Patent Law

IBM's patent app for "Method and structure for automated crediting to customers for waiting"

Posted on February 25, 2008
As IBM, Cisco, and Microsoft continue to "talk the talk" on patent quality, one observes another interesting patent application from the group: Method and structure for automated crediting to customers for waiting to IBM (published application 20080046385, application 11/492043)...

Patent Troll Tracker is Cisco's Rick Frenkel

Posted on February 24, 2008
Rick Frenkel, Director, Intellectual Property at Cisco Systems, Inc. and law school grad of Loyola Marymount and registered patent attorney 47578, is the "patent troll tracker."In the context of the WARF suit against Intel, Frenkel was quoted:"The big issue we're seeing is that the number of patent lawsuits filed by entities that make no products is overwhelming," said Rick Frenkel, Cisco Systems' director of intellectual property...

Health Net loses on "health insurance cancellation" case

Posted on February 24, 2008
When Health Net learned Bates had cancer, and dropped her in January 2004, Bates was stuck with more than $129,000 in medical bills and was forced to stop chemotherapy for several months until she found a charity to pay for it.The private arbitration judge (Judge Sam Cianchetti, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ) wrote:"Health Net was primarily concerned with and considered its own financial interests and gave little, if any, consideration and concern for the interests of the insured,The LA Times noted:At the arbitration hearing, internal company documents were disclosed showing that Health Net had paid employee bonuses for meeting a cancellation quota and for the amount of money saved...

Russert lapses on "Meet the Press" on 24 Feb 08

Posted on February 24, 2008
Interviewing (now-declared presidential candidate) Ralph Nader on 24 February, Tim Russert suggested that Nader might be perceived as a Wendell Wilkie, repeatedly running hopeless presidential campaigns. Later in the show, Russert acknowledged he meant to say Harold Stassen...

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Blackboard wins over Desire2Learn in ED Texas

Posted on February 24, 2008
On Feb. 22, 2008, a jury in ED Texas (Lufkin) handed Blackboard a win over Desire2Learn in a patent infringement suit. Desire2Learn, which has its headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario argued invalidity and unenforceability (inequitable conduct).One commenter at Chronicle of Higher Education wrote:I work in the elearning group at a large university that uses Blackboard...

Icospirals remembered

Posted on February 23, 2008
Note the book by Peter John Frederich Harris on carbon nanotubes.[LBE bets Harris did NOT cite LBE's note to Chemistry & Industry!]

On-sale bar found in Atlanta Attachment

Posted on February 23, 2008
The case worked through Pfaff v. Wells Elecs, Inc., 525 U.S. 55, 67, 199 S.Ct. 304, 311-12 (1998) [An invention is barred under 102(b) when it was both the subject of a commercial offer for sale before the critical date and ready for patenting at the time of the offer...

Aristocrat v. Multimedia on Player Operable Lottery Machine

Posted on February 23, 2008
The nonprecedential Aristocrat v. Multimedia brings up issues of indefiniteness and means-plus-function. Charles A. Bird, a non-patent attorney, represented Multimedia, who lost.U.S. Patent 4,817,951 of Aristocrat, titled ?Player Operable Lottery Machine Having Display Means Displaying Combinations of Game Result Indicia,? which describes and claims a machine similar to a slot machine that provides a paperless version of an instant lottery was at stake and had been invalidated for indefiniteness by CD Cal...

Footnoting a personal conversation?

Posted on February 23, 2008
With respect to an earlier IPBiz post titled Do law schools promote a culture of copying?, please note the following text from the Volokh Conspiracy:People sometime ask whether it's proper to cite blogs in a law review article. A few thoughts:1. Crediting Ideas, Big or Small: Not only is it proper to cite blogs to credit them for their ideas -- it's mandatory, if an observation in your article was borrowed from someone else's blog post, or even just if the blogger had the original observation first...

Citations of blogs by law reviews

Posted on February 23, 2008
IPBiz has been fascinated by the discussion on the frequency of citation by law review articles of blogs. See for example TheRaceToTheBottom and Orin Kerr/Volokh Conspiracy . One comment on racetothebottom was of interest: I agree with Geoff that it would be interesting to see break-out citations to substantive legal issues beyond blogging...

Do law schools promote a culture of copying?

Posted on February 23, 2008
There is discussion of the Clinton / Obama "plagiarism" pico-event at the Huffington Post by JAMES HEFFERNAN . One commenter wrote:Barak Obama not only graduated from a top law school, he taught at one for a time. Do you think, if a student tried to excuse not attributing the pivotal section of a paper by saying his friend had written it and recommended he use it also, that Professor Obama would find that acceptable?IPBiz notes that both Obama and Hillary Clinton graduated from top law schools...

On punishing plagiarizers and falsifiers

Posted on February 23, 2008
The nanopolitan blog had a Feb. 23 post titled Punishing the plagiarizers and falsifiers which began with the Chiranjeevi issue (popularized by C&E News), worked through the Gunasekera and Constantine matters and brought up the Mashelkar situation. The blog did not mention the Poshard matter at Southern Illinois University [SIU], or the various plagiarisms at Harvard University, all of which fall in the general ambit of the blog's remark: "plagiarizers don't lose their jobs; they receive a public reprimand, and perhaps a demotion...

Drunken lemurs?

Posted on February 22, 2008
The Feb. 20 "Dilbert" comic strip is derived from the actual story of an Iowa man fired last year for posting a "Dilbert" strip at the office implying his bosses were "drunken lemurs." The current variant included:Do you think drunken lemurs are like managers?"Wally replies: "No...

Columbia Teachers College: no rules governing plagiarism?

