Posts Tagged: "patent"

A recent fire onboard a Boeing Dreamliner at London’s Heathrow Airport refocused concerns on the recently developed cruise liner, which was maligned with battery fire issues earlier this year. In early July, a high-profile Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco involving a Boeing 777 airliner has also troubled the company, although the investigation seems to be focusing on pilot error in that case. Still, when dealing with air transit there is zero margin for error. When errors do occur when an airplane is in use they frequently are catastrophic, so the search for safer technologies is a never ending pursuit. Today in our Companies We Follow series, we’re taking another look at Boeing, especially taking a look at their efforts to develop even safer systems of airborne transportation. Some of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office documents we feature here highlight Boeing’s improvements to emergency systems on aircraft.

I think these results show that the disclosure function of patents is working to at least some extent, at least in nanotech: patents can be a useful source of technical information, and willful infringement concerns are not preventing most nanotech researchers from looking at patents. But there are still problems with patent disclosure: the result that only 38% of patent readers think those patents are reproducible raises questions about whether disclosure ought to be improved just to meet current legal requirements.

As in the U.S., when drafting claims in China, one must describe the invention sufficiently to enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the claimed invention. For software patents, a flow chart and explanation should be included, along with drawings and description of associated hardware. Portions of the source code may be included for reference. Software claims may be drafted as either method or apparatus claims. However, Justin Shi, patent attorney at Sony Mobile Communications in Beijing, warns that apparatus claims may be deemed invalid if they are phrased only in means-plus-function language and fail to describe the apparatus or its embodiments.

Despite the turmoil surround software patent eligibility I believe with great certainty that software will remain patent eligible in the United States. The extreme decisions of the PTAB and viewpoints of those on the Federal Circuit opposed to computer implemented methods will not prevail because they are inconsistent with the Patent Act and long-standing patent law jurisprudence. After all, the Supreme Court itself explicitly found software patent eligible in Diamond v. Diehr. In the meantime, while we wait for the dust to settle, we need to engage in a variety of claiming techniques (i.e., methods, computer readable medium, systems claims, means-plus-function claims and straight device claims). Thus, if you are interested in moving forward with a patent application it will be advisable to file the application with more claims than would have been suggested even a few months ago. Patent attorneys also must spend increased time describing the invention from various viewpoints, which means specifications should increase in size. This all means that there is no such thing as a quick, cheap and easy software patent application – at least if you want to have any hope of obtaining a patent in this climate.

The Supreme Court quite directly contradicts the reasoning of Chakrabarty in Myriad. Thomas explains that it is a fact that isolated DNA is nonnaturally occurring, but still nevertheless not patent eligible. Whether we like it or not, the very foundation of the Supreme Court’s decision in Chakrabarty has been overruled, or at the very least significantly cut back. Arguments to the contrary are simply wishful thinking and ignore the explicit language of the Myriad decision.

Today at IPWatchdog, we’re taking a closer look at some recent innovations to barbecue cooking. The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has published a number of patent applications, and has issued many patents, dealing with improvements to methods of slow cooking meat. For issued patents, the USPTO has recently decided to award legal protections to a Nebraskan inventor who has devised a power drill attachment useful for shredding, or “pulling,” meats. A second patent we feature here protects an apparatus that allows grill owners to easier clean a grill grate without wearing out arm muscles through repetitive motion or getting liquid cleansers all over their bodies.

Recently, the Toyota Technical Center held a ceremony to celebrate the corporation’s top inventors for the past year. The corporation and its subsidiaries were awarded 1,491 patents in 2012, the most for any automobile manufacturer according to the Intellectual Property Owners Association. Today we take a look at recent Toyota patents to celebrate this incredible output of technological innovation from the Japanese car maker. One patent protects a new multi-layer exterior for vehicles that reflects a wider range of light, providing a vehicle better protection from damaging sunlight rays. Another patent protects a smart calendar system that can inform onboard GPS routing based on regular errands.

