Patent & IP news for August 26, 2014

Sparks fly as sharks fly, but attack on patent validity loses its bite from ipkitten.blogspot.com

Sharks in the courtroom are nothing new according to some critics of the legal system, but they are usually referring to the lawyers who appear there, charging inflated fees and ruining their clients.  In this ...

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Cold Comfort Farmers Cards: Californians feel New Zealand chill from ipkitten.blogspot.com

From Katfriend and long-time respected IP commentator Ken Moon (AJPark) comes news of a 13 August ruling of the New Zealand Court of Appeal (Harrison and Miller JJ) in a software copyright and trade secrets ...

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Guest Post by Prof. Risch: A Generation of Patent Litigation: Outcomes and Patent Quality from patentlyo.com

By Michael Risch, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law. Full article available here. Almost three years ago, I guest posted here about Patent Troll Myths, my study of the ten most litigious NPEs ...

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No Copyright Protection for Iconic Monkey Selfie from patentlawip.blogspot.com

In 2011, wildlife photographer David Slater set up a camera on Sulawesi, a small island in Indonesia.  Mr. Slater received an unanticipated gift, a monkey picked up his camera and took hundreds of pictures, including ...

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Television Show Fan Does Not Own Facebook Likes from ipkitten.blogspot.com

Jeremy kindly informed me of a very interesting case about the ownership of the “likes” generated by a social media account created by a fan of the television show The Game. Spoiler alert: the fan ...

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H-W Technology, L.C. v. Overstock.com, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2014) from www.patentdocs.org

Proofread your claims before you sue! By Michael Greenfield -- Even obvious clerical errors in patent claims can doom your lawsuit if not corrected before suit is filed. This was evident in H-W Technology, L.C ...

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Sanctions Awarded for “Filibuster” Deposition Tactics from docketreport.blogspot.com

The court granted plaintiff's ex parte motion to compel a further deposition and sanctioned defendant for its "filibuster." "It strains credulity to take the witness’s expressed inability to understand common terms such as ...

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World Drug Regulatory Authorities Meet In Brazil; Biosimilars In Focus from www.ip-watch.org

Drug regulatory authorities are meeting this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to discuss global regulatory issues such as vaccine regulation, falsified products, and pharmacovigilance. A “pre-conference” focused on biosimilars, with civil society warning on ...

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New Proposal To Keep Indigenous Peoples On WIPO Traditional Knowledge Committee from www.ip-watch.org

A group of countries has submitted a new proposal to the upcoming meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization budget committee to allow the continued participation of indigenous peoples representatives in WIPO’s committee on ...

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Federal Circuit Reminds Courts of Discretion on Fee Awards from patentlyo.com

By Jason Rantanen Icon Health & Fitness, Inc. v. Octane Fitness, LLC (Fed. Cir. 2014) (nonprecedential) Octane Fitness Remand Panel: Newman, Mayer, and Lourie In Octane Fitness v. Icon the Supreme Court rejected the “objectively baseless ...

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The ITC and FTC Take Actions to Address the Toll of NPE Litigation from www.iplawalert.com

We have previously posted on proposed federal and state legislation aimed at addressing the toll of “patent troll” litigation by non-practicing entities (“NPEs”) on the U.S. economy. Additionally, a recent Federal Circuit ruling relaxing ...

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