South Korea Starts Sweeping Investigation Into Patent Abuse

The 271 Patent Blog: Peter Zura features South Korea's move to curtail patent abuses by companies foreign and domestic in his recent post entitled South Korea Launches "Largest-Ever" Antitrust Probe on Patent Abuse. Zura calls out a quote from Mobile Business Briefing to help explain the situation:

Companies with market dominance and widespread technologies that have become industry standards will be targeted,” said Kim Jun-beom, director of the FTC’s market supervision team. “Foreign companies that have a large influence on the domestic market also will be targeted.” Although the government's specific targets are unknown, experts say the probe will likely cover large domestic firms such as Samsung, LG and Hynix Semiconductor. The investigation is thought to be part of a crackdown by the government on alleged abuses by large corporations, including alleged unfair practices toward smaller companies. “Local small and midsize enterprises have suffered considerable damage from patent-related abuses by large domestic and foreign companies,” Kim said.

Whoa, nelly! Talk about a bucking bronco of an announcement and one that should help home-grown Korean medium and small (SMEs) businesses compete on a more even playing field than is currently the situation. The probe is not limited to outside businesses, mind you, and Zura notes that the investigation will target Korean businesses for wrong-doing starting in the middle of September with other potential unfairly competing companies coming next.

IPWatchdog.com: A major non-practicing entity (NPE) has garnered some careful attention from IP pundit Gene Quinn, the President and Founder of IPWatchdog.com, who pulls no punches in voicing his thoughts on the company's tactics in his topical piece, Mother of all Patent Trolls, Acacia Research, Gets More Funding. Quinn quips:

Technology companies have for far too long engaged patent trolls in a game of hunter and huntee, where the part of the prey is played by the technology giant who seeks to make and sell inventive products and offer innovative services. Much like the deer in the woods, who are not armed, they are shot by the hunters (i.e., the patent trolls) who are armed. Since patent trolls have nothing to fear in terms of a counterclaim (because they are not making or selling anything) they can fire at will without concern of being fired upon. In short, the strategy that technology companies employ is one that is likely to being shot at ever increasing rates. Add onto that the fact that in many situations the technology companies actually lose and lose big in patent infringement litigation, and add in the factor that they frequently settle, and it is hard to criticize any business person for making the choice to be a patent troll. In fact, being a patent troll seems like an almost guaranteed way to make money these days.

And, it could certainly be argued that business are in the business of making money, so NPEs that show strong tendencies towards profitability might attract a certain kind of investment-minded person that is looking only at the bottom line and not taking into account the ethical/moral concerns that Quinn seems to be focusing in his piece. Be sure to read all of the above linked work for more thoughts on why NPEs/patent trolls who "greatly overstate their case and send cookie cutter, non-specific and intellectually dishonest demands to technology giants" should be reigned in.

The CIPA Congress, IP in the New Decade, which takes place in the Lancaster Hotel, London on 30 September and 1 October, is extra sweet this year due to an offer by the crew at IPKat to pay for the admission of one lucky soul who wins their competition. The value of the prize is a non-measly 1075 pounds Sterling and should be a great way for the less-monetarily endowed to attend this excellent IP event sans cash outlay. You can find more on the contest rules here and read all the pertinent details courtesy of Jeremy Phillips in his related article, Now you can win without even going to court.

Patent Baristas.com: Stephen Albainy-Jenei comments on a CBS piece featured in this very blog the other day in his August 10th entry, CBS News Highlights Growing Backlog at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Here's what Albainy-Jenei shares with the gentle reader regarding the well-known admission of the USPTO's terrible pendency troubles:

...[W]ith an average wait time of 36 months and a backlog of 700,000 applications, Patent Office Director David Kappos says speeding up the process will help the economy. “The backlog is indeed our biggest problem. It represents innovations trapped in this agency that otherwise could be creating jobs.”

Kappos wants to cut the waiting time from 36 to 20 months and the backlog in half but he needs more money to hire an additional 1200 patent examiners and update computers. “It’s no taxpayer dollars at all– all the fees we collect come from patent applicants.”

Congress sets the fees charged by the patent office. The legislative branch also does not permit the patent office keep all $2 billion in its annual revenue, by diverting $200 million dollars a year for other federal budget items.  Legislation that would end fee diversion and empower USPTO to adjust its own fees is pending.

There is also a note to the effect that patent applicants would be willing to pay additional costs to process their submissions if it would mean a quicker turn-around, which would be a boon to time-sensitive innovations that are only valuable if capitalized on post haste.

Fashionista.com: Only a few days ago, New York Senator Charles E. Schumer penned a bill in the US Senate called the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act that would re-write the rules of fashion intellectual property with more protection for innovative fashions that qualify as "the most original design." Lauren Sherman has more on the subject in Why the New Intellectual Property Bill Might Tranform the Fashion Industry. She writes on the bill's long genesis:

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in April 2009. It was then amended with input from different groups within the fashion industry, and is now being presented to the Senate. If it passes in the Senate, it will become a law. (As long as the President signs off on it, that is.)

We know that the law will help to protect original designs from piracy, but how? Susan Scafidi, an intellectual property attorney and author of the popular fashion law blog Counterfeit Chic, broke it down for us. PS: If you’re interested in fashion and intellectual property law, you should be following Scafidi. She teaches a fashion law course at Fordham Law School and has been instrumental in launching Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute, where she serves as Director.

This would be quite the sea change in a marketplace where designs are *expected* to be pirated and copied and could create additional innovations in the lower segments of the fashion world which have only been duplicating leading ideas at knock-off prices and qualities in the past.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: How Fifty Percent Of China's 'High Tech' Companies Are Actually Fake by Vincent Fernando at Business insider - Money Game.

Ex-Senator Bob Kerrey And The MPAA Call It Quits

National Journal - Tech Daily Dose: Ex-Senator Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., figures prominently in a recent news story covering his bid to work at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Juliana Gruenwald reports on the rumored pairing in her topical piece, Kerrey, MPAA Part Ways. She writes:

The MPAA issued a brief statement Thursday saying that the movie industry group and Kerrey "have agreed to end negotiations regarding the position of chief executive officer of the MPAA. The search process for a new CEO will continue."

Kerrey released his own statement that said: "An agreement could not be reached and both sides agreed it would be best to break off discussions."

Kerrey will still have his day job as president of the New School University in New York, according to Gruenwald, which should keep him in the green until he can find a different post to fill, if one opens that both he, and they, find amenable.

