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Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Sony Corp. has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to launch an investigation into TPV International Inc., Innolux Corp. and Viewsonic Corp., alleging they import digital televisions and computer monitors that infringe 10 Sony patents.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
The federal judge overseeing Intel Corp.'s bid to invalidate four Negotiated Data Solutions LLC network data transmission patents has concluded that while Intel is licensed to use the patents-in-suit, the licenses may not protect Intel against all acts of indirect infringement.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
A judge for the U.S. International Trade Commission has concluded that dozens of Advanced Analogic Technologies Inc. products infringe a patent for voltage regulators held by Linear Technology Corp.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Apple Inc. is appealing a court's finding that an intellectual property letter of agreement the company had with bankrupt flash memory manufacturer Spansion Inc. can be rejected and is not subject to certain provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
A judge has ruled that an alleged scheme by ITS Mailing Systems Inc. to swipe clients and confidential information from rival postal technology company Pitney Bowes Inc. does not constitute false advertising under the Lanham Act, as Pitney Bowes claimed.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. has placed the blame for the loss of two patents related to computerized map-viewing systems squarely on its counsel Dickstein Shapiro LLP, claiming that the firm's actions were "quintessential examples of hornbook malpractice."
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Agricultural chemical companies Merial Ltd. and BASF Agro BV have accused Virbac Corp. of infringing a patent through its testing of a pesticide to control fleas and ticks.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
A federal judge has denied opposing summary judgment motions for plaintiff Sanofi-Aventis US LLC and defendants Fresenius Kabi Oncology PLC and Dabur Pharma Ltd. in an infringement suit over two patents related to the popular colon cancer drug Eloxatin.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
CompX International Inc. unit Waterloo Furniture Components Ltd. has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to overturn a preliminary finding that Waterloo infringed a Humanscale Corp. keyboard support patent, while Humanscale has asked the ITC to widen the finding to include more Waterloo products.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
On the heels of winning a $106 million jury verdict against Microsoft Corp. in a suit claiming the software giant's operating systems infringe two of its patents, VirnetX Inc. has launched a new suit alleging Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system infringes the same patents for securing communications over the Internet.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
A trademark infringement suit will likely head to trial now that a federal judge has ruled the American Association for Justice, the largest trial lawyer association in the world, did not abandon its old trademarks when it changed its name in 2006.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Mosaid Technologies Inc. has fired off a breach of contract suit against LSI Corp. and Agere Systems Inc., claiming they have violated a 2007 patent assignment agreement over wireless technology.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Timex Corp. and Paragon Solutions LLC are ironing out the details of a settlement in Paragon's infringement suit against Timex over a patent that covers an exercise monitoring system, bringing years of litigation to an end.
Friday, Mar 19, 2010
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. has become the latest defendant to settle in TQP Development LLC's wide-ranging patent infringement battle over online encrypted data transmission.
Thursday, Mar 18, 2010
A U.S. International Trade Commission administrative law judge has rejected Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s bid for a determination that its products do not infringe a semiconductor patent asserted by bankrupt Spansion Inc. in a case over flash memory chips.
Thursday, Mar 18, 2010
A federal judge has barred Theflyonthewall.com from issuing immediate online reports regarding equity research recommendations by a group of brokerage firms following her finding that the financial news service misappropriated their “hot news” and infringed their copyrights in prior research reports.
Thursday, Mar 18, 2010
A trademark and false advertising dispute between paper towel maker Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP and trash bag maker Nextep Inc. over the Brawny trademark for household goods has heated up, with Nextep claiming that it is the senior user of the Brawny mark and accusing Georgia-Pacific of engaging in “reverse confusion” to harm Nextep's reputation.
Thursday, Mar 18, 2010
YouTube Inc.'s founders knew of and encouraged widespread copyright infringement on their site, and Viacom Corp. tried to buy YouTube in 2006, according to summary judgment briefs unsealed Thursday in the three-year-old copyright lawsuit between the two companies.
Thursday, Mar 18, 2010
A video game designer alleging that a game available on Facebook infringes one of his creations has voluntarily dropped Lanham Act and state law claims from the suit, leaving only a copyright claim remaining against the social networking site.
Thursday, Mar 18, 2010
Two American International Group Inc. affiliates have asked a judge to declare that Evanston Insurance Co. owes them more than $18 million for defense coverage provided to toy maker MGA Entertainment Inc. in its long copyright and trade secrets battle with Mattel Inc. over Bratz dolls.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has changed its procedure for handling requests for withdrawal from representation in patent applications. While the new procedure was published in the Official Gazette on April 8, 2008, many practitioners may still be unaware of the dangers, says Cameron K. Weiffenbach of Miles & Stockbridge PC.
Three recent decisions — Lucent Technologies v. Gateway, Cornell University v. Hewlett-Packard and ResQNet.Com v. Lansa — demonstrate the Federal Circuit’s desire for the district courts to act as gatekeepers on patent damages awards, and send a strong message to patent owners: You need evidence to support your damages case, say Elizabeth A. Alquist and Cecilia Zhang Stiber of Day Pitney LLP.
By providing the flexibility for courts to hear copyright cases involving unregistered works, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Reed Elsevier Inc. v. Muchnick may have a significant practical impact on certain types of copyright cases, including class action settlements and declaratory judgment actions, say Michael J. Kasdan and David Mitnick of Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP.
In trademarks, just as in athletics, both offense and defense are important. As demonstrated by the recently decided contest between the University of Southern California Trojans and the University of South Carolina Gamecocks, a strong game plan for managing a trademark portfolio is critical for colleges and universities of all sizes, says Rex A. Donnelly of RatnerPrestia.
Companies have long been unsure about the requirements for submitting an Internet-based specimen of use. The Trademark Manual of Examination Procedures had likened the sale of goods over the Internet to catalog sales, and this led to confusion for companies trying to register their trademarks. A recent Federal Circuit case has modernized the rules, say J. David Mayberry and Lindsay R. Kaplan of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.
A difficult but potentially soluble problem regarding the influence of public corporations having large capital concentrations arises from the Supreme Court’s recent decision on campaign finance laws and the opinion’s explicit recognition of political free speech for corporate organizations in Citizens United, says Fred T. Isquith of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP.
The Federal Circuit’s clarification of the “ordinary observer” test may bolster design patent holders’ ability to prove infringement, say Bobby Ghajar and Mark L. Blake of Howrey LLP.
Given the recent guidance from the Federal Circuit in Hoffmann-La Roche and Nintendo, defendants in the Eastern District of Texas, even those with “decentralized” cases, should seriously consider filing transfer motions in appropriate cases, say Robert J. Gunther Jr. and James P. Barabas of WilmerHale.