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This article looks to a change in joinder rules enacted under the America Invents Act to explain a recent flurry in patent infringement lawsuit filings. The article details what exactly is changing and why these changes could be the cause of a...
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This article analyzes how the America Invents Act's switch from first to invent to first to file will impact the decisions inventors face when deciding whether and when to file for patents with the USPTO. The artilce also reviews how the...
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This article shares a new twist embodied in the America Invents Act (the most recent round of patent reform)--defensive publication. The Act allows inventors to have exclusive rights to file for a patent over an invention within one year after...
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This article begins a series looking at the various changes to be wrought by the America Invents Act, which was passed last year by Congress and will soon be implemented. This entry focuses on how this patent reform bill is already helping to...
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This article reviews the outcome of a recent patent infringement lawsuit involving futures trading software. A key part of the court's opinion in the case in question turned on the idea that where a "parent" patent had an express limitation,...
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This article looks to the history of prior patent reforms and explains why we might see a stampede to file patents prior to the upcoming effective date of the America Invents Act. The article also outlines the arguments about why this patent...
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The patent law doctrine of "intervening rights" informs the scope of a patentholder's rights; the scope of these rights are then of utmost importance in patent infringement actions. This article looks into a recent Federal Circuit appellate...
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Patent litigation lawsuits and patent "trolls" have been hot news topics in legal and entrepreneurial circles lately. This raises the question--what are the costs associated with all this litigation around innovation? This article...
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Samsung and Apple, like many other pairs of technology companies, have been engaged in a protracted intellectual property dispute involving the companies' patent portfolios. This article analyzes Samsung's latest move in this ongoing drama, as...
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This article reviews Microsoft's next step after purchasing a large patent portfolio from AOL and explains why this next step also constitutes a further escalation of the ongoing patent litigation wars in the tech sector. The next step in...
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Yahoo made waves with the recent filing of a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook which sought unspecified damages from the social media giant. This article notes Facebook's decision to return fire with patent infringement counterclaims...
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This article reviews a recent transaction in technology which represents another chapter in the ongoing patent litigation saga between the biggest players in the industry. Many of AOL's patents were for sale as part of that company's shift...
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In light of an activist shareholder (whom some of called a "patent troll") pushing for America Online, one of the leading companies of the early days of the internet, to sell its patent portfolio, this article reviews a recent argument over the...
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When it was first released, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's movie Borat proved a hit; it also, as a recent decision by the USPTO found, constituted "prior art" for at least one patent. This article reviews the USPTO's decision that a patent on...
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One purpose of patents is to encourage innovation by giving an inventor a chance to act as a monopoly (with the accompanying monopolistic market structure) for a certain period of time. However, a recent study (which this article reviews)...
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Can one patent a natural phenomenon? As this article explains, and as the great, historic inventor Samuel Morse knew, the answer is "no." This article reviews a recent Supreme Court decision involving a diagnostic test for auto-immune...
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This article shares the findings of a recent study and paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research which discovered a large gender gap across all types of patents in the United States. The article highlights what this patent gender gap...
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This article chronicles yet another round of patent litigation between tech titans. The two technology giants in question are Facebook and Yahoo; as the article relates, Yahoo is suing Facebook for infringement of a number of its patents, and...
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As social media's importance has increased, social gaming has also become more popular (and, therefore, gained in economic value). This article reviews litigation launched by a non-practicing entity (in popular parlance, a "patent...
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This article represents something of a nexus between patent litigation and corporate boardroom tactics. The focal point of this nexus is AOL; the former internet titan owns a number of patents related to fundamental internet technologies, and...
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This article shares information about Patents for Humanity, a new program by the USPTO which will reward an entrepreneur or inventor who demonstrates how their technology has served humanitarian needs. The article reviews the procedures by...
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Patent trolls--loosely defined as entities which seek to own patents for the sole purpose of suing alleged infringers--can be conceptualized as a tax on innovation. This article reviews a recent Texas court decision which struck a blow against...
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Patents are valuable, and the ongoing web of patent litigation conducted by various smartphone industry giants hints at just how high the stakes can be. To put a more concrete number on these stakes, this article looks at Motorola's...