MarketWatch: Anheuser-Busch InBev, despite fighting for its right to use the "Budweiser" name in every market on Earth, learns that sometimes, you just can't win, no matter how hard you try, even if you have a top-notch legal team. William Spain reports on A-B InBev's recent loss of the right to the name "Budweiser"  not only in the the Czech Republic, but in a much bigger market (read: more lucrative) that might crimp their profits (not to mention their style.) Here are a few of the pertinent bits from Spain's related A-B InBev loses Budweiser trademark battle in E.U. court:

The Budweiser brand is sold by AB InBev in about two dozen European countries, including the U.K., where both companies are allowed to use the name. But in Germany, Budvar will continue to have it all to itself.

The two have been feuding about the Budweiser name in courts across the globe for decades.

"This judgment has no effect on Anheuser-Busch InBev's business in Europe or our existing Bud and Budweiser rights, which remain strong and intact," said Marianne Amssoms, a spokeswoman for A-B InBev.

She added that the court battle was an attempt "to further expand our extensive trademark rights and gain additional protections that we continue to believe are rightfully ours," she added.

And, sadly, the EU does not agree with Ms. Amssoms (nice last name, don't you think?), which could keep A-B InBev from putting on the crown of world-wide Budweiser beer domination. Check out the rest of Spain's topical piece for the more of this true tale of beer name litigation.

ZDnet - Linux & Open Source: Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney jointly present their views on Why patent consortia are a good thing with a special focus on the benefits non-practicing entities have for open source software. From the blog entry comes these thoughts:

Open source is a shared enterprise. Its purpose is to organize really big ideas, ideas so big they can’t advance under the control of any one company, no matter how big.

Today’s software is something like the Egyptian pyramids we see today, or Machu Picchu as tourists see it today. That’s not what its builders saw. That’s what was underneath. It’s a foundation.

Critics of open source like to talk about how it doesn’t innovate. To some extent that’s true. But that’s not the point, my friend.

Without a sound foundation, software with billions of lines of code in it could never be written, or delivered bug-free at a profit to the world. It’s an organizing principle that works, within the framework of a free society.

Wow. Those are some serious comparisons and suppositions: open source software is like the pyramids and Machu Picchu. But can't we have Eiffel Tower-like applications without open source influences? Why yes, we can. Maybe the two, open source and protected software programming, can play nicely together while still retaining the fundamental principles that make them independently possible?

Bloomberg Businessweek: A sparkling wine showdown ends with the maker of a very high-end product winning over the maker of a much-more recent, and modestly-priced, entry into the marketplace. Don Jeffrey reports on the bubbly bout in his article entitled Champagne Louis Roederer Wins Cristal Trademark Case.

Champagne Louis Roederer, the maker of Cristal, won a trademark infringement case against J. Garcia Carrion SA over the labeling of sparkling wine.

Roederer began making Cristal champagne after being asked to produce a wine for Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1876 and has been selling it in the U.S. since 1937. Reims, France-based Roederer sued winemaker Garcia Carrion in 2006, saying the Spanish company began importing Cristalino sparkling wine into the U.S. long after Cristal was introduced in the country.

Garcia Carrion and distributor CIV USA must restrict the use of the “Cristalino” brand on the products they sell in the U.S., U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen in Minneapolis said in a July 27 order.

Never having enjoyed a glass of Cristal, I can't make any claims on the brand's drinkability, or price-to-value rating, but I can happily say that Cristalino is a great buy for celebrating everyday with a high rating at a very reasonable price. In a blind taste test, I imagine the average palate would be pleasantly surprised when the brown paper bags are removed!

Bonus IP piece o' the day: UPDATE 1-Court reverses Tyco loss to Becton in patent fight by Diane Bartz at Reuters.com.

Patent Holder Strikes Fear Into Smartphone Industry From Beyond The Grave

The Wall Street Journal: The holder of 50 patents is exerting his intellectual property rights from beyond the grave, as evidenced by the latest smartphone patent-related lawsuit by his former company, NTP. Roger Cheng reports on the long arm of patent law (from a far away as the distant shores of the river Styx) in his recent piece, 2nd UPDATE: NTP Sues Apple, Google, Other Smartphone Makers. He writes on one non-practicing entity's (NPE) attempt to squeeze a number of technology companies for some IP infringement cash:

NTP, which holds a number of patents but doesn't manufacture any products, filed a lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia against Apple, Google, HTC Corp. (HTCXF, 2498.TW), LG Electronics Inc. (066570.SE), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Motorola Inc. (MOT) over eight patents related to the wireless delivery of email to cellphones.

Legal tactics increasingly have become common among technology players looking to defend their turf, intimidate competitors or extract an additional revenue stream through a forced licensing agreement. NTP has precedence--Research In Motion paid the company $612.5 million in a settlement to prevent a potential injunction of its popular Blackberry smartphones--which makes it a legitimate threat to other smartphone makers.

"Use of NTP's intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees," company co-founder Donald E. Stout said in a statement. "We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property."

NTP isn't the only one applying patent pressure to other players in the smartphone business, with HTC, Apple, Google and others joining in the battle royale for patent supremacy, or at least, a lucrative cross-licensing agreement.

Patent Baristas.com: Monsanto finds itself holding the short end of the stick regarding its patented soy bean plants in a recent European ruling. Stephen Albainy-Jenei explains the loss by one the world's largest agricultural companies of some very significant intellectual property revenue in his timely piece, Monsanto Loses After EU Court Decides that Soy Meal No Longer Has Functional DNA. Here's the scoop:

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled against Monsanto Co. stating that “Monsanto cannot prohibit the marketing in the EU of soy meal containing, in a residual state, a [patented] DNA sequence.” Therefore, the European patent for the trait that makes soybeans resistant to the company’s Roundup herbicide doesn’t extend to soy meal made from the patented seeds.

This particular legal decision could cost Monsanto dearly in such places as Argentina, where the company enjoys no patent protection for its Round-up Ready soybean products. Argentina is one of the top planters of the RR soybeans, and Monsanto is losing uncounted millions in revenue. Read the rest of Albainy-Jenei's piece for the reasons given by the court for it unfavorable decision.

TechDirt.com: Amelia Andersdotter's guest post on Kenya's recent motion to put increased intellectual property protections in the country's Constitution clarifies why she thinks the move "makes little sense."  Andersdotter's Why Kenya's Attempt To Put Intellectual Property Rights In Its Constitution Is A Mistake provides more insights for the gentle reader:

Intellectual property law is still based in the nation state, but is very much shaped globally. A reform in one part of the world does not go without consequences in other parts, but, contrary to what some may imagine, the effects are rarely beneficial to either party.

An approval of the intellectual property rights provisions in the Kenyan constitution could come to be an example of that.

At best, they will not benefit European and American industries so much that they completely strangle Kenyan innovation, and they will not lock Europe and America on the path to democratic failure induced by our own intellectual property law reforms. At worst, and as often happens, a law reform in Kenya will create a precedent for reform in the entire East-African region, and become part of a global web that will lock in East-Africa, Europe and the Americas in an information policy of law suits and power concentration, harmful to creativity as well as innovation.

