Patent Law Practice Center

Facebook Continues to Load Its Patent Arsenal

The patent wars are all the rage amongst tech companies these days. Not too long ago, Microsoft Corp. made news when announcing it purchased approximately 925 patents from AOL, Inc. for an estimated $1.1 billion dollars. The commentary regarding that purchase was equally focused on the impressive sale price for the amount of patents purchased as it was on the fact that tech companies are looking twice at their patent portfolios as litigation and licensing tools.

The latest development is that Facebook, who is currently in a patent infringement battle with Yahoo, recently purchased 650 of the AOL patents from Microsoft for an estimated $550 million dollars. This recent acquisition comes just one month after Facebook purchased 750 patents from IBM. (more…)

Top 5 Patent Law Blog Posts of the Week

Today we continue our weekly installment highlighting the best of the patent blogosphere from the past week. If there are any patent blogs you think should be highlighted by our Top 5, please comment on this post and we’ll check them out.

1) CAFC Blog: Every Patent Practitioner’s Nightmare – Prosecution Mistakes That Can’t be Fixed – This post highlights the matter of Landmark Screens, LLC, v. Morgan Lewis & Bockius, LLP, and Thomas D. Kohler, and discusses how the decision provides an example of a set of circumstances that can lead to an unfixable patent prosecution mistake thus resulting in malpractice and loss of a client.

2) IP Watchdog: Earth Day 2012: 5 Green Innovations to Celebrate – In the spirit of Earth Day, this post makes a note of five Green-Tech innovations that relate to recycling technologies, energy conversion and conservation of energy. These Green-Tech innovations were selected as they all recently received U.S. patents. (more…)

Bicycle Rental Station Patent, Subject of Reexamination Request Filed Week of April 16, 2012

Here is our latest weekly installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor…

If you live in Washington D.C. or in any of a number of other places, you have undoubtedly noticed the bicycle stations scattered across town: with a credit card you can rent a bicycle to ride around town and return it at your convenience to the same or another bicycle station.  Isabelle Bettez and Jean-Sebastien Bettez own a patent – U.S. Patent No. 7,898,439 – claiming a solar-powered station.

It is not yet evident from the Patent Office dockets who filed the request.

(more…)

PatentDocs: Kappos v. Hyatt (2012)

We are pleased to share the latest from our friends at PatentDocs.org, the Biotech and Pharma Patent Law and News Blog. The authors, Donald Zuhn and Kevin Noonan, are partners at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff, LLP, and contribute to Patent Docs on a daily basis. Today’s post is entitled, “Kappos v. Hyatt (2012),” and it discusses a 9-0 opinion written by Justice Thomas in which the United States Supreme Court firmly sided with applicant Hyatt regarding both the extent of new evidence that a dissatisfied applicant can produce during a §145 proceeding and the standard of review to be applied by the district court to such evidence.

The Supreme Court held that, “there are no evidentiary restrictions beyond those already imposed by the Federal Rules of Evidence and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” echoing the Federal Circuit majority.  In regards to the issue of the standard of review, the Supreme Court held that “the district court must make a de novo finding when new evidence is presented on a disputed question of fact.”

Here is an excerpt: (more…)

Twitter’s Innovator’s Patent Agreement: The Future or Foolish?

Tech companies’ battles over patent portfolios have become the new norm in patent litigation. Yahoo sued Facebook over the alleged infringement of 10 patents, Oracle and Google are battling over operating system patents, Apple and Samsung have patent litigation in 10 countries simultaneously, and Microsoft just purchased 800 patents from AOL for over $1.1 billion dollars. We have previously reported on the growing use of patents as more than just defensive tools. But last week, Twitter announced it would not participate in such litigation.

Twitter’s Innovator’s Patent Agreement proposes that if a patent is assigned to Twitter, Twitter promises it won’t use that patent to sue anyone, except for defensive purposes or unless the engineers grant permission to the company to do so. According to Twitter’s announcement,

The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.

This is a significant departure from the current state of affairs in the industry. Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee’s work. The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others who can also use them however they want. With the IPA, employees can be assured that their patents will be used only as a shield rather than as a weapon.

Twitter’s proposed patent litigation model has received support as well as criticism. Supporters applaud Twitter for actively promoting creativity and innovation via its promise to not actively pursue legal recourse. Such a business model also reduces the amount of money spent by the company for litigation. Critics, including frequent PLI speaker Mark Radcliffe, on the other hand, question whether Twitter made a wise decision considering they could end up needing to pursue patent infringement litigation in the future. By granting technology engineers with the right to veto a legal action, Twitter would essentially be granting the power to make legal decisions to non-lawyers. Meanwhile Twitter’s plan gets implemented, the patent wars will rage on in courts all over the world. Time will tell what impact Twitter’s stance will have on patent litigation.