Posts Tagged: "data storage"

Is Europe really moving away from protecting Online platforms?

The media and political debate continues to rage: should new obligations be put on online platforms and other internet intermediaries to try to limit the availability of unlawful content online, and if so what should those obligations look like?… The combination of proposed Article 13 of the draft Copyright Directive and the Commission’s latest Communication will lead some to conclude that Europe is indeed moving away from protecting internet intermediaries. It certainly appears that the two developments would place a much greater onus on platforms than is currently the case. A fuller picture will be known in May 2018, when the Commission says the work of ensuring “swift and proactive detection and removal of illegal content online” will be complete, and the Copyright Directive in final form. But the direction European policy makers are heading in is already evident.

Cloud Services Indemnification Promises and Pitfalls

As businesses rapidly outsource their IT functions to the cloud, customers seeking cloud computing or cloud services must understand the risks, especially when sensitive, regulated or confidential data is stored in the cloud. Sensitive data carries business risk and may be subject to a host of legal and regulatory requirements. Cloud service agreements usually are based on the cloud services provider’s standard form agreement… The customer must read the indemnification terms closely, not just for the explicit language in the agreement, but for what the customer is really getting from the cloud services supplier and whether the indemnification terms will be of any help to the customer’s business if sued by a third party.

Sony files patent infringement suit against Fujifilm in S.D. Fla. over magnetic tape media

On December 15th, Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corp. filed a patent infringement lawsuit in U.S. district court against Japanese photography and imaging company Fujifilm. At the center of Sony’s legal action are magnetic tape products marketed by Fujifilm which allegedly practice technology copied from Sony without a license. In the official complaint filed by Sony, the company asserts a series of four patents, which it alleges Fujifilm of infringing through the sale of the company’s Linear Tape-Open (LTO) format magnetic tapes, specifically generation four, five and six LTO tapes (LTO-4, LTO-5, LTO-6).

Will the Federal Circuit’s Enfish ruling have broader implications for data storage patents in general?

Days before this Federal Circuit decision, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued its decision for Informatica Corp. v. Protegrity Corp. The patent at issue in this case – U.S. Patent No. 8,402,281 – is directed to a database management system that includes an operative database and an information assets manager database. It is conceivable that the Board erred by pushing past the initial Mayo/Alice question and finding that these claims, which cover a data storage innovation of the kind found in Enfish, may have been erroneous. In other other words, when the Board determined that the combination of the methods did not add significantly more than the already determined abstract idea, that question might have never been properly reached in the first place.