Points well made but only time will tell if the modification to Kenya's national IP law will have the intended, positive outcome as envisioned by those interested in making the country more attractive to outside investors. The same investors who have previously found the country's laws to be severely lacking in adequate protections.

ArsTechnica.com - Law & Disorder: Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the well-known file-sharing defendant in a long, drawn-out court battle with media representative, RIAA, is back in the news. Nate Anderson tells all about it in his July 7th article, Mediation in Thomas-Rasset case fails, RIAA hit with bill.

Minnesota's top federal judge, Michael Davis, certainly seems like a man who just wants the (in)famous Jammie Thomas-Rasset peer-to-peer file-sharing case on his docket to just go away. And the recording industry, which has prosecuted Thomas-Rasset through one name change, two trials, and three years, appears to be under the distinct impression that it's getting picked on.

After Judge Davis ordered the two sides to meet for a third round of mediation, at the RIAA's cost, which, of course, eventually broke down and failed, some have accused him of unfair bias in Thomas-Rasset's favor. Anderson has something to offer on that point, too:

Judge Davis certainly isn't on Thomas-Rasset's "side" here; indeed, when slashing the second trial award, he trashed Thomas-Rasset for the moment when she "lied on the witness stand by denying responsibility for her infringing acts and, instead, blamed others, including her children, for her actions."

But he certainly doesn't intend to let a huge damage award escape his courtroom. When reducing the $1.92 million award to $54,000, Davis arrived at this amount by awarding triple the $750 minimum for statutory damages. This amount is still "significant and harsh," he noted, but it's a "higher award than the Court might have chosen to impose in its sole discretion."

$1.92 million would have made a fat paycheck for the RIAA but honestly, $54,000 sounds a bit more in line with "the punishment should fit the crime" standard. Or? Weigh in on the issue with your comment and get things started.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: ACTA A Sign Of Weakness In Multilateral System, WIPO Head Says by Catherine Saez at Intellectual Property Watch.

Qui Tam Trolls Face Possible Extinction

PCWorld: A US International Trade Commission (USITC) June 15th hearing grappled with the issue of putting an accurate valuation on the amount of monetary losses caused by piracy of American intellectual property abroad. Grant Gross, of IDG News, covers the testimony of a variety of witnesses and their various suggestions on how best to establish a damage amount and how to better address the issue of China's huge piracy problem. In his related piece, US Panel Looks at Intellectual Property Violations in China, Gross writes:

The estimates of monetary damages released by many U.S. industries often assume that a pirated copyright of a product like software or a music CD blocks the sale of an authorized copy, when that may not be the case, said Fritz Foley, a professor in the Harvard University business school.

"It seems a bit crazy to me to assume that someone who would pay some low amount for a pirated product would be the type of customer who'd pay some amount that's six or 10 that amount for a real one," he said during the first day of a two-day USITC hearing on the impact of Chinese intellectual property infringement on the U.S. economy. "Be careful about using information the multinational [companies] provide you. I would imagine they have an incentive to make the losses seem very, very large."

Then there's also the loss of democratic influence and raw material sales that accompany pirated products on their way into Chinese consumers' hands. That not to say that IP piracy in China does not extract huge amounts of money from US companies, but rather, such affirmations help to temper the inflated numbers sometimes quoted by industry types based on the lost sale for each piece of pirated content at full retail price, which belies the fact that most people who buy pirated goods would never pay the going rate for the item. Fascinating stuff and well worth a read, so be sure to check out the rest of Gross' piece via the link above.

Telegraph.co.uk: Intellectual property plays a major role for a variety of businesses and a topical piece by Andrew Cave covers two such operations that have played their IP cards for large returns. Cave's Intellectual property success stories covers the successes of Spotify and DQ Entertainment based largely on their well-leveraged IP strategies. He writes:

...Spotify, the music streaming service founded as a start-up business in Sweden in 2006, is also generating solid growth.

Co-founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, Spotify has quickly grown to 2 million users in the UK — 5 million in Spain, France, Sweden, Norway and Finland — allowing them to listen to songs in return for either paying a monthly fee or agreeing to listen to a minute of radio-style advertising breaks every half hour.

More than 8 million songs are on the service, with Spotify adding about 10,000 tracks every day. In the UK, Spotify has agreements in place with the four major record companies and pays them royalties from the revenues it collects.

Spotify’s vice-president of product development, Gustav Söderström, says their vision of music being streamed, rather than downloaded, was key to persuading the major companies to sign up, as the music remains on Spotify’s servers and is played over the internet or via cache memories.

By creating a music service that acknowledges copyrights and the royalty payments that accompany them, the crew at Spotify have managed to grab a significant user base who might otherwise have downloaded illegal files and bypassed payments to artists and the agents who represent them. DQ Entertainment, an Hyperabad, India-based animation startup, also worked in the system to secure the rights to Disney's Jungle Book storyline and is in the process of making a 3D feature animation for television. Both stories point to the excellent prospects IP provides when used correctly and in a legal fashion.

PatLit: The American Bar Association (ABA) is coming out in favor of a proposed piece of legislation that would curtail the age-old IP whistle-blower practice known as qui tam. Jeremy Phillips is kind enough to offer some additional information for the gentle reader in his topical post, Time up for qui tam trolls? Here's the takeaway on the ABA's support for H.R. 4954 which is currently under consideration by the US House Committee on the Judiciary:

We support amendment of Section 292 to assure that private actions may be brought by persons who suffer injury from reliance on false markings even though they may not as a technical matter qualify as competitors. For example, small and medium sized manufacturers may lack the legal sophistication to know that they should verify the listing, or the resources to do so. Relying injuriously on the false marking, they decide not to enter the competition. We recommend a clarifying amendment to H.R. 4954 to assure that such parties are eligible to bring an action against the false marker. This could be accomplished by inserting ‘or who was injured by having detrimentally relied on such violation’ after ‘this section’ in line 8, page 1 of the bill".

Putting a "real life" cost into the equation of qui tam cases could add a touch of sanity to the potentially devastating costs associated with the successful prosecution of such situations and bring relief for SMEs that can't possibly afford to fight every instance of false marking that is brought to trial.

ABAJournal: In a related, but separate piece, the man behind the infamous Solo Cup qui tam case has lost his bid for a huge false marking jackpot. More details from Debra Cassens Weiss' IP Lawyer Who Spotted Expired Patent on Solo Cup Lid Loses Quest for Trillions in Damages:

San Diego patent lawyer Matthew Pequignot had asserted a right to trillions of dollars in damages after realizing that patent markings on the lid to his daily cup of coffee had actually expired several years before.

