Category Archives: IP

Intellectual Property issues and news

Patent Law Shouldn’t Block the Sale of Used Tech Products

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This case raises important questions about the reach of American patent law and how much control a manufacturer can exert after its products have been lawfully sold. Taken to their logical conclusion, Lexmark’s arguments would mean that producers could use patent law to dictate how things like computers, printers and other patented goods are used, changed or resold and place restrictions on international trade.

Source: Patent Law Shouldn’t Block the Sale of Used Tech Products

To encourage innovation, the government gives inventors patents on their creations for a limited time. But patents should not give the manufacturer indefinite control over the product after it has been sold.

Super Mario Maker Exposes More YouTube Copyright Stupidity

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Playboy, obviously, does not own Mario. It did not create Mario Maker. It did not build the level on display in my video. And yet my video was still flagged. What gives?

Source: Super Mario Maker Exposes More YouTube Copyright Stupidity

This, he reasoned, must be the source of the copyright claim. Because automatic Mario Maker levels play out the exact same way for everyone that experiences them, that segment of footage was identical for both of us—down to the very last frame. YouTube’s automated system seems to have flagged it for that reason, even though my footage was uploaded first. Pretty silly!

Time to fix patents

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Patents also last too long. Protection for 20 years might make sense in the pharmaceutical industry, because to test a drug and bring it to market can take more than a decade. But in industries like information technology, the time from brain wave to production line, or line of code, is much shorter. When patents lag behind the pace of innovation, firms end up with monopolies on the building-blocks of an industry.

Source: Time to fix patents | The Economist

How the battle over biologics helped stall the Trans Pacific Partnership

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Section 25a of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Act provides for five years of data exclusivity for all medicines. It makes no distinction between biologics and other drugs. Data exclusivity provides an absolute monopoly that, unlike a patent, can’t be revoked or challenged in court.

The powerful biopharmaceutical industry lobby in the United States has been seeking 12 years of market exclusivity for biologics.

Source: How the battle over biologics helped stall the Trans Pacific Partnership

It seems clear to everyone except US negotiators – and biopharmaceutical industry lobbyists – that the demand for extending data exclusivity for biologics needs to be dropped if the TPP is to be finalised.

Imports of Digital Goods Face Test

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In a proceeding closely watched by tech companies and the movie, music and publishing industries, the commission expanded its approach last year while reviewing a trade dispute over orthodontic devices. The ITC decided it could take action against virtual material coming into the U.S. and ordered a Texas-based company, ClearCorrect, to stop receiving digital models and data from Pakistan for the manufacture of teeth aligners, invisible mouthpieces used as an alternative to braces.

Source: Imports of Digital Goods Face Test – WSJ

The ITC in court papers said ClearCorrect hoped to skirt U.S. patent law by farming out part of its process to Pakistan. The commission argues it would be unreasonable to say it could block physical dental molds at the border yet do nothing to stop digital ones.

IBM Locks Up Cloud Processes With Patents

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Exactly how deep is the Patent Office’s cloud expertise, anyway?

Is it as deep as its touch screen expertise, which led to its award of all those patents to Apple on the iPhone, even though prior art seemed to indicate Apple didn’t invent very many of the touch screen’s features? I hope the Patent Office will do better by the cloud in terms of keeping it out of one vendor’s hands.

Source: IBM Locks Up Cloud Processes With Patents – InformationWeek

Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

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In this latest round of Newegg vs. the patent trolls, Newegg went against a company that claimed its patent covered SSL and RC4 encryption, a common encryption system used by many retailers and websites. This particular patent troll has gone against over 100 other companies, and brought in $45 million in settlements before going after Newegg. We won. Winning against these trolls has become a national pastime for us.

Source: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win – Unscrambled

Confidential USTR Emails Show Close Industry Involvement In TPP Negotiations

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In another email in 2011, McCoy told GE lobbyists, “In case your CEO will be at the patent reform bill signing, I wanted to let you know that NZ Trade Minister Tim Groser is planning to attend. It would be a lovely opportunity for a CEO to turn to him and, for example, encourage NZ to support a strong IP chapter in the TPP…”

At another point, Jim DeLisi of Fanwood Chemical said he had just seen the text on rules of origin, and remarked, “Someone owes USTR a royalty payment. These are our rules. … This is a very pleasant surprise.”

Source: Confidential USTR Emails Show Close Industry Involvement In TPP Negotiations

Infamous “podcasting patent” knocked out

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The ‘504 patent has a priority date of 1996, but as the EFF showed during its challenge to the patent office, that’s hardly the beginning of “episodic content” on the Internet. The EFF relied on two key examples of earlier technology to beat the patent: one was CNN’s “Internet Newsroom,” which patent office judges found fulfilled the key claims of having “(1) episodes; (2) an updated compilation file; and (3) a ‘predetermined URL’ for the compilation file.”

via Infamous “podcasting patent” knocked out | Ars Technica.