this case, as well as Judge Lourie's plurality concurrence. As noted in that post, Alice's claimed inventions involved the reduction of settlement risk using a third-party intermediary. Despite the claims being of...
EFF Deeplinks
May 20, 2:40 PM PDT
EFF has been on the ground in Lima, Peru for the 17th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The TPP is a secretive, multinational trade agreement, and one chapter carries overreaching copyright enforcement provisions that pose a huge threat to the Internet and...
EFF Deeplinks
May 20, 1:59 PM PDT
Representative Ted Deutch (D-FL) introduced a new transparency bill last week called the End Anonymous Patents Act (H.R. 2024, PDF )—the third piece of legislation in the last year to take on the problem of patent trolls. The bill sets out to solve what Professor Colleen Chien refers...
Patent Arcade
May 20, 5:15 AM PDT
U.S. Patent No. 7,090,582: Use of multiple player real-time voice communications on a gaming device Issued Aug. 15, 2006, to Microsoft Summary: The ‘582 patent provides a way for players, during online gaming, to communicate with other players. The invention establishes a system where...
Patently-O
May 20, 8:40 AM PDT
By Dennis Crouch Medtronic Inc. v. Boston Scientific Corp ., Docket No. 12-1128 (Supreme Court 2013) The Supreme Court has granted a writ of certiorari in a license dispute involving giants of the medical device world – Medtronic and Boston Scientific. Medtronic has licensed defibrillator...
IP Watch
May 20, 7:03 AM PDT
On the eve of the 66th edition of the World Health Assembly, the World Health Editors Network (WHEN) and the Who’s There? Yes (WTY) convened for a conference on their new Journalism and Health Initiative. The conference, entitled, “Enter the stadium, democratise knowledge...
New blog on the block . The IPKat was delighted to learn from his former colleague, Katonomist Nicola Searle, that the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is today launching IPO Facto , a research blog for the IPO's economics team. Merpel always gets this feeling that economists blogging...
Groklaw
May 19, 10:00 PM PDT
There are now 68 public comments listed on the FTC's website on the topic of patent trolls. Patent Progress's David Balko's article , The End-Users Strike Back, notes that a surprising number are from end users, defined as "retailers, financial services, grocery stores, advertising...
I started this blog in January 2003. One of my first posts ever, published on 7 January 2003 , had this to say under the title “Virtual Autograph”: Anyone can buy PGP 8.0 Personal Edition from Phil Zimmermann , the original author. I don’t know if there is a market for the idea, but instead of...
IPKat
May 19, 10:33 AM PDT
Uncle Sam, under the authority of the USTR, wants you to behave... Despite what the title might suggest, this post is not about the European's beloved festival of kitsch, where washed-up pop acts from the 90's and overzealous casting stars gather to...
IP Watch
May 18, 11:30 AM PDT
After a week which many World Intellectual Property Organization delegates working on development issues found difficult, a degree of consensus appeared in the last hour late on 17 May. Developing countries' requests were substantially scaled down as discussions on several...
Copyfight - The Politics of IP
May 18, 7:07 AM PDT
Reuters reports (here on HuffPo) that U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has denied a request by a group of "copyright owner" - which we understand to mean giant media corporations - to be certified as a class for class-action lawsuit status . That giant media corporations...
Patent Docs
May 17, 8:10 PM PDT
The Chisum Patent Academy will be offering its next Advanced Patent Law Seminars from July 31 to August 2, 2013 and from August 5-7, 2013 in Seattle, WA. The three-day seminar will focus on the following patent law topics: • Patent Practice Gone Wrong: Lessons from...
Copyfight - The Politics of IP
May 17, 2:47 PM PDT
The games comment sites are a bit buzzed this week as Nintendo has made a very heavy-handed move to claim so-called "monetization" rights on fan-created content . The basic idea is that if someone makes a video of themselves playing a Nintendo game and uploads it to YouTube any...