He lost his quest in a ruling last Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the National Law Journal reports. The court found that Pequignot failed to prove the defendant company intended to deceive the public with its false mark, a requirement under the recovery statute.

Pequignot had sued Solo Cup under a under a qui tam provision in the patent law that allows citizen whistle-blowers to sue companies that deceive the public with false patent numbers and to split the damages recovered with the federal government, Corporate Counsel reported last month.

Pequignot's judge did the math, and at $500 per falsely marked item, which number some 10,8000,000 Solo cups, and came up wtih 5.4 trillion dollars. Fortunately for Solo, common sense prevailed and Pequignot will have to seek his fortune elsewhere than in the coffers of Solo Cup.

Law.com: Check out a review of confab at the Newseum featuring an assembled panel of IP luminaries discussing the merit of the pending Patent Reform Act in IP Experts Question Patent Reform Provisions by Jenna Greene.

UK Parliament Up In Arms Over “Pay or get sued” Legal Tactics

ArsTechnica.com: Members of the British Parliament are struggling to address the influx of letters from angered constituents who have been served "pay up or we'll sue" types of letters from law firms representing Internet media concerns. Nate Anderson provides in-depth coverage of the issue in his topical piece, "Straightforward legal blackmail": a tale of P2P lawyering. Here is the meat of the matter:

On January 26, 2010, the UK's Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall—yes, it's a real title—stood up and told his fellow peers in the House of Lords that the new crop of anti-P2P "settle or we'll sue your trousers off" warning letters were a travesty of justice.

"In a civil procedure on a technical matter, it amounts to blackmail," thundered the libertarian lord-slash-blogger. "The cost of defending one of these things is reckoned to be £10,000. You can get away with asking for £500 or £1,000 and be paid on most occasions without any effort having to be made to really establish guilt. It is straightforward legal blackmail."

The same types of letters have been used to some effect by lawyers in the United States, with the RIAA spending the most time in the spotlight for its use of "John Doe" lawsuits against illegal P2P file downloaders. Also of note is the US Copyright Group who has filed some 14,000 suits against purported illegal file downloaders which have generated some raised eyebrows and ire among those more skeptical citizens and subject-area experts. Anderson's piece highlights some of the banter in the Houses of Parliament and also informs the gentle reader about the primary legal firm's actions that have been generating so much negative commentary.

TMCNet.com: Contributing Editor David Sims suggests a different way to protect XML software secrets in his topical piece Encryption Protects VoiceXML Developer IP. He writes:

Consider, friends, if you make your livelihood through professional services, how you protect your intellectual property? If you’re a solution provider you might have a platform, application scripts or Web services to worry about, right? And if you’re a vertical market systems integrator, well, no doubt there are application scripts and Web services on purchased platform.

If you’re a consultant developing VoiceXML applications for hire, you know full well the value of protecting your intellectual property, and even if you’re simply  a COTS software developer, working with off-the-shelf software or an applications vendor. You have issues. Well, with intellectual property, at least.

Sims has a specific product recommendation to make, but in general, his solution is to implement an encryption routine that keeps the "secret sauce" of an otherwise open, public software application from prying eyes, and from unauthorized copying. Solid advice and worth a few moments' time to check out.

Patent Baristas.com: A recent piece by Stephen Albainy-Jenei covers the world of lab mouse patentry with a specific case headlining the article. Jackson Labs Doesn’t Infringe After Patent Discloses But Does Not Claim Mouse is a somewhat lengthy review of the legal proceedings accompanying a complicated example of not-so-careful patent wording. Albainy-Jenei begins with this introductory passage:

The Jackson Laboratory, a biomedical research institution and repository for laboratory mice, won a summary judgment of no patent infringement against The Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA). CIEA, a non-profit Japanese corporation that develops animal models used for scientific research, alleged that Jackson had infringed U.S. Pat. No. No. 7,145,055 directed to the creation of transgenic immunodeficient mice by breeding particular progenitor mice, called the NSG mouse.  Central Institute for Experimental Animals v. Jackson Labs, No. C-08-05568.

The problem lay in the disclosure of a certain kind of mouse without a concomitant claim:

The court found no claim infringement under the doctrine of equivalents based on the disclosure-dedication rule. That is, when a patent discloses but does not claim subject matter, the unclaimed subject matter is dedicated to the public and cannot be recaptured under the doctrine of equivalents.

This means that although Jackson Laboratory won its case, the use of its disclosed mouse can continue by the defendant or other companies that desire to do so. Next time Jackson Labs will most certainly be extra careful when disclosing proprietary information without claiming it in a patent application, don't you think?

PatLit: One need not actually spend money making a product to receive an injunction from the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to stop competitors from infringing on a held patent. Gena Mason's NPEs find a friend in the ITC clarifies how patent holding companies can get injunctive relief after a recent decision by the ITC agrees that money spent on patent litigation qualifies as a "substantial investment" in protecting said patent.

To win an exclusion order, an ITC complainant must show that it has established, or is in the process of establishing, a domestic industry in relation to a disputed patent. Under the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S.C. § 1337(a)(2) and (3), this may be accomplished by demonstrating a "substantial investment" in exploiting the patent in the United States, including related licensing activities. In Certain Coaxial Cable Connectors, complainant PPC sought to bar multiple respondents from marketing an item on which PPC owned the patent. PPC did not manufacture the product, own a plant or equipment, or employ workers. Instead the company argued that its legal bills that resulted from enforcing its patent constituted a significant investment in exploiting its patent. Therefore, PPC claimed, it had a domestic industry that deserved protection. The ITC agreed.

Find out the related legal details of this precedent-setting decision by reading the rest of Mason's piece at the link above.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Defining Success: Were The RIAA's Lawsuits A Success Or Not? by Mike Masnick at TechDirt.com.

Ricoh Strikes Back At Quanta Computer With Infringement Victory

PatLit: Ricoh, international manufacturer of electronic products, including cameras and office equipment, has won an intellectual property (IP) victory in a battle with Quanta Computer. Gena Mason shares details of this development in her topical post, Ricoh undercuts NPE profit potential. She writes:

If other U.S. courts follow the lead of Wisconsin District Court Judge Barbara Crabb, NPEs (non-practicing entities, or "patent trolls") may soon see an end to their massive settlement winnings. Last month, office equipment manufacturer Ricoh won an infringement action against Taiwanese company Quanta Computer. But Crabb rejected Ricoh's request for an injunction to prevent Quanta from selling the patented optical drives at the heart of the suit. Pointing to eBay (547 U.S. 388 (2006)), the judge diverged from traditions of presumptive injunctive relief in cases of patent infringement cases, and instead appeared to establish certain criteria for distinguishing among types of patent holders. Such criteria seemed intended as a direct hit against NPEs.

