Patent Law Practice Center

Technicolor Prepares to Use its 40,000 Patents to Enter the Mobile Patent Wars

Technicolor, the French company that invented the process for color movies, currently holds an estimated 40,000 valuable patents in digital audio and video. Their innovations go back almost a century and have been involved in licensing deals for said innovations for almost sixty years. The longevity of the impact of Technicolor’s visual, audio, and optic patents has somewhat caused them to be taken for granted. Not many can remember a time without Technicolor, but the company is now taking proactive steps to remind us of what it has done, and more importantly, what patents remain active in their arsenal.

As smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices are igniting international patent litigation over what company is infringing on another company’s technology patent, Technicolor is literally breaking these devices apart. The company has devised a team of 220 employees whose purpose is to take apart every popular electronic device to find possible patent infringements. (more…)

ITC Finds Kodak’s Digital Capture Patent Invalid

On May 21, 2012, the U.S. International Trade Commission’s Judge Thomas Pender issued a notice in the patent infringement battle brought by Eastman Kodak against Apple, Inc. and Research In Motion, Ltd. The decision noted that Apple and RIM infringed upon one of the claims in Kodak’s digital capture patent, but that Kodak’s patent was invalid because of the “obviousness” of claim 15 of the patent. As such, Apple and RIM did not violate 19 U.S.C. § 1337(a)(1) with respect to Kodak’s patent.

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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) Patents Post-Grant: Update from the Central Reexamination Unit – This post reports on the Central Reexamination Unit’s update on the USPTO’s efforts to refine the patent reexamination process, and that the stream line proposals of 2011 are still being reviewed.

2) Patent Docs: USPTO Seeks Comments on New Sequence Listing Standard – This post summarizes the notice published by the USPTO in the Federal Register regarding  an international effort to revise the standard for Sequence Listing submissions. The post also shares how comments regarding the proposed standard can be submitted for review.

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NPE Gets Crafty, Sues Etsy For Patent Infringement

For those who haven’t searched for handmade crafts online, Etsy.com is possibly the most popular online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods. Etsy Inc., a Brooklyn-bred start-up, provides users the opportunity to buy and sell crafts online. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the company raised $40 million from their existing venture capital investors and now has an estimated value of $600 million dollars. It is of no coincidence then that a non-practicing entity waited only a week after the investment news to file a patent infringement claim against Etsy Inc. (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) Patently-O: Overlapping Copyright and Patent Rights – This post takes a look at the Oracle v. Google (N.D. Cal. 2012) and how Oracle has argued that Google’s actions constitute both copyright and patent infringement  as the court considers whether Google improperly relied on Java OS code when developing its Android operating system.

2) Patent Docs: Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. v. Sandoz, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2012) – Following the Federal Circuit’s decision in Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. v. Sandoz, Inc., this post provides an explanation of what makes a new chemical compound prima facie obvious, and the differences between obviousness and obviousness-type double patenting for a chemical composition-of-matter invention.

3) IP Watchdog: Patents World-Wide: Deciding Where to Pursue Patent Rights – This post discusses the means through which a company pursue patent protection around the world. The Patent Cooperation Treaty  and popular countries to get patent protection are highlighted, as is the impact of filing international patent applications via these different means. (more…)