Posts in Europe

Given the broad range of countries deploying UAVs and the large number of applications for UAVs, we took a look at patent data from the last 20 years (1997 to 2016) to determine whether any trends in UAV development could be identified. Our findings show some surprising results with regard to development and patenting of drone technology. In this analysis we focuses on the top-5 patent offices for obtaining UAV related patents, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in China, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) in South Korea, and the Japan Patent Office (JPO).

Cincinnati, OH-based grocery retailer Kroger Company (NYSE:KR) recently filed a trademark infringement suit against German-based discount supermarket chain Lidl over a private food label. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (E.D. Va.), alleges both trademark and service mark infringement and is seeking to have a related U.S. trademark application filed by Lidl cancelled. The suit comes just weeks after Lidl opened its first locations in the United States.

Finnish telecom firm Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Chinese mobile handset developer Xiaomi recently issued a joint press release announcing a multi-year patent cross license agreement granting both companies access to standard essential patents (SEPs) owned by either firm in the cellular space. In addition, Xiaomi bought patents from Nokia outright. Details on financials and the patents involved were not included in the press announcement.

The news headlines are becoming ever more populated with stories of big brands trying and failing in some instances to register a trade mark for their product. Lindt infamously failed to register their signature gold foiled chocolate bunny in Germany, similarly Rubiks lost its bid to register the EU trademark for the puzzle. The latest addition to this string of companies was Nestlé who attempted and failed to register the KitKat design. Nestlé’s application for trade mark registration failed on the ground that the four finger chocolate bar design was not distinctive enough. This raises the question in the world of intellectual property law as to just what will surpass the trade mark test, and indeed what this test consists of within the UK.

Soldering, the process by which two items are joined together by melting a filler metal with a low melting point and pouring liquid metal onto the joint, is a process which is used in many important metalworking processes today, from manufacturing electronics to installing plumbing pipes. Evidence of primitive soldering techniques, however, extend back thousands of years to sites from ancient Mesopotamia.

“The Supreme Court has told us, and told itself, a particular story — a story based in history to justify its current regime,” Lefstin said near the top of his presentation, which was titled Invention and Discovery: A Fable of History. “But when one starts to inquire into that history, you find the story is quite different than the court has led us to believe.” According to Lefstin, this story and its diversion from a factual basis in history began with the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Mayo v. Prometheus, the case which established the current legal concept that a further inventive step was required in order to transform a fundamental principle or law of nature into patent-eligible subject matter. “In particular, what the Court has made clear is that if one has made a scientific discovery, one needs something more than known, routine, or conventional activity in order to transform that into a patent-eligible invention,” Lefstin said.

despite the media widely lambasting Smartflash as a patent troll, inventor Patrick Racz actually created a company called Internet plc “to develop, manufacture, and commercialize the invention”; Smartflash was created as an entity to hold the intellectual property… One reason why this case might warrant an en banc rehearing includes the fact that the case was decided by a different judicial panel than the panel which heard Smartflash’s arguments in the case. The March 1st decision was handed down by a panel which included Chief Judge Sharon Prost, Judge Pauline Newman and Judge Alan Lourie. An order entered in the case last June, however, lists a Fed. Cir. panel which includes Judge Jimmie Reyna, Judge Richard Taranto and Judge Kara Stoll. It appears to be unclear why a wholesale change of judicial panel was made leading up to the March 1st decision of the Federal Circuit.

Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) will likely be the target of a $37 million fine levied by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The fines result from Garmin’s business activities in marketing marine sonar imaging devices in violation of a cease-and-desist order resulting from a Section 337 patent infringement investigation.

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) announced that it had reached an agreement with San Diego, CA-based semiconductor designer Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) to resolve arbitration proceedings over tech royalty payments made between the companies. Terms of the agreement involve Qualcomm paying BlackBerry a total of $940 million to account for net royalties due to BlackBerry during 2016’s calendar year and 2017’s first quarter. The announcement indicates that the payment were to be made before or on May 31st.

May 22nd, marked the 123rd anniversary of the issue of an early and important patent covering a drywall product for building construction. Its inventor, American-born Augustine Sackett, was a 2017 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. With the anniversary of the issue of this seminal patent in the field of building construction upon us, we’ll take a look back today at the history of gypsum use across the world and how Sackett’s innovation completely changed the American home building industry.

Electricity may power our modern world but the phenomenon of electric activity has been observed for millennia. Studies into triboelectric charges, or electrostatic charging created by rubbing two objects together, extend back to the 6th century BC and the work of Thales of Miletus who found that rubbing amber on wool created a static charge. Starting in the 17th century AD, contemporary scientists began making contributions to the understanding of electric activity, including America’s own Benjamin Franklin… Today, we’ll attempt to draft a list of inventors and rank their contributions to the creation of electrical technologies, which enable today’s consumers to turn on lights, receive video content through a display monitor or make the day’s first cup of coffee at the flip of a switch.

Improvements in fuel economy and reduced emissions are largely the result of fuel additives and exhaust catalyst equipment working to clean up the chemicals emitted when fuel is burned. This Friday, April 7th, marks the 25th anniversary of the issue of a seminal patent in the field of automotive exhaust catalyst. The inventor, Indian-born American inventor Haren S. Gandhi, is an inductee this year into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Today, we’ll take the opportunity to revisit our Evolution of Technology series to look back at the development of technologies which have left us with cleaner breathing air than we would have had thanks to Americans’ heavy reliance on automobiles.

Google tries to strike a “patent peace” with a new cross-licensing initiative for Android developers. The Federal Circuit is petitioned for review of a judgment in a patent case on the grounds that arbitration flouted public policy. A couple of Texas academic institutions square off in a patent battle over cancer treatments. Also, a House bill moves forward which would make the Register of Copyrights a Presidential appointee.

At this moment in history almost everything we thought we knew about global patent protection is being challenged. The U.S. is not the most patent friendly jurisdiction in the world, instead being tied for 10th with Hungary, which really puts into perspective the fall from grace patent rights are having in America… There is no doubt that the U.S. continues to take steps backwards due to variety of self- inflicted wounds. The omnipresent threats of more patent reform, a Supreme Court that has created unprecedented uncertainty surrounding what is patent eligible (see e.g., here, here and here), and a Patent Trial and Appeal Board that has been openly hostile to property owners (see e.g., here and here), allows harassment of certain patent owners over and over again, all the while failing in its mission to provide relief from patent trolls. Meanwhile, a number of countries around the world have taken positive steps forward on the patent front, including countries you might not ordinarily consider as patent friendly jurisdictions.

Although Dupixent hasn’t been granted FDA approval as of yet, the drug has made it further than Amgen’s AMG-317, the code name for Amgen’s own IL-4 inhibitor developed during the 2000s, which failed in phase 2 clinical trials… The major impetus behind this suit was Sanofi-Aventis and Regeneron’s discovery that Amgen hired litigation counsel to assert the ‘487 patent and is also working on retaining experts. The plaintiffs believe that the only likely target for any potential Amgen infringement suit asserting the ‘487 patent would target Dupixent, “the only IL-4 inhibitor expected to come to market in the near future.”