The justification given by Judge Crabb for not granting Ricoh an injunction hinges on the small amount of damage done by Quanta to Ricoh's bottom line. As part of the settlement, both companies have been directed to come to a mutually-satisfactory licensing agreement that would allow on-going production of products by Quanta. Read the rest of Mason's piece for the remainder of the story.

Technology and Culture: Carolyn C. Cooper's review of two books on topics related to intellectual property compares and contrasts the takes on the state of patent affairs and addresses some of the reasons it has become such a polarizing issue for many interested parties. The works in question are: Jeffrey H. Matsuura’s Jefferson vs. the Patent Trolls: A Populist Vision of Intellectual Property Rights (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, pp. ix+154, $27.95) and Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine’s Against Intellectual Monopoly (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. viii+298, $30) Here, then, are Cooper's initial impressions of the two tomes for the gentle reader:

Matsuura’s jaunty title and dust-jacket picture resembling a “better mousetrap” suggest a sprightly story, perhaps of Jefferson’s actual encounters with specific patent applications in the years 1790–1793, when he personally was one-third of the Board of Arts charged with judging their utility and novelty. Alas, that would have required primary research in probably nonexistent documents. Instead Matsuura has written an extended essay on Jefferson’s intellectual worldview with regard to science, technology (“useful arts”), collective creation of knowledge, liberation by enlightenment, and the welfare of society. Also misleadingly, the red, white, and black dust jacket of Boldrin and Levine’s book screams “against intellectual monopoly” across the circular copyright symbol, provoking expectation of an incoherent rant. But the text is serious and straightforward, clearly and eloquently expressed, and well-documented. It insists that patents and copyrights are unnecessary for the production of inventive and innovative ways to benefit humanity, and that they damage economy and society in all the ways that monopolies inevitably do.

Cooper also points out that one of the books lies under the copyright of the authors, while the other will benefit only the institution that helped to fund and father it. Both books should make excellent reads and serve as a gentle helper should the IP aficionado require some pre-bedtime entertainment. More of Cooper's review in Does Intellectual Property Protection Mean Pursuit of Patent Perpetuity?

BroadbandBreakfast: For those involved in IP and telecommunications (which go together like bread and butter), a shortly upcoming event should rank high on the list of mandatory meetings, especially for those in the Washington D.C. metro area. Sylvia Syracuse, Director of Marketing and Events at BroadbandBreakfast.com, has additional information in Tuesday’s Free Intellectual Property Breakfast Club on Retrans Consent a ‘Must Attend’ Event. Here's the scoop:

The panel, to be held at Clyde’s of Gallery Place at 707 7th Street NW, in Washington, is certain to be the “must attend” event on this increasingly hot topic of “New Retransmission Consent Battles and Licensing Video Content.” The panel will be moderated by Sarah Lai Stirland, Assistant Managing Editor of BroadbandBreakfast.com, and a veteran reporter on intellectual property- and technology-related matters.

The event continues BroadbandBreakfast.com’s new monthly breakfast series on controversies involving copyright, trademark and patent-related subjects, launched in May 2010 with a panel on the Google Book Search Settlement.

Mark down June 8th in your calendar and be sure to join in this free, on the record, and public discussion by registering right away. You can also check out a video featuring the May panel discussion on Google's book scanning efforts via the story linked above.

Mississippi Criminal Defense Blog: The latest in an on-going series of crime-focused blog entries, Clarence Guthrie's recent Federal Crime of the Week – Theft of Intellectual Property helps explain what exactly constitutes IP theft and what can be expected for those accused of stealing another person or business' protected works. Here is Guthrie's initial description of what qualifies as IP theft:

There are many ways to infringe on or steal intellectual property.  If you download pirated music or movies, you have stolen someone’s intellectual property.  We have discussed bootlegging DVDs, and that is a form of intellectual property theft.  If you sell clothing or other items with fake brand names on it, you have possibly stolen intellectual property.  If you work for one company, and then go to work for that company’s competitor with the company’s “secret formula,” you have stolen intellectual property.

The rest of Guthrie's piece explains with more granularity the various types of crimes related to patented, copyrighted, trademarked, or otherwise privileged classes of IP, and should serve as both a good primer for the novice and as a nice advertisement for Guthrie's legal practice.

The Register: When viewed from across the pond, the Google open codec project seems to be gaining ground against the swelling tide of IP troubles attached to the VP8 solution. Cade Metz reports on Google's efforts to "gift" the world an open source codec and how a new approach to licensing might solve future patent troubles:

Rather than submit the new license for approval, Google has simply separated the patent grant from the copyright license. The end result is that VP8 is now licensed under pure BSD. The patent grant is a separate document. "Using patent language borrowed from both the Apache and GPLv3 patent clauses, in this new iteration of the patent clause we've decoupled patents from copyright, thus preserving the pure BSD nature of the copyright license. This means we are no longer creating a new open source copyright license, and the patent grant can exist on its own," DiBona wrote today.

"Additionally, we have updated the patent grant language to make it clearer that the grant includes the right to modify the code and give it to others."

MPGE LA had previously made noise about purchasing the necessary IP to create a "patent thicket" around Google's open source VP8 codec, and that might still be possible, but with its response to questions about the validity of the open-ness of the partially-BSD licensed software, Google may be better prepared to defend itself should patent push come to patent shove. Google open codec wins OSI love after patent shield rethink for the win.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Letter from AmeriKat - New York Times v Wall Street Journal at IPKat.com by Annsley Merelle Ward.

Aging Pro Wrestler Grapples With Cereal Company Over Trademark

JusticeNewsFlash.com: A veteran wrestler known for his trademark appearance is suing a cereal company for using his likeness in an unauthorized advertising campaign. Nicole Howley has more details on this interesting IP development in her topical piece entitled Intellectual Property Lawsuit: Hulk Hogan dukes it out with Post Foods. She writes:

Terry Bollea, or more widely known as wrestling champion Hulk Hogan, has filed lawsuit against Post Foods for using his likeness for a television ad without his permission. The Hulkster filed the lawsuit in Tampa District Court, which alleges misappropriation of name and likeness and false endorsement, as reported by The New York Times and ABC News.

And indeed, in the commercial's plot line, a cartoon character with Hogan's likeness "is shown humiliated and cracked into pieces with broken teeth" which is not in keeping with the Hulkster's normal end-of-bout status. Also included in the article is a reference to the name used by Bollea before taking that of "Hulk Hogan," "Hulk Boulder," which reinforces his case that Post Cereal is using his likeness as a popular wrestling star to sell its products.

