http://ip.law360.com/ The Newswire for Legal Professionals Copyright 2009 Portfolio Media, Inc. en-US http://ip.law360.com/images/headings/logo.gif http://ip.law360.com/ http://ip.law360.com/articles/109330 Equitable Life & Casualty Insurance Co. has accused rival American National Insurance Co. of infringing a patent covering a system that releases life insurance payments as gifts to designated beneficiaries. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109330 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109473 Free-information advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation has accused the American Society of Composers, Authors and Performers of attempting to cash in on performance royalties every time a copyrighted song snippet plays on one of millions of users' cell phones. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109473 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109310 A federal judge has rejected a bid by Skype Technologies SA and its parent company eBay Inc. to stay a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Net2Phone Inc. over Voice Over Internet Protocol online communications technology. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109310 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109339 Another heavyweight has exited Performance Pricing Inc.’s infringement action, as the court dismissed with prejudice all allegations against Microsoft Corp., leaving Google Inc. and AOL LLC to face claims related to a patent for online marketing and transactions. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109339 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109472 Canadian generics maker Apotex Inc. has fired off a declaratory judgment action asserting it is not infringing Eisai Co. Ltd.’s patents, in a move to secure federal approval for its generic version of the Tokyo company’s Alzheimer’s drug Aricept. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109472 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109460 Europe's highest court has ruled that a Dutch brewer can continue to sell beer called Bavaria, rejecting a challenge from a group of brewers in the Bavaria region of Germany. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109460 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109478 A federal appeals court has stayed a permanent injunction barring Dish Network Corp. from infringing TiVo Inc.'s Time Warp digital video recorder patent, extending the temporary pause it put on the case when the satellite television provider first sought to overturn a $103 million contempt order. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109478 http://ip.law360.com/articles/103278 The defense of inequitable conduct needs reform, as the standard for proving the defense is perceived by many in the patent bar as being applied somewhat inconsistently right now at the Federal Circuit, says Joseph M. O’Malley Jr., chair of Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP's intellectual property practice. http://ip.law360.com/articles/103278 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109566 Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP has asked a judge to enjoin subpoenas seeking its testimony in a post-verdict hearing related to a malpractice suit over botched technology patent applications, in which a jury returned a $72.6 million verdict against the firm. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109566 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109364 Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. is facing a suit by two Bayer AG units over the Israeli generics maker’s plans to launch a generic version of erectile dysfunction drug Levitra. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109364 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109489 Japan's Hitachi Ltd. and South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. have reached a settlement of their U.S. patent disputes over technology including plasma display technology and audiovisual products. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109489 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109404 ClearOne Communications Inc. is planning to appeal a federal court’s ruling trimming roughly $800,000 from a $10.5 million damages award that a jury handed the audio and video company in a case alleging former ClearOne employees stole trade secrets related to audio-conferencing technology. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109404 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109571 A federal appeals court has upheld a decision that granted a preliminary injunction against Marlyn Nutraceuticals Inc. in a trademark infringement case over the dietary supplement Wobenzym, but it threw out a recall order. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109571 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109283 Chadbourne & Parke LLP has hired Kenneth L. Johnson, formerly chief patent counsel for Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLP, to serve as counsel of its intellectual property group. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109283 http://ip.law360.com/articles/107215 Once the recession abates, we can expect an uptick in intellectual property litigation — particularly in traditional areas such as electronics and computers, but also in new areas like “green” technology where companies are bound to start bumping into each other on inventions, says Kell M. Damsgaard, leader of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP's intellectual property practice group. http://ip.law360.com/articles/107215 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109235 A group of 14 record companies — including Arista Records LLC, BMG Music and Virgin Records America Inc. — has won a judgment against commercial Usenet provider Usenet.com Inc., which allegedly tailored its service to fill a void left by now-shuttered illegal file sharing networks. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109235 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109269 A federal judge has rejected the latest bid from H. Lundbeck A/S and its partner Forest Laboratories Inc. to pare down a patent dispute related to the antidepressant citalopram, ruling that a lone letter from one of the companies' suppliers did not yield enough evidence to drop part of Infosint SA's infringement claims. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109269 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109209 A biotechnology patent-holding company has sued Pfizer Inc. alleging the drugmaker infringed patents related to components of Alzheimer’s disease research, including nucleic acid coding for the so-called Swedish mutation and genetically engineered mice expressing the mutation. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109209 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109298 A group of music rights holders has filed suit against Yahoo Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Microsoft Corp. alleging that the companies have infringed copyrights by offering songs for download over their online music services. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109298 http://ip.law360.com/articles/109353 A federal judge has ruled that defunct video-on-demand service and Blockbuster Inc. subsidiary Movielink LLC did not infringe two claims of an American Patent Development Corp. patent on a method of limiting the use of a downloaded video program purchased by a customer. http://ip.law360.com/articles/109353