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) Patent Docs: Tomato Genome Determined – The recent news that the “entire genomic DNA sequence of the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) has been deciphered” inspired this post. It takes an in depth look at the “interesting relationships between tomatoes and closely-related species.” No discussion of whether there will be a push to patent the tomato genetic sequence.

2) IP Watchdog: Mobile App Developers Gain Ally to Fight Patent Infringement – This post highlights the attempt to promote innovation within the mobile app industry. The world’s largest patent research community announced the formation of a partnership with a global trade organization for mobile software developers, which this post argues could in fact impact the mobile app industry in a positive way by benefiting the small businesses and individual entrepreneurs behind the technology. (more…)

Anonymous Attack on Facebook’s User News Feed Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of May 21, 2012

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

This past March, Yahoo! sued Facebook for infringement of 10 social networking patents, and soon thereafter Facebook counter-claimed for infringement of 10 of its own social networking patents, most notably U.S. Patent 7,669,123 claiming a method for displaying “a news feed in a social network environment,” specifically, a news feed about people a user knows.  An unnamed party has now requested reexamination of Facebook’s ‘123 patent (see ex parteRequest No. (2)).  Yahoo! denies that it filed the request.  The ‘123 patent attracted a fair amount of negative comment in the blogosphere when it issued in 2010, most of it suggesting that the ‘123 claims were impossibly broad and could stifle competition.

Samsung requested reexamination of a video pixel labeling patent owned by ObjectVideo (see inter partes Request No. (1)). ObjectVideo has sued Samsung and others in the ITC for infringement of the patent.  A parallel infringement action in the Eastern District of Virginia has been stayed pending completion of the ITC case.

Finally, reexamination was requested by an undisclosed party for U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949, that claims a touch screen and names Steve Jobs as an inventor (see ex parte Request No. (8)).  Apple has sued Motorola, Samsung, and others for infringing the ‘949 patent.  Apple’s case against Motorola is scheduled to go trial in June before Judge Posner.  Excellent reports on these Apple cases can be found on almost a daily basis at http://www.fosspatents.com/ written by our friend Florian Mueller. (more…)

Facebook Attack on Wireless Ink Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of May 14, 2012

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

Last Monday, Facebook requested reexamination of Wireless Ink’s U.S. Patent 8,135,801 which claims a system for enhancing accessibility to data over a network (see inter partes Request No. (1)).  The ‘801 patent is the subject of an infringement action between the companies in New York.  Notably, Facebook has filed this reexamination request before answering Wireless’s complaint in court.  Facebook – like Apple and Google – has been quick to resort to reexamination when sued for infringement.  Wireless has also accused Facebook of infringing two other patents – U.S. Patent Nos. 7,599,983 and 7,908,342 – in unrelated infringement actions.

For the most part, foreign companies have been slow to use reexamination as a tool for attacking U.S. patents owned by competitors.  An exception is Chinese companies, who seem to be quick studies when it comes to reexamination.  For instance, last week Zhejiang Trimone and Fujian Hongan filed a request against a circuit interrupter patent owned by Leviton (see inter partesRequest No. (4)).

Reexamination was also requested by CBS Interactive and a series of other media companies for two more wireless messaging patents owned by Helferich Patent Licensing (see inter partes Request Nos. (3) & (7)).  See last week’s post for other Helferich reexaminations.

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Kyocera Challenge to ADC Personal Communicator Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of May 7, 2012

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

This past Friday, Kyocera requested reexamination of an ADC Technology patent – U.S. Patent No. 6,985,136 – for a “personal communicator,” i.e., a portable computer for wireless data transmission (see inter partes Request No. (4)).  ADC is currently pursuing an infringement action against Kyocera in Illinois.  The ‘136 patent survived an earlier reexamination attempt, with the patentability of all claims confirmed.

Attack on Helferich Patent Licensing/Wireless Science Patent, Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of May 7, 2012

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

Helferich Patent Licensing has been extremely aggressive and extremely successful in asserting its portfolio of mobile wireless communications patents against the world’s media and retail giants. According to the patent search outfit M-CAM, Helferich has sued licensed 42 companies, including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, NEC, Nissan, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp and Toshiba.

In a case filed in 2010, Helferich sued CBS for infringement of 21 patents.  This February, it obtained U.S. Patent No. 8,116,741, adding it to the CBS litigation and to six other infringement actions.  On Friday, CBS and the other defendants in those cases, requested reexamination of the ‘741 patent (see inter partes Request No. (1)).

This is by no means the first reexamination asserted against Helferich, who so far appears to have been quite adept at overcoming the prior art asserted against and adding numerous claims to its patents in reexamination.

Helferich holds an exclusive licensee to the patents in its portfolio, a license it obtained from Wireless Science.  Wireless states on web page that their “intellectual property portfolio contains numerous pending and issued domestic and international patents (over 1600 patent claims issued, allowed and pending) related to a variety of wireless and web-based messaging technologies.”

There was also an interesting reexamination request filed by Medtronic against an implantable valve prosthesis patent owned by Edwards Lifesciences (see ex parte Request No. (2)).  The two companies have been in a long-term struggle over this technology. (more…)