Patent Law Practice Center

Top 5 Patent 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: Discovery Practices Before the Patent Trial & Appeal Board – This post discusses how the USPTO has fleshed out the meaning of “limited discovery” as a result of the new proceedings established by AIA, Post Grant Review and Inter Partes Review, and how the include “limited discovery”.

2) IP Watchdog: Chakrabarty Controls on Isolated DNA Sequences, not Mayo* – This post, written by guest author Eric W. Guttag, shares a perspective on the Supreme Court’s decision in Prometheus and its remand of AMP and what their potential impact may be when considering Diamond v. Chakrabarty.

3) Patently-O: Self-Replicating Inventions: Supreme Court asks for Government’s Views in Monsanto Patent Exhaustion Case – This post takes a look at Bowman v. Monsanto and how the the Supreme Court has invited the Solicitor General to file briefs expressing the views of the United States in the case.

4) PatentDocs: Record Number of PCT Applications Filed in 2011 – This post reports on WIPO’s announcement that patent filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty would be up again in 2011, and that the number of international patent filings would set a new record.  According to the WIPO announcement, an estimated 181,900 PCT applications were filed last year.

5) IP Kat: Battle of the Tablets hits the UK – Samsung seeks declaration of non-infringement of Apple Registered Community Design – This post shares the on-going dispute between Apple and Samsung regarding the alleged infringement of certain Samsung tablets and how the dispute finally reached the courts in the UK.

DLA Piper on Hargreaves’ Review of UK’s IP Policy

Back in November 2010, the Prime Minister commissioned a review of Britain’s intellectual property laws and their effect on economic growth.  Ian Hargreaves’ Review of UK’s IP policy,released last month, makes 10 recommendations covering patent, copyright and policy-making process.  Our friends at DLA Piper sent in this article discussing Hargreaves’ findings.

There was an audible buzz in the IP community [when] the findings of the latest UK IP policy review, led by Ian Hargreaves, were published in the report: ‘Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth‘.

The exam question

The review was first announced by the UK government on 11 November 2010 (see our previous alert), following a speech made by the Prime Minister in which he set out his ‘vision’ for London’s East End to become a pre-eminent ‘Silicon Valley’-style technology centre. Interpreting Mr Cameron’s ‘exam question’ as being: ‘Could it be true that laws designed more than three centuries ago with the express purpose of creating economic incentives for innovation by protecting creators’ rights are today obstructing innovation and economic growth?’, Hargreaves’ answer is a firm yes. (more…)