Patent Law Practice Center

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) IPWatchdog: Court Slams Frivolous & Vexatious Litigation with $4.7 MM in Fees – This post discusses the recent developments within the Federal Circuit in regards to no longer tolerating abusive patent litigation tactics with the case MarcTec, LLC v. Johnson & Johnson.

2) Foss Patents: Thanks to Apple’s flawed litigation strategy, HTC has nothing to fear until March 2013 (in the US) – This post outlines what Florian Mueller considers to be tactical missteps by Apple’s litigation team when dealing with Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, and HTC.

3) Patently-O: 2011 Patent Grants: A New Record – This post highlights the banner year the USPTO had in 2011 as more patents were granted in 2011 than any other year in history. Check out the post for a detailed graph demonstrating the amount of US Utility Patents granted over the last ten years. (more…)

Future of Fuel Cell Batteries Riding on Apple’s Latest Patent Applications

Apple’s product line remains popular as ever, especially with the anticipated release of the iPhone 5. Their products have been heavily protected as the company has remained quite litigious, prosecuting and defending its smartphone technology patents to the point where they are involved in IP litigation all over the world.

The news as of late has switched from Apple’s patent litigation to Apple’s patent applications. According to the International Business Times,

Apple has filed two patent applications related to Fuel Cell batteries, hoping to develop and launch technology that allows its devices including the iPhone, iPad tablet, and laptop computers like the MacBook go weeks without a battery charge. (more…)

The ITC’s Injunctive Relief Power

The International Trade Commission’s recently issued decision to ban HTC smart phones from being imported to the U.S. as a result of the  HTC Android operating system infringing one of Apple’s patents. What is interesting is that the discussion surrounding this matter hasn’t been about whether or not there was any patent infringement, but rather the focus has been on the impact of banning HTC smart phones as the means of remedying the patent infringement.

Dennis Crouch, of Patently-O, provides a great summary on the ITC’s role in patent infringement cases and how it’s power to grant injunctive relief compares with that of the federal courts. Here is an excerpt from Crouch’s summary entitled, “Injunctive Relief and the Public Interest at the ITC”:

In federal court litigation, a court can only award injunctive relief after considering the four equitable factors outlined in eBay v. MercExchange. The ITC is not bound by eBay, but is required to consider the impact that an injunction (or “exclusion order”) would have on competition and consumers.  Interestingly, the ITC order follows a recentNYTimes editorial, by Professors Mark Lemley and Colleen Chien who argued for delay in exclusion orders in order to serve the public interest.

Click here to read the article in full on PatentlyO.com.

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. Highlights include a patent application for dispersing riots with sound, a new database for chemical patents, and an update on the delayed ITC decision. 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: Design Patent Pendency – This post was selected because, although it’s just a paragraph long, it shares the blogging spotlight on the design patent. Design patents don’t get press like utility patents do. This post provides a chart on the progress design patent filings have taken over the years, and explains that the majority of design patent applications get filed within the year.

2) New Scientist: Riot Shields Could Scatter Crowds with a ‘Wall of Sound’ – A Massachusetts defense firm applied for a patent for a “man-portable non-lethal pressure shield” that would emit sounds causing people to disperse due to their physical inability to withstand the sounds. The article reports on how the patent works and how it differentiates from other sound emitting crowd control devices. You can view the patent here.

3) Tech Crunch: Apple Made a Deal with The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll) – The interwebs have been a flutter about this post’s explanation of how Digitude Innovations partnered with Apple and has since been actively suing companies like RIM, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Amazon, and Nokia. The article reports that Apple has transferred about a dozen of its patents in a patent litigation offensive strategy.

4) Bloomberg: HTC Says Decision in U.S. Patent Dispute With Apple Delayed – This post provides a quick  summary of how and why the hotly anticipated ITC ruling was delayed to early next week, and reiterates the impact the decision will have on all parties involved.

5) SiNApSE: New Chemical Database For Patent Search – This post explains the recent announcement that IBM launched of a new database which will provide access to more than 2.4 million chemical compounds extracted from about 4.7 million patents and 11 million biomedical journal abstracts from 1976 to 2000. The new venture is in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont and Pfizer.

ITC on HTC: The Possible U.S. Ban on Android Phones

Tomorrow, the International Trade Commission will issue its decision regarding whether or not HTC infringed Apple’s patents in producing Android phones. Six months ago, an ITC administrative law judge ruled that HTC had in fact infringed Apple’s patents. The decision to come down this Wednesday, December 14, is in response to HTC’s appeal. The patents in question are U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647, a patent on a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data”, and U.S. Patent No. 6,343,263, a patent on a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data”. Essentially, these patents are at the core of the Android operating system, which means that HTC may not be the only manufacturer to be impacted by the ITC’s decision as they are not the only ones using the Android system. (more…)