Posted on February 22, 2008
On February 21, the New York Times reported that Columbia Teachers College had determined there were ?numerous instances in which Madonna G. Constantine used others? work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years...

Patent reform. Leahy/Hatch credibility on the line.

Posted on February 22, 2008
CNNMoney notes of patent reform:There are four major areas of disagreement between the industry groups.These include changing how damages are awarded in patent infringement cases, the ability to challenge a patent's legitimacy, penalties for those who provide inaccurate or false information to the U...

Guaranteed access to the ephemeral?

Posted on February 22, 2008
Echoing an earlier them, California state senators Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and George Runner of Antelope Valley have introduced a bill to maintain "the public?s trust [in CIRM] by identifying ways to increase public accountability and reduce conflicts of interest...

On inventions developed on the employee's own time

Posted on February 22, 2008
One commenter to the DDB v. MLB post on Patently-O had written:How about Illinois for a different view (I understand California has a similar statute but I do not have a reference to it. An interesting note on this statute is that patent lawyers I have asked about this are unaware of and cannot locate this statute but good friend who is a "generalist" found it in under five minutes when I asked him as it is part of the miscellaneous property statutes in Illinois)Page 104 of The Complete Guide to Securing Your Own U...

Israeli patent procedure

Posted on February 22, 2008
A comment on PatentHawk about Frieder's Jerusalem Post article on patent reform is worth noting:Being based in Israel, I'd like to correct a mis-statement in Mr. Frieder's comment about publication of applications in Israel. Applications in Israel are not published until *examination* is complete - but they are then subject to *pre-grant* opposition...

Patent reform: falling victim to political deal-making?

Posted on February 22, 2008
Jeff Wild writes at IAM Magazine:I am told that there are talks going on between Leahy?s office and the White House and that we could see some kind of deal emerging along the lines of: ?You give us what we want and we will give you the Patent Reform Act...

Bilski: scaling-up delivery of energy from alternative sources?

Posted on February 21, 2008
LexisNexis has a patentlawcenter, which notes Professor Mary LaFrance in its "expert forum."The site has some commentary on Bilski:So, why are market trading-related method patents a bigger deal now than they have been in the past? For one thing, business method patents really didn?t begin rolling until the 1998 decision in State Street Bank & Trust Co...

Chemistry approach promising less expensive drugs [?]

Posted on February 21, 2008
In April 2007, IPBiz wrote:The paper at page 1759 [315 Science 1759] is by a team of Princeton University chemists, with first author Teresa Beeson. Of the paper, chemlin wrote:Most drug molecules that pharmaceutical companies produce can exist in two different forms, which are mirror images of one another...

Suppressing Innovation?

Posted on February 21, 2008
Comments on the IPBiz post An unwitting dupe, duped again? included:To paraphrase, you say innovations are the changes to behavior while inventions are distinct products/entities. That is an interesting to define innovations, and certainly the case of the most explosive innovation of late, the ipod, fits into your definition of innovation as portable music has been around for awhile...

Are VCs, rather than patent law, thwarting innovation?

Posted on February 20, 2008
According to a variety of patent "reformers," the current patent law stifles innovation and the proposed reform "would foster greater innovation by American companies and enhance U.S. competitiveness."In a bit of "new look", we now have a debate on whether or not venture capitalists stifle innovation...

Retiree health plans

Posted on February 20, 2008
Philly Channel 10 on Feb. 20 discussed a recent EEOC ruling which allows employers to create two classes of employees, thereby curtailing expected health benefits for some. The case is going to the US Supreme Court.Brian McGuire of AARP was quoted on the issue...

More on the DDB case

Posted on February 20, 2008
At least two blogs have brought up a recordation issue (35 USC 261) in the DDB case.Patently-O wrote:A reader suggested that the patent recordation statute (35 U.S.C. 261) be considered. If you remember 1L property, the patent recordation statute is a notice statute with a three-month grace period...

Like to work at CIRM?

Posted on February 19, 2008
californiastemcellreport notes:Under a proposal to be considered Wednesday [Feb. 20] by a subcommittee of the CIRM board of directors, the top salary range for the president would skyrocket more than $200,000 -- from $412,500 to $618,750. (...)CIRM is a tiny agency with only 26 employees, although it hands out grant money at a rate exceeding $20,000 an hour...

In re Bilski and Warsaw

Posted on February 19, 2008
Slashdot contains the following comment about Bilski:The following dialogue occurs at 15:20 of the mp3 file obtainable at: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/oralarguments/searchscript.asp [uscourts.gov] (type Bilski for Caption)Judge 1: The way in which the Board ...

More on First Technology and Bodog

Posted on February 19, 2008
There's another colorful installment in the Bodog patent fight at gambling911. No one can say this fight is boring:Last year, 1st Technology and its principals were successful in having the once dominant Bodog.com domain name removed from the Web. The enterprise claimed that Bodog have infringed upon one of its patents related to a "method and system for interactively transmitting multimedia information over a network which requires a reduced bandwidth"...

Plagiarism accusers should worry about substance

Posted on February 19, 2008
AP reported: Sen. Barack Obama said Monday [Feb 19] that he doesn't think it's a big deal that he borrowed lines from his friend Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, although he probably should have given him credit.IPBiz notes Abraham Lincoln borrowed from the Bible for the "House Divided" speech...

Ohio U. touts honor code, etc.

Posted on February 19, 2008
Dennis Irwin asserts that the Athens Post trivialized the Ohio U. honor code, and includes the following laundry list of make-work projects done by Ohio U.:1. Electronically screening all theses and dissertations at both the draft and final stages, starting fall 2005 [Query: what is done when copying found? Is the screening capable of finding paraphrasing?]2...

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