Posts Tagged: "patent"

IDRI granted license rights to its world-class vaccine adjuvants to Immune Design Corporation (IDC), which was established in Seattle in 2008 with a focus on cancer, allergies and certain infectious diseases. The royalties and other funds received from IDC have helped to support IDRI’s programs, and IDC’s clinical safety data relating to the adjuvants have been vital in IDRI’s ability to accelerate the development of vaccines for tuberculosis and leishmaniasis, two diseases with an immense global health burden.

Congress is on the cusp of passing legislation that is said to be designed to control the so-called “patent troll.” Of course, as belatedly recognized by the person who came up with the moniker “troll” in 1993, Peter Detkin (former Assistant General Counsel at Intel at the time), the word “troll” is often in the eye of the beholder. Indeed nearly every litigator will tell you that term “troll” is commonly used against any opponent in a patent litigation suit, much as Arthur R. Miller asserted that “a frivolous lawsuit is any case brought against your client, and litigation abuse is anything the opposing lawyer is doing.” Miller, Simplified Pleading, Meaningful Days in Court and Trial on the Merits: Reflections on the Deformation of Federal Practice, 88 NYU Law Rev. 286, 302 (2013).

These deceptive claims are meant to justify and buttress a legislative agenda aimed at immunizing this small coterie of technology giants from the costs of their patent infringing behavior… The estimated 124-plus smartphone patent suits filed between 2009-2012 are less than one-quarter the number of patent suits filed during the first “Telephone Wars” of Alexander Graham Bell’s time. Back then, the American Bell Telephone Company and its successor, AT&T, litigated an astonishing 587 patent cases alone. Even more surprising, given the common belief in a patent litigation “explosion” today, patent and legal records from the golden age of the U.S. Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century show that the patent litigation rate at that time — defined as the number of patent suits filed in a decade divided by the number of patents issued in that decade — reached 3.6 percent.

Ask yourself for a moment, how does a smartphone fitting in the palm of my hand simultaneously download my emails while I watch high-definition YouTube videos of Felix Baumgartner jumping out of a hot air balloon, even as the smartphone figures where I am, where my work is, calculates the traffic delay and lets me know all this and stock quotes too while I keep watching the videos? I didn’t even mention the incoming text from my workout partner with an embedded picture of the beach where he is and I am not, captioned “WHERE R U?” And how can my smartphone do all that at the same time all my neighbors’ smartphones are using the same finite amount of radio frequency spectrum to accomplish the same tasks while they watch dog-shaming videos? The answer, however mundane it sounds, is as powerful as magic and just as invisible: high-data-rate wireless connections.

Fuel efficiency and carbon reduction from vehicle use are the main thrust of our featured patent application today. This patent application describes a system by which a fuel transaction can be uploaded to a carbon credit management system for applying rewards to vehicle owners. Electronic device owners who are walking around in urban centers may find better mapping applications because of two other recently published Qualcomm applications. Our look at Qualcomm’s recently issued patents has turned up a wide assortment of novel digital services for mobile device owners. Discounts for mobile TV broadcasts, emergency medical service alerts and methods of socially connecting users with related interests within a local area have been protected by a few patents issued to Qualcomm. We also noticed a useful patent for conserving battery using in computing devices by detecting a user’s eye gaze and providing bright light to only those sections of the screen being viewed.

This is an age old question that is really the patent/invention equivalent of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Moving forward with a patent doesn’t make a lot of sense if the invention is not likely to be marketable. I always tell folks that the best invention to patent is one you will make money with regardless of having a patent, so I do believe there needs to be market considerations factored into the analysis. After all, the goal is to make money. Investing in a business, or investing to obtain a patent only makes sense if there is a reason to believe more money will be made than spent. Having said that, without a patent pending you have absolutely no protection, at least unless you obtain a signed confidentiality agreement and even then the protection will be applicable only to those who have signed the agreement.

Better methods for providing high-quality interactive graphics with video games is the focus of today’s featured patent application. This system is designed to improve upon the quality of graphics already available through computing consoles for video gaming without causing an excess drain on graphic processing unit resources. We also discuss some other interesting innovations profiled in other patent applications, including a method for better rotational control over an electronic device’s user interface, as well as easier methods of recording stereoscopic video for 3D movies. As our readers know, issued patents are the true measure of a company’s intellectual property holdings, and Sony has been been awarded dozens just in the past few weeks. One issued patent protects a system of ordering notebooks customized with an individual’s or organization’s logo. We also discuss patents that protect systems of providing easier access to digital rights management-protected media among programs from different vendors, and a method of using televisions to edit images stored on a digital camera.

We start today with a long look at the featured patent application, which describes a hardware device capable of determining a person’s mood from various sensors and inputs. In what you might consider a modern day evolution of the mood-ring, this device is capable of representing a person’s mood and stress levels. The system works by using biometric data signals indicative of mood from a variety of sources, including a heart rate monitor, galvanic skin monitor, camera or microphone. Better systems for displaying application icon text and application window inputs, as well as a method for accessing advanced keyboard functions on a simple keyboard, are also described in other patent applications we profile to assignee Microsoft. Additionally, Microsoft’s recently issued patents from the USPTO increase the corporation’s intellectual property holdings for document collaboration systems, as we feature with a pair of issued patents in this field. Another patent protects a method for creating a bidding system that creates a more accurate pricing system for advertising keywords. Finally, Microsoft also patented a system capable of identifying the location of individuals and suggesting real-world activities and social situations nearby.