ArsTechnica.com - Law & Disorder: Nate Anderson reports on the large increase of John Doe lawsuits filed in Washington DC against P2P filesharers by a very active Virginia law firm in his related article, The RIAA? Amateurs. Here's how you sue 14,000+ P2P users. Anderson points out the model need not be successful on a" lawsuits won" basis, only on a "settlements collected" one:

The legal campaign has the potential to earn real money. Copies of the settlement letters and settlement contracts seen by Ars Technica show that Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver generally asks for $1,500 to $2,500, threatening to sue for $150,000 if no settlement payment is forthcoming. Assuming that 90 percent of the current targets settle for $1,500, this means that the lawyers, studios, and P2P detection company would split $19.7 million.

Once the infrastructure has been set up, this sort of system is simple to replicate, since it's built largely on sending out letters and collecting cash. If the lawyers can continue signing up indie film clients at the current rate, they could be on their way to filing nearly 30,000 lawsuits by year's end, which would double the potential cash on the table.

Without any time in court prosecuting accused P2P filesharers, the legal firm, and the film makers they represent, stand to make millions of dollars on threats alone. A profitable business model, maybe, but one that probably make many accused infringers very unhappy, yessir. Be sure to read the rest of Anderson's well-written piece for some more facts and figures on making John Doe subpoenas pay handsomely.

NationalJournal.com - Tech Daily Dose: Sometimes strange things happen when no one's looking very closely. Point in case: a recent post by Juliana Greunwald highlights the partnering of a government agency with the world's leading search engine provider, while at the same time, other branches of the same government are investigating the firm for patent infringement and anti-competitive practices. From Gruenwald's PTO Teams With Google On Trademark, Patent Database:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Wednesday announced it has reached a two-year "no-cost" agreement with Google to make patent and trademark data electronically available for free to the public in bulk form.

Saying it currently lacks the technical capacity to offer such a service itself, the PTO said the two-year agreement with Google is a temporary solution while the agency seeks a contractor to build the PTO its own database that would allow the public to access such data in electronic machine-readable bulk form.

This move marks a change from the USPTO's previous practice of charging a fee for access to its database of "patent grants and published applications; trademark applications; trademark trial and appeal board proceedings; patent classification information; patent maintenance fee information; and patent and trademark assignments" and will allow access to this data to be more available due to its new, cost-free structure.

IPKat: Large sporting organizations have taken to very strong enforcement of their intellectual property rights as of late, and The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) is no exception. A South African company known for its somewhat strange but witty adverts has come up against FIFA's strong IP stance but has managed to produce a second version of its controversial pre-World Cup commercial that carefully complies with the letter of the law. Jeremy highlights the differences between the two advertisements in his explicatory work, Put those vuvuzelas away, here comes FIFA. I'll not spoil the fun, so you'll have to visit the linked piece to see the graphics and join in the silliness yourself.

TechDirt.com: A patent collector who has a special penchant for suing Google (as does his wife) recently related how he prefers a "sue first, ask questions later" kind of legal program and has had some success with his particular lawsuit modus operandus in the very amenable legal venue of Eastern Texas. Mike Masnick has further information on a married duo's lifes' work in his June 1st blog post, Patent Troll Mantra: Sue First, Ask Questions Later.

Law.com now has an article about a recent panel discussion that included Spangenberg, where he explained that it was always better to sue first, without first contacting a company about licensing or alerting them to the fact that you believed their products infringed. Why? Because he's afraid that if you contact them first, they'll sue for declaratory judgment, and that would suck, because those lawsuits won't take place in Spangenberg's favorite court in East Texas. Why does he like East Texas, by the way? Because the folks there just love handing out huge awards.

Masnick, obviously no fan of the Spangenberg's method of making money, points out that he hopes eventually someone, somewhere will take enough umbrage with such legal shenanigans to change things up a little bit and maybe that will include reducing the attractiveness of such popular court locations like Eastern Texas. As far as the current round of proposed patent reforms: "When asked about it, Spangenberg correctly notes that it won't change anything."

Bonus IP piece o' the day: CAFC Judges Should Be Require to Examine Patent Applications by Gene Quinn at IPWatchdog.com.

Copyright Alliance Chief Speaks Out On White House IP Enforcement Strategy

BMI: Patrick Ross, executive director of the Copyright Alliance, offers some thoughts on the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Strategy program in his topical piece, U.S. Intellectual Property Plan Will Impact All Levels of Creative Community. He writes:

Countless...voices are speaking up about the hows and whys of copyright in the digital age, not from the theoretical perspective of inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia and remote academics, but in a tangible, everyday, providing-for-a-family kind of way.

The federal government continues to have a critical role to play in enforcing copyright laws. Policy initiatives, regulatory proceedings and implementations of law are occurring across multiple agencies, from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice. For the first time, the IPEC will provide a coordinating function that will ensure consistency of purpose and facilitate efficient use of resources.

The creators across America await the IPEC’s plan in hopes it signals a renewal of the U.S. government’s commitment to jobs, exports, culture and the historic role copyright has played in allowing our creativity to flourish.

Ross rightly points out the IPEC's importance to artists, authors and other creatives who rely on the protection of their work to make a living and undoubtedly, most testimony submitted in response to the White House's call for comments supports such a view. Be sure to read the rest of Ross' piece at the link above for some real-life cases that lend credence to the argument in favor of reasonable intellectual property protections.

The New York Times - Shott's Vocab: Ben Schott adds to the lexicon of interesting terms via his regular blog posts and a recent entry, The Patent Cliff, may be of some interest to the IP reader. Here's the definition given for the term "patent cliff" as it relates to pharmaceutical companies' drug lines:

Most of the drug industry’s top sellers will likewise lose patent protection over the next several years. There are no new big sellers to fill the gap. …

Pfizer says that patent expiries are only one reason why it is cutting manufacturing. Its purchase of rival Wyeth last year created redundancies and new options for creating efficiency. It will need to. Exactly how much cost drug companies can wring out of their balance sheets as patents expire is one of the key questions facing the pharmaceutical industry as they head over what analysts are calling the patent cliff.

Of course, companies such as Pfizer have additional products in the pipeline to keep the profits rolling in, and since the business of researching and producing drugs is among the most profitable, the patent cliff might just be a launching point for a jump across to the far side, where new patents and profits await.

BPCouncil: Anti-Counterfeiting Heroes: The GACA Awardees of 2009 needs no explanations, so here is the skinny on this year's picks:

Those who have contributed to the fight against counterfeiting and illegal trade “above and beyond the call of duty” were recently recognized when they were announced as winners of the eleventh annual Global Anti-Counterfeiting Awards in Paris. The presentation of the GAC Awards – sponsored by the Reconnaissance International-published Authentication News™ and the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group (GACG) Network – was part of the World Anti-Counterfeiting Day events organised by the Union des Fabricants. The awards were made as a continuing recognition of special achievements by these individuals and organisations.

