Posts Tagged: "Federal Trade Commission"

The testimony further discusses the Commission’s interest in the problem of “patent hold-up” that can arise during an industry standard-setting process. Patent hold-up occurs when the holder of a standard essential patent (SEP), which has previously committed to license that SEP on reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms, violates its RAND commitment and uses the leverage of the standard setting process to negotiate higher royalties than it could have before the patent was incorporated into the standard. The FTC recently pursued several enforcement actions related to patent holders who seek injunctive relief or exclusion orders for alleged infringement of their RAND-encumbered SEPs.

Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has approved final consent orders in three cases involving allegedly deceptive environmental claims for mattresses. The FTC’s complaints, first announced in July, 2013, against Relief-Mart, Inc.; Esssentia Natural Memory Foam Company, Inc.; and Ecobaby Organics, Inc., charged the companies with making unsupported claims that the mattresses they sell are free of harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

The Federal Trade Commission today announced six enforcement actions, including one that imposes a $450,000 civil penalty and five that for the first time address biodegradable plastic claims, as part of the agency’s ongoing crackdown on false and misleading environmental claims. All of these cases are part of the FTC’s program to ensure compliance with the agency’s recently revised Green Guides. The Commission publishes the Guides to help businesses market their products accurately, providing guidance as to what constitutes deceptive and non-deceptive environmental claims.

Mouse Model of Parkinson’s Disease Shows Improved Brain Function — DARPA Awards $25 Million To Develop Messenger RNA Therapeutics™ — Actavis Files ANDA for Generic Suboxone® Sublingual Film — AzaSite® Patents Upheld in Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Sandoz — Surgeons Successfully Remove “Inoperable” Metastatic Breast Cancer — Actavis Files ANDA on Acanya® Gel, Gets Sued by Dow, Valeant — NYSE Inquires About Unusual Market Activity for Ampio Pharmaceuticals — Cannabis Biotech Hires Patent Attorney to Protect Medical Marijuana Innovation — Merck’s Hepatitis C Drug Gets Breakthrough Therapy Designation — Therapeutic Vaccine for Hepatitis C Enters Phase I — Urine Test for Cancer Monitoring — Popular Prenatal Vitamin Patent Upheld in District Court — Clinical Trials on Brain Technology to Assist ALS Patients — Teva Gets Favorable Ruling on COPAXONE in the Netherlands — BVGH Recruits Dr. Linda Venczel as New Program Director — Actavis’s settles with FTC over $8.5 Billion acquisition of Warner Chilcott

How is it possible that no one is going to jail for this? How is it possible that there were no fines levied by the FTC? According to the FTC’s complaint, Aaron’s franchisees used the software, which surreptitiously tracked consumers’ locations, captured images through the computers’ webcams – including those of adults engaged in intimate activities – and activated keyloggers that captured users’ login credentials for email accounts and financial and social media sites. Under the terms of the proposed consent agreement with the FTC, Aaron’s will be prohibited from using monitoring technology that captures keystrokes or screenshots, or activates the camera or microphone on a consumer’s computer, except to provide technical support requested by the consumer.

Under the proposed order, the company is prohibited from claiming that any product is made in the United States unless that product is all or virtually all made in the United States. The company also is prohibited from making any misleading claims about a product’s country of origin and from providing deceptive promotional material to third-party retailers, or otherwise providing the “means or instrumentalities” for others to make deceptive U.S.-origin claims. The company also is required to contact all distributors who bought or received products between January 1, 2010 and May 1, 2013, and provide them with a notice and a copy of the order.

Mark Lemley’s Firm Files DJ Against Myriad in Northern California —– Promise Not to Infringe Insufficient in ANDA Litigation —– Licensing Deals Stall in Pharmaceutical Sector in First Half of 2013 —– Mylan Settles with FTC over Agila Acquisition from Strides —– Amgen and ShanghaiTech University Announce China R&D Center —– Forest Laboratories sues over SAVELLA® generics —– Teva Pharmaceutical scores patent cictory over Mylan on AZILECT® —– Patent Awarded to New Hepatitis C Treatment —– Orphan drug designation for treatment of Acute Radiation Syndrome —– Avanir settles ANDA litigation with Actavis over NUEDEXTA

With the FTC taking this step now I don’t know how Congress can move forward with patent reform legislation that purports to address the so-called patent troll problem. Perhaps they will move forward, but at a time when the Congress has so many issues to deal with is patent reform prior to yet another in-depth government report really where times should be spent? As of the writing of this article we do not have a budget for FY 2014, or even a continuing resolution and the debt ceiling debate looms in the backdrop. Perhaps Congress and the FTC should be spending time fixing other problems rather than tinkering with an issue the GAO says doesn’t need to be fixed.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the elimination of future competition between Nielsen and Arbitron would likely cause advertisers, ad agencies, and programmers to pay more for national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement services. Thus, Nielsen agreed that it will divest and license assets and intellectual property needed to develop national syndicated cross-platform audience measurement services.

The Federal Trade Commission will require Honeywell International Inc. to license patents critical to the manufacture of two-dimensional (2D) bar code scanners, under a settlement resolving FTC charges that Honeywell’s acquisition of rival scan engine manufacturer Intermec Inc. would be anticompetitive. The proposed FTC consent order preserves competition in the market for 2D scan engines by requiring Honeywell to license its and Intermec’s patents for 2D scan engines to Datalogic IPTECH s.r.l for the next 12 years.

The Federal Trade Commission has asked the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to accept an amicus brief that addresses the application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in FTC v. Actavis to a patent settlement containing a “no-authorized-generic” commitment. The FTC’s amicus brief states that the Effexor XR case presents “an issue with significant implications for American consumers”: whether pharmaceutical patent settlements are “immune from antitrust scrutiny so long as the brand-name drug manufacturer pays for delayed entry with something other than cash.” The brief explains why “[t]he allegations here raise the same type of antitrust concern that the Supreme Court identified in Actavis,” and thus should be treated in the same fashion.

The 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which provides a number of rules and regulations with respect to children’s online privacy, recently got an overhaul. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) amended COPPA in December of 2012 and those amendments are scheduled to take effect starting July 1, 2013.

On April 17, 2013, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an Order Denying Petition to Quash Civil Investigative Demand in the Matter of Jerk, LLC. This means that an investigation started by the FTC will now proceed and Jerk.com will either need to challenge the FTC in court or they will need to turn over the requested files and information. The hammer seems to be coming down on Jerk.com, which should make an awful lot of tormented, harassed and cyber-bullied people quite happy.

Among other claims, the generic firms allege that Actelion’s conduct violates the federal antitrust laws. Actelion seeks a broad declaration that it is under “no duty or obligation” to sell its products to potential competitors. Although Actelion contends that its distribution restrictions are required by the FDA, it argues that its right to refuse to sell to the generic firms is nearly absolute and would apply even without any FDA mandate. The FTC’s amicus brief explains that Actelion’s legal position, if adopted by the court, could pose a significant threat to competition in the pharmaceutical industry.