Posts Tagged: "mark summerfield"

Today I give you 10 great Twitter accounts to follow if you are interested in staying up on intellectual property around the world, with a heavy emphasis on Europe and Australia because those are the primary jurisdictions that speak English.

As readers will no doubt be aware, Australia is one of the jurisdictions in which Apple is currently pursuing litigation against its Android-based smartphone and tablet competitors. The claims and counter-claims by Apple and Samsung are the subject of a trial in the Australian Federal Court in Sydney which has now been extended into the first months of 2013. According to reports, as many as 22 Apple patents have been asserted against Samsung, although it is as yet unclear how many of these will actually be pressed at trial. A number of the asserted patents are innovation patents. An ‘innovation patent’, is in many respects unique to Australia. An innovation patent provides a ‘second tier’ right, with a lower barrier to validity than the conventional inventive step test, and a shorter maximum term of protection of just eight years.

Just over one week ago Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court was interviewed by Piers Morgan of CNN. See Scalia transcript.  During the interview Justice Scalia said that the hardest decision he has had to make in his time on the Supreme Court was in a patent case. I received a few responses from those who did not opine as to what case Justice Scalia might be referring to, but rather commented generally about the interview and what Justice Scalia said relative to patent cases being difficult, dull and insignificant.  What follows below are those musings from industry insiders.

One week ago, on July 18, 2012, Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court sat down for an interview with Piers Morgan of CNN. See Scalia interview transcript. During the interview Morgan asked Scalia what his hardest decision has been while on the Supreme Court. I thought it might be fun to ask some industry insiders what their guess was as to the unnamed case Justice Scalia was thinking of as the “hardest decision.” Some of those I asked didn’t offer a guess, but rather took the opportunity to discuss the aforementioned Scalia statements more generally. Those “musings” will be published tomorrow.

Those with Twitter accounts who are looking for some good folks to follow look no further. Likely everyone in the industry is already familiar with folks like Professor Dennis Crouch of PatentlyO, who tweets @patentlyo, so I tried to focus (for the most part) on some lesser known tweeters. Below are some of my favorites on Twitter; people who in my humble opinion are excellent to follow. Of course, you can follow me @ipwatchdog and Renee @ipwatchdog_too. See you on Twitter!

Over the years IPWatchdog.com has continued to try and add additional perspectives from a wide variety of guest contributors, ranging from well respected practicing attorneys and agents to high profile academics to inventors and pro-patent lobbyists. It is hard to imagine providing such depth of analysis on such an array of topics without having truly wonderful guest authors. So we take this moment to say a very special thank you and to shine the spotlight on them. Each deserve to share in any recognition of IPWatchdog.com. Without further ado, here are the guest contributors in alphabetical order, along with their contributions for 2011.

The gene patents issue had been simmering in Australia for some time, with a Senate Enquiry into the subject having been underway for over a year, but with the Myriad decision in the US, and the Australian litigation, it exploded into the headlines. Within the space of a few months, gene patents became the subject of numerous news articles and opinion pieces (including one by the former leader of the Opposition, and current Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband, Malcolm Turnbull), and a major report on the Australian national broadcaster’s flagship current affairs program Four Corners. Almost all of this coverage was generally critical of ‘gene patents’, without ever providing a satisfactory definition of the term.

While 2010 was quite an eventful year for IP in Australia and New Zealand, this still does not equate to dozens of potential stories to pick from, given the relatively small populations involved. So in the end it was not hard to come up with a “top eight.” As for my selection criteria, I have simply chosen those cases, events and themes that seemed significant to me from a professional perspective, or that captured the attention – and even the imagination – of the broader public.