Intellectual Property in the News

The House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property is holding a hearing today from 2PM EST on H.R. 1908, The Patent Reform Act of 2007. The real player is required to listen to the live webcast at the following link: http://judiciary.house.gov/Hearings.aspx?ID=169

Witnesses include: Gary L. Griswold, President and Chief Counsel of Intellectual Property 3M Innovative Properties St. Paul Minnesota, Anthony Peterman, Director, Patent Counsel Dell Incorporated Round Rock, TX, Kevin Sharer, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Amgen Incorporated Thousand Oaks, CA, John R. Thomas, Professor of Law Georgetown University Law Center Washington, D.C., and William T. Tucker, Executive Director Research and Administration and Technology Transfer University of California Oakland, CA.

Posted April 27, 2007 10:00 AM | Permalink

The voice over internet protocol (VOIP) based phone service provider Vonage has been in an extended litigation with Verizon Communications over a number of patents held by Verizon. A patent grants an owner a bundle of rights including the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or offering to sell the patented product or service. The patent holder in this case, Verizon, asserted those rights against Vonage and had been previously awarded a Court order to prevent Vonage from using those patented services, in effect preventing Vonage from offering phone service which is their core business service.

Today, an appeals court granted Vonage's request for a stay or a reprieve against that prior lower court injunction pending an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit effectively allowing Vonage to continue their business until a final decision is rendered by the Federal Circuit. The lower Court's order had barred Vonage from marketing to new customers because the Court had ruled that Vonage's VOIP services were infringing a group of patent claims owned by Verizon.

This ruling allows Vonage to stay in business while it appeals the case. The case could still end in a permanent injunction against Vonage if the Federal Circuit agrees that Verizon's valid claims were infringed. Vonage and Verizon could also come to a financial agreement to license the claimed inventions in the patents and end the litigation.

Posted April 24, 2007 6:05 PM | Permalink

Several significant patent reform bills were introduced today by Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rep. Howard Berman in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. The legislation which was introduced today included a number of legislative reforms to the U.S. patent system existing provisions. For example, we currently use a first to invent system of determining priority and whom has the rights in a pending or granted patent. In other words, if there are two or more independent inventors that invent the same invention, the facts of conception and reduction to practice would give the rights to an issued patent to the first to invent rather than the first to file the application with a U.S. or foreign patent office. This procedure is different than all other countries which use a first inventor to file (or "first to file") system. A significant problem in our current system is that the facts needed to establish the first inventor between several inventors are frequently difficult to obtain. Also, the process is typically very expensive. A small or medium size business would have a difficult time affording this type of proceeding, also known as an interference proceeding. The legislation introduced would allow the smaller or medium sized business the opportunity to compete by changing the existing laws to a first inventor to file system.

Other provisions introduced today include a post-grant review provisions which would provide a 9 month period after the grant of a patent in which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can revoke a patent. Other previously introduced provisions had limited certain claims in patent litigation, such as eliminating an almost always used unenforceability defense based on inequitable conduct in the procuring or prosecution process. The proposed legislation does include several provisions related to the damages for infringement of granted patents although it does not include the inequitable conduct provision.

Posted April 18, 2007 12:38 PM | Permalink

We recently upgraded our server and added new features so that our client base can take advantage of our online secure storage system via our documentfolders.com website. In conjunction with the USPTO electronic filing and information retrieval system, all pending client matters are tracked and updated daily so that each client has 24 hour a day, 7 day a week online access to their current documents from anywhere in the world. Individual folders on the document folders platform are updated within a short time of the mailing date of actions from the USPTO which are retrieved and stored electronically.

Posted April 11, 2007 5:43 PM | Permalink

Button Socks that won’t get lost in the laundry, a stopper so the chairs won’t tip because the older kids tip back in their chairs, a magnetic pencil to hang on a locker and a desk lip so pencils and pens won’t fall off when the student raises the top are a few of the student inventions showcased recently at the Invention Convention. Other student inventions included a miracle adjustable hockey stick which adjusts the length of the stick as the child grows, Sophie’s amazing see-through toaster for never burning toast again, a glow in the dark pacifier, a voice activated TV remote finder, and an automatic bed maker. These are just a few of the student inventions displayed at the Invention Convention in Cadillac, Michigan. The students were asked to research and develop descriptions and drawings of their inventions, and to promote their inventions to visitors.

From the Cadillac News

Posted February 18, 2007 12:55 PM | Permalink