Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

Attorneys representing Jamaican songwriter Michael May filed a suit for copyright infringement in the Southern District of New York. At issue in the case are musical elements from a 1988 song written by May which were allegedly copied by songwriters for Miley Cyrus 2013 single We Can’t Stop. Although the song lyrics are the only musical element which have been allegedly infringed, the complaint makes plenty of mention of cultural elements which have also been appropriated by Cyrus during the course of her career.

Portal Communications filed a suit for patent infringement against Cupertino, CA-based consumer tech giant Apple Inc. At issue in the case, which was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, are a series of patents covering natural language voice query technologies which are allegedly in use by Apple’s Siri digital personal assistant.

Orrick is pleased to announce that Paul Fakler, a nationally recognized adviser in complex copyright litigation and policy matters, including the unique area of royalty rate disputes before the Copyright Royalty Board and PRO Rate Courts, has joined the firm as a partner. Paul joins our IP practice group in New York from Arent Fox.

Google also argued that, if claim preclusion did not bar SimpleAir’s infringement claims, than the Kessler doctrine barred them. This doctrine, stemming from a 1907 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kessler v. Eldred, has been used to protect a party’s rights to continue a practice accused of infringement if an earlier judgment found that essentially the same activity did not infringe the patent. While the Federal Circuit has relied on the Kesler doctrine to bar patent assertion against similar activities or products found not to infringe, the doctrine has not been applied to bar a broader set of rights than would have been barred by claim preclusion.

the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that it, along with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had seized a record number of counterfeit and pirated products which violated intellectual property rights last year. Collectively, CBP and ICE seized a total of 34,143 shipments of goods during 2017’s fiscal year, an increase of 8 percent over the total number of counterfeit shipments seized during 2016. About 90 percent of the shipments seized were in the express carrier and international mail environments. According to the law enforcement agencies, the total estimated manufacturers’ suggested retail price (MSRP) for the genuine versions of those good reached $1.2 billion.

As autonomous vehicle and mobility technology continues to make headlines, federal legislation is making its way through Congress with the goal of removing government hurdles for the development, testing, and rollout of innovations in this space. Although this legislation primarily implicates R&D activity, IP portfolio managers at automotive OEMs and suppliers should be aware of several proposals that may ultimately impact patent filing strategies and information compartmentalization best practices in order to reduce risks from disclosure requirements that are part of the current legislation.

Cole Schotz P.C. is expanding its Intellectual Property department with the addition of new member William Stroever in New Jersey. Mr. Stroever has extensive experience helping companies build and protect their brands and other intellectual property assets.  He was previously a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig.

The article in IPWatchdog describing how the United States democratized the patent system, extending the right to own intellectual property to commoners, came to mind after reading two very different papers on patents, innovation and their impact on society.  Apparently the debate over the democratization of the patent system isn’t over.  Some still see inventors as potential threats to the social order requiring close government supervision. The competing perspectives on patenting are reflected in the prominent figures from English history each study cites.

While most commentary to date has focused on the implications for litigation, two recent Federal Circuit decisions have promising implications for patent prosecutors struggling to overcome conclusory rejections that claims lack subject matter eligibility.  Since Alice and the subsequent interim guidance by the U.S. Patent Office, one aspect of subject matter eligibility determinations that has frustrated patent prosecutors has been the fact-free, conclusory analysis commonly provided.  However, the Federal Circuit’s February decisions in Berkheimer and Aatrix conflict with the Patent Office’s guidance that “judicial notice” fact-finding is sufficient for subject matter eligibility rejections, and the substantial evidence standard applicable to administrative fact-finding during examination does not comport with the underlying “examiner expertise” rationale for that guidance.

A group of six patent law professors filed an amicus brief with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Cleveland Clinic v. True Health Diagnostics. The professors’ brief urges the Federal Circuit to reverse a finding by the lower court invalidating patents asserted by Cleveland Clinic covering diagnostic methods for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. According to the brief, the district court’s invalidation of Cleveland Clinic’s patents represents an improper application of 35 U.S.C. § 101, the basic threshold statute governing the patentability of inventions.

If a drug company plants a more than 100-patent thicket to protect market exclusivity, then it had better be able to justify why it should deserve the cumulative protection of patent term. Yes, the patent on the original formulation will fall into the public domain and may be capable of being made by generics long before the last of the patents expire, but often-times those follow on “innovations” are the kind of trivial advances that ordinarily shouldn’t support a fresh patent.

Today is National and World Pi Day because the numbers of the day (3-14) match the first three digits for pi or , the Greek letter, 3.1415926535897…  Although most people think that  is relegated to just geometry and trigonometry, the number pervades all of mathematics and the natural sciences, even statistics.

But this morning, on seeing the juxtaposition of two random emails in my inbox, I had to pause at the ongoing nuttiness of our regulatory environment. In fact, I wanted to scream. First, I see, sunscreen is banned in most schools. Because it’s a drug. Email number one this morning. And while you catch your breath, consider the one immediately following it in my inbox. Headline: “Is the U.S. still the driving force of the global patent market?” … We’re not focused on the big picture. We’re mired in fights over little issues that don’t make a difference in the overall health of the country—much less our innovation economy.

In the lawsuit filed in the Court of Federal Claims, Zeidman Technologies alleges that the U.S. government gave three conflicting and contradictory explanations as to why Zeidman’s proposal for the SBIR request was denied, despite the fact that Zeidman owns patented technology that specifically met the requirements of the request. These rejection explanations also allegedly relied on criteria that were not explicitly stated in the SBIR request for proposals, resulting in what Zeidman argues was an arbitrary decision.

Minneapolis-based intellectual property law firm, Patterson Thuente IP, welcomes attorney Sarah Stensland to the firm. Stensland joins as a partner and member of the firm’s litigation team. Her practice focuses mainly on patent and trademark infringement litigation, as well as representing clients in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the USPTO.