Posts Tagged: "Federal Trade Commission"

We conclude that the FTC has not identified sufficient evidence to raise serious doubt about the current efficiencies of the IP marketplace. Indeed, the available empirical evidence suggests that these existing rules and practices work well. The interests of consumers are well represented by standard setting organizations and competition among technology implementers who at the end of the day must make goods and services that people wish to purchase.

Between 1995 and 2009 the overall median patent litigation damage award was $5.2 million, but between 2002-2009 there was a huge discrepancy between the average damage award for practicing entities versus non-practicing entities. The median award for non-practicing entities was $12.9 million, while the median award for practicing entities lagged far behind at $3.9 million. No wonder there is ever increasing activities by those the Federal Trade Commission refers to as “patent assertion entities,” which seems to be yet another sanitized name for patent troll.

On Thursday, November 4, 2010, I attended the 15th Annual Inventors Conference at the USPTO.  In my article Reporting from the 15th Annual USPTO Inventors Conference I discussed the morning sessions and lunch speaker, for day one of the conference.  After lunch, and a panel discussion of the morning speakers, the attendees of the conference went into two sets of…

The Federal Trade Commission has permanently halted the operations of Canadian con artists who allegedly posed as domain name registrars and convinced thousands of U.S. consumers, small businesses and non-profit organizations to pay bogus bills by leading them to believe they would lose their Web site addresses unless they paid. Settlement and default judgment orders signed by the court will…

The Federal Trade Commission approved a settlement with Intel Corp. that resolves charges the company illegally stifled competition in the market for computer chips. Intel has agreed to provisions that will open the door to renewed competition and prevent Intel from suppressing competition in the future. Under this agreement Intel must modify its intellectual property agreements with AMD, Nvidia, and Via so that those companies have more freedom to consider mergers or joint ventures with other companies, without the threat of being sued by Intel for patent infringement.

On Wednesday, May 26, 2010, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a joint public workshop on the intersection of patent policy and competition policy and its implications for promoting innovation. Assistant Attorney General for the department’s Antitrust Division Christine Varney, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David J. Kappos, and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra will give opening remarks at the morning session of the workshop. FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez will open the afternoon session.

European Union regulators on Wednesday dropped an antitrust investigation into Rambus Inc. after the company agreed to cap royalty fees for memory chip patents. In an agreement reached between EU regulators and Rambus, Rambus will not charge any royalties for SDR and DDR chip standards and to bring fees for newer versions of DDR down from 3.5 percent to 1.5…

I just gained another new follower on Twitter (IP_Privacy), and when I went to my Twitter account to follow in return I noticed they had tweeted an article from the Washington Post regarding the FTC setting endorsement rules for bloggers.  It seems that the Federal Trade Commission has decided to update the guidelines relating to the use of endorsements and…

Today I was searching the Internet for some interesting news to write about and I stumbled upon a press release from Burger King regarding its a ¼ pound Double Cheeseburger now being available for only $1. In some markets the ¼ pound Double Cheeseburger has been available for $1 for the past 18 months, but now it is being added…

A press release issued earlier today by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) explained that a new article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) urges Congress and the White House to revisit pending biogenerics legislation that would grant biotech companies an a 12-year exclusivity period for biologics. The press release explains that the experts, who are Harvard…

This week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it had preliminarily reached a settlement with Dyna-E International and its owner George Wheeler, which would bar the retailer of rayon towels from making false and misleading claims that dupe consumers into believing its paper towels are biodegradable. under a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. This preliminary settlement is now…