The USPTO today announced the creation of a new Office of International Patent Cooperation (OIPC). The OIPC will be led by Mark Powell who will serve as USPTO’s first Deputy Commissioner for International Patent Cooperation and report directly to the Commissioner for Patents Margaret (Peggy) Focarino. The establishment of the OIPC reflects USPTO’s strong commitment to work with global stakeholders and intellectual property (IP) offices to develop means to increase quality and create new efficiencies within the complex processes of international patent rights acquisition, and its commitment toward global patent harmonization, which both protects America’s ideas and makes it easier to do business abroad.

What seems to be happening is that the PTAB is literally applying KSR v. Teleflex in a way that many initially feared it would be applied, but in a way it has never been interpreted by the Federal Circuit. Under a literal reading of KSR nothing is patent eligible… If you are a defendant in a patent infringement litigation and you haven’t filed an inter partes review, what are you waiting for? The Patent Office giveth with the examiners allowance and taketh away with a PTAB decision. As long as the PTAB is killing patents can you blame defendants and their lawyers? It would be practically malpractice for a defense attorney in a patent infringement case to fail to recommend seriously considering inter partes review.

”They just walked away,” said Patrick M. Byrne, Overstock.com chairman and CEO. ”Patent trolls find us unappetizing. While we have the highest respect for intellectual property rights, we don’t settle abusive patent suits—we fight.” Byrne added, ”You can’t fork over your lunch money today, and expect a bully to leave you alone tomorrow. Patent trolls understand a bloody nose and in the long run, it’s the asymmetrical response that pays off.” [ ] So the question remains, will other tech companies see the light, or will they keep settling frivolous patent lawsuits brought by patent trolls?

Over the past two years, India has invalidated or otherwise attacked patents on 15 drugs produced by innovative pharmaceutical firms. While the claim is that this promotes lower prices and expanded access to medicines, in truth this is industrial policy not health policy. The clear beneficiaries are local generic manufacturers, not Indian patients. The majority of Indians do not need Nexavar, or any of the other patented drugs being considered for compulsory licenses. They need doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals. Put simply, a functioning healthcare infrastructure. Basic health statistics clearly illustrate the real problem, India currently accounts for one-third of the deaths of pregnant women and close to a quarter of all child deaths.[3] The battle for health in India will not be won with compulsory licenses. It will be won with investments of resources on the ground in local communities.

Pitney Bowes and IBM to Collaborate on Hybrid Cloud Location Services ***** Patent Lawsuits Filed Over 3D Cinema Projection Technology ***** Microsoft and Dell Sign Patent Licensing Agreement ***** Tessera Technologies Ends Litigation Against Qualcomm ***** More Patents Tossed from Remote Control Patent Dispute

BEAR: ”[T]here’s an amusing little brief worth visiting. It’s by a number of companies including LinkedIn, Netflix, Twitter, Yelp and Rackspace – whom I respect and appreciate as innovators – and takes a fairly radical stance. I believe it’s important for anyone reading along to be studying briefs on all sides. Their main approach is to establish that software patents are not only not necessary, but hinder innovation. While positioning themselves to be seen as utopian, the politics strike me as appealing to the fearful, emotionally insecure side of people. Twitter represents that they are recruiting engineers based on a purported fact that they don’t want to engage in offensive patenting. It seems intentionally misleading and inviting reactionary public support. Let me read you a sentence. It says, “Both trade secret and copyright law already protect software and effectively prevent both wrongful use and explicit copying by others.” As if, somehow, that addresses the issues at hand.”

There is a further gulf between those who view In re Alappat as sound logic and engineering (ABL, AIPLA, Alice, Mr. Ronald Benrey, BSA, CCIA, Mr. Dale Cook, Prof. of Computer Science Lee A. Hollaar, IEEE-USA, Microsoft) and those who it as mistaken (Electronic Frontier Foundation, Prof. Robin Feldman, Red Hat) and primarily responsible for an increase in such patents (Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google, “Law, Business and Economics Scholars”). The IEEE-USA provides an excellent analysis of the relationship between software and hardware, pointing out the incontrovertible principle of equivalency, that “special-purpose programming of general-purpose hardware” is “equivalent to special-purpose hardware,” though IEEE-USA fails to mention that this is a fundamental principle of computer science, as established by Alan Turing in the 1930s. To assert, as does the EFF, that the Federal Circuit “concocted” the equivalency of hardware and software goes beyond denying the foundational work of Turing and others. The equivalency of software and hardware is what makes it possible for Java to run on any type of computer using the Java Virtual Machine, as well the electronic design automation industry, which enables complex electronic circuits to be entirely designed in software before being implemented in hardware.