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Patents (and other kinds of intellectual property) are assets; in bankruptcy, a lender to the reorganizing entity can (and, in Kodak's case, is) lend and use the patents as collateral. This article reviews a patent lawsuit filed by Apple...
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Smartphone-related intellectual property litigation has been waged by tech giants in courtrooms and legal systems across the world over the last year. This article reviews a licensing agreement which certain Microsoft executives heralded in...
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This article reviews a recent decision in ongoing smartphone patent litigation involving HTC, Motorola Mobility (in the process of being purchased by Google), and Apple. The decision, handed down by the US International Trade Commission, was a...
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This article details an alliance among Chinese smartphone manufacturers; the purpose of this alliance is to better allow the companies to defend themselves from patent lawsuits by makers of related technologies from other countries. The article...
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Blu-ray DVD players have recently been the subject of a great deal of patent infringement litigation. This article details one by-product of this litigation--the U.S. International Trade Commission ("USITC") has recently launched an...
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This article takes a look at a patent infringement claim regarding certain alleged-patent-infringing Blu-ray players. The patent which is the subject of the infringement allows users to access "fun facts" about movies, scenes, or other features...
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This article reviews the implications of the Supreme Court's decision to deny certiorari to a patent licensing case where the patent holder sought to extract royalties from its licensees' customers. The article references the clause in the...
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This article reviews recent patent infringement litigation involving a mobile telecommunications patent. As part of the litigation, one of the litigants sought documents relating to the prosecution of the patent, which had been assigned prior...
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Although patents are commonly thought of as being used to protect inventions, companies which create novel and innovative methods of doing business can also patent such methods. This article highlights one such business method patent filed by...
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When a court finds that one party behaved "inequitably" towards another, it is often extraordinary; basically, it signals that the court is willing to look past the black-letter law and rest on principles of basic fairness between...
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Requiring a user to watch advertisements before consuming free copyrighted content is a clever way to monetize the use of the internet. Recently, a court had to decide whether or not this clever idea was patentable as a business method. ...
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The United States has a federal system, which means that some powers are reserved for local (state) governments, while some are reserved for a central government (in Washington, DC). This article reviews a recent patent conversion lawsuit in...
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This article reviews a recent patent infringement case where Twitter was accused of infringing a patent which had not been used in the ten years since the patent was filed. The article reviews the defenses Twitter used, why those defenses...
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Prior to a recent Supreme Court decision, a patent plaintiff who proved that its patents were valid and that the defendants infringed those patents would be awarded an injunction almost automatically. The Supreme Court's decision in eBay v...
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Many MP3 players, smart-phones, and other similar devices contain a "slide-to-unlock" feature. This feature has been patented, and was recently the subject of a patent infringement lawsuit. This article explains the web of patents behind...
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In Bilski, the Supreme Court determined that many business processes are not patentable. Given the rising importance of such processes in business (such as software), Bilski was going to require significant clarification in subsequent...
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A key step in any patent infringement litigation is figuring out exactly what the patent in question covers. This article covers this aspect of Tivo's patent infringement lawsuit against AT&T, as a judge had to interpret terms used in...
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Trade secret protection has evolved rapidly in recent years. This article serves as a detailed review of the facets and contours of trade secret protection. It explains the various elements of the legal test for whether something...
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This article highlights a guide which the United States Patent and Trademark Office has put online to help understand the changes in the America Invents Act, the recently completed round of patent reform. The guide discusses USPTO...
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This article highlights a patent infringement suit over Network-1's "Power over Ethernet" technology, which allows power to be delivered over a single ethernet cable. The defendants in the infringement suit are 16 data networking equipment...
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Adam Philipp uses the signing of the most recent round of patent reform into law to review the new legislation with an eye towards how it will impact small businesses and independent inventors seeking patents. This article highlights everything...
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The ongoing building of patent portfolios by players in high tech has been all over the business pages recently. One of the major battles is between tech giants Google and Oracle. This article reviews the basis of the struggle, and recent...
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Adam Philipp looks at a trademark dispute involving Chippendales to glean some lessons about trademarks. He details a case in which Chippendales was seeking further trademark protection for its dancers' distinctive dress. Mr. Philipp...