The brief addresses this issue in the context of patent infringement claims that Motorola, Inc. has filed against Apple, Inc. regarding technologies used in iPhones and iPads that allegedly are covered by Motorola’s SEPs. It concludes that a district court correctly applied the governing legal principles when it dismissed Motorola’s request for an injunction that could have blocked Apple from selling iPhones and iPads in the United States.

An online advertising company agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it used “history sniffing” to secretly and illegally gather data from millions of consumers about their interest in sensitive medical and financial issues ranging from fertility and incontinence to debt relief and personal bankruptcy. The FTC settlement order bars the company, Epic Marketplace Inc., from continuing to use history sniffing technology, which allows online operators to “sniff” a browser to see what sites consumers have visited in the past.

When the media paints images of all patents being bad they are doing a disservice to the industry and ignoring the good that has come from patented innovation and the sharing of such innovation via patent pools and other cross-licensing arrangements. Patent pooling is one example of a proven, effective tool that is helping industry better manage its licensing programs. By “pooling” patents from many license holders, licensors generally are able to lower transaction costs and administrative overhead, and benefit from a centralized model that encourages patent bundling and fair play. Licensees likewise enjoy advantages in the form of lower royalty fees and a single point of contact that eliminates the need to negotiate separately with multiple license holders.

On November 28, 2012, Forest Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: FRX) and Forest Laboratories Holdings, Ltd. (collectively,“Forest”) announced that they entered into settlement agreements with Alkem Laboratories, Ltd. (“Alkem”), Indchemie Health Specialties Pvt. Ltd. (“Indchemie”), and Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and Torrent Pharma Inc. (collectively, “Torrent”) in patent infringement litigation brought by Forest in response to abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) filed by Alkem, Indchemie and Torrent each seeking approval to market generic versions of Forest’s BYSTOLIC® (nebivolol) tablets.

Several public interest groups recently filed a march in petition under the Bayh-Dole Act asking NIH to force Abbott Laboratories to license its competitors for the production of Ritonavir, a drug used to treat AIDS.  Drug developers face a daunting task. For every 5,000 drugs tested, about five proceed to clinical trials. Perhaps one is eventually approved.  That one must not only pay for itself, but for all the company’s other drugs that died along the way. This grim math eludes the petitioners.

Speck Products has obtained a judgment from a California Federal Court against Tsai & Shaw, a company that has been selling counterfeit Speck iPhone cases. The judgment includes a permanent injunction against Tsai & Shaw, as well as an award for the damages. The case against Tsai & Shaw is just one of the several judgments in the last year that equals over $1.2 million in damages against Tsai & Shaw and other counterfeiters.

Right now the best business to be in at the moment is the patent enforcement business, at least if you are concerning yourself with low-risk monetization with high reward. Between the legacy issue of bad patents, patent auctions and the many who purchase patents, what has started to happen is that the patent system rewards those who have the finances and ability to game the system. But the problem is extraordinarily complex.

On Friday, November, 30, 2012, a bill making technical changes to the AIA was introduced in the House of Representatives. The bill number is HR 6621. The proposed AIA package does NOT include a so-called “fix” to post-grant review that some considered to be substantive and not technical. Key staff on the Hill believe the measure to be non-controversial. House passage of the measure could take place before year’s end.

Even when hiring a patent attorney inventors still need to be engaged in order to give the patent attorney the best information available about the invention. This seems simple enough, but so many inventors fail to understand what information is important and why it is necessary.  If you don’t understand that “why” you will you will almost never be able to provide all the information necessary.

Software patents, like all patents, are a form of innovation currency. They are also ecosystem enablers, and job creators. The innovation protected by software patents is highly integrated with hardware. All of it must remain eligible for protection. The current software patent “war” is hardly the first patent war—and unlikely to be the last in our nation’s patent history. Whenever breakthrough technologies come onto the scene, market players find themselves joined in the marketplace by new entrants. The first instinct of the breakthrough innovators is to bring patents into play. This is not only understandable, it is appropriate. Those who invest in breakthrough innovation have a right to expect others to respect their resultant IP. However, in the end, as history has shown time and time again, the players ultimately end up agreeing to pro-consumer solutions via licenses, cross-licenses or joint development agreements allowing core technologies to be shared.

Not only is the FTC arguing that product changes to patented drugs violate U.S. antitrust laws, but the FTC and Department of Justice (DOJ) are going to look into whether patent enforcement activities that seek redress for infringement violate U.S. antitrust laws. See FTC, DOJ to Hold Workshop on Patent Assertion Entities. This does not bode well for a second Obama term, and I have to wonder whether those in the patent community that decided to vote for President Obama due to his perceived friendliness to patents and smooth running of the Patent Office are going to start to have regrets, particularly now that David Kappos is leaving the USPTO.

The answer to why a patent law firm would be taking a blanket copyright license may well be found in the old saying about a penny of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Law firms have been coming under fire recently for alleged copyright violations relating to the materials they submit to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced that it has chosen the Terminal Annex Federal Building as the site for its Dallas-Fort Worth regional satellite office. The Terminal Annex Federal Building is located along the southern edge of Dealey Plaza in Dallas and is close to public transportation.

There are two stages of litigation in the Supreme Court.  There’s what’s called the petition stage and the merit stage.  This is a phenomenon that doesn’t exist in the Federal Courts of Appeals, which are courts of mandatory jurisdiction.  There’s no doubt that if you lose a patent trial you have a right to appeal to the Federal Circuit.  You don’t have to come hat in hand begging the Federal Circuit to take your case or making it appear so sexy that they’re smitten and they take it.  But the Supreme Court of the United States has very, very little mandatory jurisdiction.  It’s almost all discretionary jurisdiction.  It gets 10,000 petitions a year and it currently grants review in about 75 cases a year.  And so there is a whole level of advocacy that begins with the filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari and then it’s followed by a brief in opposition by the winning party below and then a reply brief.  And whatever amicus briefs are filed by friends of the petitioner or the respondent in 10,000 cases in which the court is picking a few for plenary review.

First, remember that Steve Jobs once referred to the smartphone patent wars as the patent equivalent of global thermonuclear war. But will this be more like the Cold War or the Apocalypse? The only patent war that I can recall that actually approximated a patent version of the Apocalypse was the battle between Polaroid and Kodak. That saw a $909 million verdict in 1990, and ultimately settled for $925 million about a year later, but required total aggregate attorneys fees in the neighborhood of $550 million. The war lasted 15 years and didn’t achieve the $2.5 to $5 billion that once upon a time was believed possible. This was also at a time when these numbers were real money.