The attack on individual inventors using names like NPEs and patent trolls is nearly identical to the attacks previously waged by corporate America on personal injury lawyers, using the McDonald’s hot coffee case as an example of lawyer abuse (now it’s the Wi-Fi patent cases). Like the corporate attacks on everything from the private enforcement of securities fraud claims to unfair business practice, civil rights and age discrimination claims, the new target is patent infringement claims brought by “boogie man” entities that don’t manufacture products.

I’m a fairly new/young patent attorney. I work at a firm where I am the only patent attorney, of several attorneys. I am trying to figure out how to set my fees and fee structure for patent prosecution and trademark registration work. Friends from law school in the Dallas area suggested using a flat-fee for prosecution, rather than an hourly rate. My concerns are, because I’m relatively new to prosecution, I’m not sure how to accurately estimate the time involved from an inventor’s initial disclosure so I set a flat-fee that won’t grossly underpredict the amount of time required. Of course, I also want to set my fee to be market competitive. I’m located in the Greater Nashville Area.

This newly approved, updated prescribing information for ISENTERSS now includes 240-week results from the STARTMRK study, the double-blind Phase III study that evaluated integrase inhibitor in previously untreated adult patients with HIV-1 infection. The results show that the regimen containing ISENTRESS in combination therapy demonstrated long-term viral suppression and a greater immunologic response than conventional treatment regimens, as well as a proven, long-term safety and tolerability profile through 240 weeks in previously untreated adult HIV-1 infected patients. ISENTRESS had sales of $243,636,000 during Q1 of 2013, and has experienced growth quarter over quarter, which means that ISENTRESS is flirting with the $1 billion per year in sales that would make it a blockbuster drug.

A few patent applications give us an insight to some of the intriguing uses of solar energy we might see someday in our own backyards. One application describes an umbrella table capable of storing electricity and sending it to electrical outlets on the table. Another application is for a grill canopy with solar-powered lighting displaying downward from the fabric top. A third application would protect a solar powered outdoor lamp with a more stable base for non-permeable ground settings. The USPTO has also recently issued patents to some individuals and small groups who have devised new ways of utilizing solar power through summer activities or ornaments. One patent protects a surfboard that collects and stores electricity safely for later use. Another patent protects a system of storing electricity from solar energy to light decorative wind chimes at night.

Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTG) announced on Friday, July 5, 2013, that its Board of Directors appointed Matthew Vella, Acacia’s current President, as Chief Executive Officer and a Director effective August 1, 2013. At this important moment when the patent rights pendulum has swung Vella takes over. He will have his hands full as he steps into the spotlight as the public face of Acacia. There is growing animosity toward non-practising entities and numerous legislative attempts underway to benefit big business at the expense of universities, individual inventors, research and development companies and those who acquire rights. His task will not be an easy one. As a publicly traded company Acacia’s information is there for all to see, making them an easy target.

This is an exceptional case; IA Labs brought an objectively baseless claim, which the Court finds was brought in bad faith. Interaction Laboratories, Inc. — the original ‘226 patent holder — developed a product known as the Kilowatt that embodied the invention of the ‘226 patent. It was sharply apparent that the Kilowatt had been publicly demonstrated at trade shows, disclosed in numerous publications, and offered for sale more than one year prior to the filing of the patent application. Thus, the ‘226 patent was, without question, statutorily invalid pursuant to the on-sale bar. Since IA Labs knew of these invalidating activities before it sued Ninetendo for infringement, the Court can only conclude that it sued on the ‘226 patent in bad faith…

Although these charts do not represent a rigorous analysis, they do show two things. First, patent activity appears to have a relatively consistent correlation to economic activity. Whether Lincoln was correct that there is a cause relationship or whether this is simply an effect relationship can be debated, but the existence of a relationship seems to be well-established. Second, patent litigation also appears to be following the longer-term trend of the relationship between patent activity and economic activity. The recent jump in the number of patent lawsuits filed, while significant in the short term, does not appear to represent a significant deviation from what would be expected based on longer-term historical trends.