The awardees include Unilever and interestingly enough, a group of Chinese officials who have been hailed as "people's heroes" for their work to reduce the problems of counterfeiting in a nation known for its lax intellectual property enforcement. Find out the exact composition of the GACA selectees here.

Bloomberg Businessweek: Foundering telecommunications corporation Nortel might be in for a large amount of revenue from the sales of its last remaining valuable asset: its patent portfolio. Hugo Miller reports on this example of "proof positive" evidence that IP can be worth quite a bit of moola in his recent piece, Nortel May Raise as Much as $1.1 Billion From Patents (Update2). Here's a snippet that explains why Nortel's IP is such a great deal:

The Toronto-based company has about 4,500 patents granted and more than 1,000 applications for designs pending, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data, said Peter Conley of MDB Capital Group LLC, who estimated their value. They would be a “natural fit” for BlackBerry maker RIM, he said.

“Patent estates of this size don’t come along that often,” said Conley, who is managing director of Santa Monica- based MDB, an investment bank specialized in intellectual property. “This is the equivalent of acquiring the IP of a large technology company. If you could buy that for a billion dollars, it would be a bargain.”

It's not every day one hears a billion-dollar purchase referred to as "a bargain," but in this case, that seems to be an adequate description. There are even some IP experts that see the estimated $1 billion purchase price as being too conservative due to Nortel's Long Term Evolution, or LTE, patents for new high-speed wireless technology collectively known as "4G."

TMCNet.com: A non-practicing entity (NPE) has reached a settled with Verizon over the infringement of 3 of their patents.

General Patent Corporation (GPC), a patent licensing and enforcement company, today announced that its subsidiary, Digital Technology Licensing LLC, has reached a settlement with Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless of three patent lawsuits involving the DTL cellular communications patents.

Check out General Patents settles lawsuit for the rest of the story.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: The Wait Continues: Another Day Without a Bilski Decision by Gene Quinn at IPWatchdog.com.

White House IP Czar Releases Intellectual Property Enforcement Update

The White House: Intellectual Property Czar Victoria Espinel comments on her on-going campaign to collect input from the public to help shape US IP enforcement policy in her recent blog post entitled Hearing from America on Intellectual Property. She writes:

Over the last few months, I have been working with policymakers across federal agencies to address the problems faced by American businesses with regards to intellectual property infringement.  There are a number of critical programs in place to support business and we are working to make these programs more effective and develop new programs where gaps exist.

Just as important as our work with agencies, however, I have had the chance to meet with and hear from people who actually live with these issues on a day-to-day basis, whether it is a small business owner facing IP theft for the first time, a large company that deals with infringement on a regular basis, or a labor organization concerned about losing jobs because of counterfeiting and other forms of infringement.  Even as somebody who has worked extensively on these issues, it’s been an amazing reminder of how intellectual property enforcement affects every corner of our country.

Espinel also details meetings with businesses large and small, media producers, and even a cement manufacturer whose proprietary products " protect our environment" in order to better understand what the stakes are for American businesses that rely on strong IP enforcement policies to remain profitable. She also pledges to continue to gather opinions and information as she works to shape a new US IP strategy.

PC World: A number of groups are competing to round up patents in collective pools for use in LTE (Long-Term Evolution) technology efforts. Stephen Lawson's topical piece, LTE Patent Pools Taking Shape, explains how these pools are forming:

Formation of the pools is still at an early stage, with none of them yet operating and no patent holders publicly announcing their affiliations. But while all three say they are months away from operation, Via claims it has the most aggressive program. After kicking it off in January, the company could get its patent pool running in as little as 12 months, said John Ehler, Via Licensing's director of wireless programs. MPEG LA has been working on its own pool for about two years and hopes to have it in operation next year, Geary said. Sisvel's Corey said it takes between 18 months and two years to get a program going.

All three companies want to have the biggest pool, to make it easy for vendors large and small to license everything they need. In this way, patent pooling should help to accelerate adoption of LTE, the patent-pool promoters said. It could also attract a broader range of companies, such as consumer electronics makers and embedded device manufacturers, to the fast networks.

These pools could help smartphone manufacturers in their bid to get new and complex products to market without fears of running afoul of intellectual property lawsuits. One only has to look at the on-going lawsuit battles among the major smartphone players, Apple, HTC, and Nokia, for proof that LTE patent pools might just be the way to jump start the next generation of hi-tech devices.

PatentBaristas.com: A new European blog will cover patent law from across the Big Pond. Stephen Albainy-Jenei offers a bit of insight into what's in store for the audience of the EPLAW Patent Blog in his related piece, EPLAW Patent Blog Provides Patent Information from European Jurisdictions. Here's the summary of EPLAW Patent Blog's mission:

The EPLAW Patent Blog aims to be a top-quality, free, independent European blog on patent law, providing speedy access to patent judgments and patent information from various European jurisdictions.

The blog intends to -over time- cover all relevant European national patent case law and news from all European jurisdictions. Also, the blog contains posts providing in-depth analysis of current developments. Of course, the blog provides a perfect platform for discussion.

The content of the blog is provided by an international team of patent specialists acting as editors/correspondents. Third party contributions are welcomed (although we do reserve the right to not publish all materials sent to us).

If that sounds like your cup of tea, make a visit to the EPLAW Patent Blog and check out what is sure to be a welcome entry to the European patent coverage world.

Intellectual Property Watch: The World Health Organization(WHO) is struggling with its mandate to protect the IP rights of certain member nations, while allowing others to violate them under the guise of "public health." Some stakeholders argue that the production of generic medicines is not solely for the health of a populace, but rather for economic gain. And it's causing quite a hullabaloo as the concerned parties rally to their respective sides of the argument. Kaitlin Mara reports on the situation in her topical piece, Debate Erupts Over WHO Police Work Against “Counterfeit” Drugs Trade. At the center of the debate is Brazil.

A battle broke out yesterday at the World Health Organization over whether it should continue its relationship with an in-house anti-counterfeiting law enforcement and customs group, and what that decision might mean for the role of the organisation in the fight against fake medicines.

Some countries seem to be “trying to disguise trade and commercial interests under public health,” the ambassador of Brazil told a committee on the counterfeit issue at the annual World Health Assembly yesterday. “This is what is at stake in this negotiation.”

And at least one member nation is seeking to remove themselves from the constraints and oversight of the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT), which has lobbied hard for strict interpretations of what is considered to be a counterfeit drug or medical device:

When IMPACT approached Kenya on the issue of counterfeit, it went through the ministry of trade, and the law was passed without consulting the ministry of health. They presented model legislation, and used the trusted letterhead of the WHO, he added. They have also been approaching other countries in Africa, such as South Africa.

“Who is pushing this?” the delegate asked, later adding “If you’re not happy in a marriage, you obviously get divorced… [we are] seeking that this marriage between WHO and IMPACT come to an end and we start proceedings on the divorce.”

Clearly, things are heating up over the debate on big pharma, IP, counterfeit drugs and public health concerns in developing nations. Maybe the whole mess should be shunted off to a more applicable venue, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, and after definitions and semantics are codified, the real work of helping sick people get healthy can begin.

IPKat: A German court case against the owner of an open WiFi hotspot draws attention to the liabilities inherent in allowing the public to access the Internet on a private network. Mark Schweizer explains why an unsecure network is generally a bad idea in his topical article, Germany: liability for an unsecured private WiFi network:

An interesting case has been decided by the German BGH on 12 May 2010. A private individual left his home WiFi router unsecured (on factory default settings). Someone downloaded a copyright protected piece of music using the unsecured WiFi spot. The owner could show that he was, at the time of the download, on vacation and could therefore not have been the one downloading. The owner of the copyright in the song sued for copyright infringement, asking for an injunction and financial damages.

After being found at fault, the no-longer-on-vacation WiFi hotspot owner was fortunate enough to be relieved of his guilt by an appeals court. As usual, the accused's fate rested in the hands of legal semantics, in this case the different between being a "doer" and a "disturber."

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Google backs open codec against patent trolls by Cade Metz  at The Register.com.

Palm’s Intellectual Property Assets Bought By Hewlett-Packard

ZDNet.com - Between the Lines: Larry Dignan's Palm's WebOS, intellectual property touched off bidding war highlights the important role intellectual property (IP) played in the battle for control over the foundering company's assets. He writes:

The one common thread with all of these suitors? They wanted intellectual property transactions and many of the potential buyers were as interested in a licensing arrangement for things like the WebOS. However, an IP deal wouldn’t help Palm all that much. Palm said:

While an intellectual property transaction might improve Palm’s financial condition, such a transaction would not address the longer-term issues of the adequacy of Palm’s scale and resources, and would tend to compromise the value of Palm’s intellectual property portfolio, which management and the Board considered to be a core strategic asset.

At one point, there were over a dozen suitors vying for Palm's quickly cooling corpse but the real mystery is the identity of "Company C" and why it declined to best HP's bid after making it so far along in the purchasing scrum.

Company C’s early proposals revolved around IP licensing. Through April 17, HP wasn’t budging off of an offer for $4.75 a share in cash for Palm. However, Company C proposed buying Palm for $6 to $7 a share on April 18. Palm went back to HP wit its own merger agreement. Company C left an opening after it cut its bid do $5.50 a share.

... Obviously, Company C felt it needed a mobile operating system badly. HP also decided it needed the WebOS too. While Palm obviously couldn’t save the company with its WebOS others think they can do something with the mobile operating system.

HP won this time around but it remains to be seen if the company can turn Palm's patent portfolio into a profitable business.

Microsoft News Center: From a recent press release come further details on the settlement between Microsoft and VirnetX, a company that specializes in "developing and commercializing software and technology solutions for securing real-time communications over the Internet." Here's one of the more relevant passages for the gentle readers' enjoyment:

VirnetX Holding Corporation and Microsoft Corporation today announced that they have settled the patent infringement cases brought by VirnetX before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Pursuant to the settlement, both lawsuits will be dismissed.

As part of the settlement, Microsoft takes a license to the VirnetX patents for Microsoft’s products and will make a one-time payment of $200 million to VirnetX. All other aspects of the settlement and license were not disclosed.

A disappointment for the Washington-based software company but one that gives credence to that old chestnet "You win some, you lose some." Given the name of the winning party, it appears that VirnetX is a non-practicing entity (NPE) with its exclusive products being patents and lawsuits. Check out more on this settlement in the press release: Microsoft and VirnetX Settle Patent Infringement Cases.

NationalJournal.com - Tech Daily Dose: A group of information technology (IT) companies is putting their collective might behind a stand-alone measure that would increase funding for the US Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Herculean efforts to reduce patent pendency, but are united against the most recent version of the Senate's patent reform bill. Juliana Gruenwald reports on The Coalition for Patent Fairness' announcement in her topical piece, IT Coalition Backs PTO Fee Bill:

The coalition's support comes on the same day that two other groups that back the broader compromise patent overhaul measure offered by the Senate Judiciary Committee's leaders came out against the stand-alone fee setting bill because it does not include language barring the diversion of PTO fees for other government activities. The Coalition for Patent Fairness agrees this is an important concern but said the PTO's need for additional funding outweighs the issue. In the letter, the coalition said the PTO's need for additional funding should not be held back by those who favor a broader patent overhaul bill.

But not all concerned parties are for the coalition's support of the USPTO's proposed ability to set fees related to the patent process. Again, Gruenwald provides news of an opposing viewpoint in a second, related piece entitled Groups Oppose Bill To Give PTO Fee-Setting Authority. She writes on the bill's current status:

The House is expected to take up the bill on Tuesday that would give the PTO fee-setting authority. The provision is in a broader compromise patent overhaul bill backed by the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, which is made up of such companies as DuPont, General Electric, Motorola, Texas Instruments, and 3M. The broader patent reform bill is awaiting action by the full Senate.

Both AIPLA and the coalition said in separate statements Monday that while they back the idea of allowing the PTO to set fees to adequately fund its operations and improve the time it takes to review patents, they opposes the House bill because it does not include a provision that would prohibit PTO fees from being diverted for other government programs.

Basically, the noted groups want USPTO fees to go back into the USPTO's pot of funds instead of being siphoned off to the general fund and unknown usage. Not a bad suggestion, actually, and one that needs to be adequately addressed before the reform legislation goes up for a full vote.

The TTABlog: John L. Welch shares his enthusiasm for an upcoming IP event in his topically-titled TTABlog Road Trip: Boston Meeting of International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC). In it, we learn more about Mr. Welch's travel plans:

Yours truly, the TTABlogger, will be participating in a panel discussion at the Annual Spring Meeting of the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) in Boston on Thursday, May 20th. [Details here]. Co-panelist are Commissioner of Trademarks Lynne Beresford and trademark guru Joseph Dreitler. David Friedland will be the moderator. The topic: FRAUD AS A SWORD, SHIELD AND FORCEFIELD.

Welch notes that none other than the USPTO Commissioner of Trademarks, Lynne Beresford, will be in attendance, along with a host of other IP luminaries to liven up the discussion. You can learn more about the conference here.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Jeremy at The IPKat presents Pharma Nightmare: Falling off the Patent Cliff.