IPCrunch

Last week, as the AmeriKat dragged herself from the office late the other night, she was lucky enough to watch a fiery blossom of fireworks explode over Soho Square in celebration of Guy Fawkes Night. When the AmeriKat was a kitten she always felt a little bit disturbed when watching British classmates construct from straw life-like effigies of Guy Fawkes for the annual ceremonial burning. But despite this discord in the celebration, the heart of the holiday is to remind us of the fight for parliamentary democracy. Although we don’t burn effigies of the Red Coats, the celebration is not too dissimilar to the U.S.’s Fourth of July – both are reminders of the bloody fight for democratic rule (plus and excuse to look at some pretty fireworks). No Parties for Kappos Yet As Critics Question Patent Reform Legislation But as both countries know, democratic rule is not always so democratic. Democratically elected officials are in the business of appointing unelected individuals to senior...

During the most recent negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Seoul, Korea on 4-6 November, about which no information is available, US industry and public interest groups issued statements taking widely divergent positions on progress of the talks.

On November 5, 2009, USPTO Director David Kappos delivered the keynote address at the 14th Annual Independent Inventors Conference held at USPTO’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va. During the address, Director Kappos announced a new initiative that is specifically designed to accelerate the patent process for independent inventors.  He called it a “backlog reduction pilot project” that [...]

Intellectual property rights enforcement has risen on the global trade and IP agenda, but greater transparency in the evaluation of piracy and counterfeiting and assessments of broader social implications may be needed, according to speakers at a side event last week.

By Professor John Duffy The last two decades have seen an extraordinary growth in the number of patent applications for business technologies and methods. Critics of business method patents tend to assign responsibility for this development to judicial activism by...

Bloomberg.com %26lt;a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps...; this figure in its coverage which speaks volumes - %26lt;blockquote%26gt;Applications for so-called business method patents have soared over the past decade, from 974 in fiscal 1997 to a peak of 14,364 in 2008, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.%26lt;/blockquote%26gt;

Martin Khor has been executive director of the intergovernmental South Centre since 1 March. A Malaysian native, he took the position after a decade as director of the nongovernmental Third World Network. Intellectual Property Watch’s Kaitlin Mara had the opportunity to speak to Khor recently about critical issues facing the global South related to intellectual property - such as climate change, and the challenge of global IP infrastructure - and what the South Centre’s plans are to address them.

Auf ein Problem bei der Markenbenutzung macht Prof. Dr. Paul Lange im FAZFINANCE.NET aufmerksam. Bislang war der Nachweis einer solchen Benutzung nicht schwierig. Denn nach § 26 des Markengesetzes reichte bei einer Abwandlung die Benutzung einer Marke für beide Registermarken aus, wenn nur der kennzeichnende Charakter der Marken der gleiche war. Die Europarichter stellten jetzt aber im [...]

Oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos are scheduled for today, November 9, 2009.  Previous AT! coverage of Bilski here, here, here, and here. In short, the CAFC in Bilski has held that business methods are not patentable unless they satisfy the machine-or-transformation test.  In other words, patentable business methods must either: 1) transform matter into a different state or [...]

Angemeldet am 09.11.1909 Registernummer: 125477 Pe drei Nizzaklassen: 01, 03, 04, 05 Inhaber: Henkel AG & Co. KGaA Registernummer: 129441 Sparacoll Nizzaklasse: 05, Inhaber: Paul Hartmann AG Quelle: DPMA

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity is this week undertaking what it said could be the most important negotiation in its history. The CBD is negotiating details of a fair and equitable access and benefit sharing (ABS) regime – in particular, the use of traditional knowledge as related to genetic resources and capacity building and [...]

The Supreme Court hears oral argument today in Bilski v. Kappos. The Court will decide the proper test for obviousness and will either decide or at least significantly impact the patentability of software and business method patents. Here are the questions presented: QUESTIONS PRESENTED: Whether the Federal Circuit erred by holding that a "process" must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or transform a particular article into a different state or thing ("machine-or-transformation" test), to be eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101, despite this Court's precedent declining to limit the broad statutory grant of patent eligibility for "any" new and useful process beyond excluding patents for "laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas." Whether the Federal Circuit's "machine-or-transformation" test for patent eligibility, which effectively forecloses meaningful patent protection to many business methods, contradicts the clear Congressional intent that...

Stanford Professor Mark Lemley is probably the most prolific academic writer on IP at the moment. In his latest (well, latest when I hit post – it might well be his second latest paper by the time the post is published) paper, he takes an empirical look at US patent examination. For the paper, he and co-author Bhaven Sampat of Columbia followed every patent application filed in January 2001 and published by April 2006 – a total of 9,960 applications. Using the USPTO’s PAIR database, they were able to collect a vast amount of data on the applications. Unsurprisingly, the large majority of examinations – 86% - started with a non final objection. Perhaps more surprising is that 1,833 applications that were “finally” rejected at some stage nonetheless resulted in issued patents. The chance of having your patent application finally abandoned is only slightly greater for those applications that got a final rejection than those that didn’t (26.5% for those with a final rejection compared to...

Der Tag der Erfinder wurde ins Leben gerufen um an die Erfinder der Vergangenheit zu erinnern und den Erfindern unserer Zeit den gebührenden Respekt zu zollen. Am Tag der Erfinder soll uns bewusst werden, dass alles was uns umgibt, jeder Gegenstand und jedes Produkt ihren Anfang in der Idee hatte. Erfinder haben unserer Welt zu [...]

Later today the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Bilski matter. It is not an overstatement to say that the fate of much future innovation rests squarely on the Supreme Court getting this one right, so lets hope for the best and pray that they do get this one right. [...] Related posts:US Supreme Court Grants Cert. in BilskiOn Monday, June 1, 2009, the United States Supreme Court granted cert. in Bilski v. Doll. This means that the last chapter on business methods and software has not yet been written, which could be good news or bad news depending upon your particular take. I have wondered out loud about allowing software patents as [...]...Bilski: Eyewitness Report and Expert Analysisn Monday, November 9, 2009, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the much anticipated Bilski case, which could well decide once and for all whether business methods and software remain patentable in the United States. I will be in attendance at the oral...

Last Tuesday, investigators of the IP Department of the Police Fraud Squad swooped on the peddlars at the National Football stadium in Ramat Ganm remanded three of them and conviscated bootleg football souvenirs and scarves and sweaters that carried the Maccabi Haifa Football team logo.

Die MontagsMarken sind bemerkenswerte Fundstücke, die an einem bestimmten Montag beim DPMA angemeldet wurden. Zur MontagsMarke sind aber nur besondere Marken berufen, die lustig, skurril, prominent oder auch misslungen sind. Die Auswahl der Marken ist rein subjektiv. Markenanmeldungen vom Montag dem 17.11.2008. An diesem Tag wurden insgesamt 239 Markenanmeldungen beim Deutschen Patent- und Markenamt eingereicht. 302008072876 Nizzaklassen: 09, [...]

November 9th is Inventors' Day, marking the birthday of Hedy Lamarr a famous Hollywood glamour girl of the 1940's, who is now recognized as one of the leading women inventors of the 20th century. "Any girl can be glamorous," Hedy Lamarr once said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid." The film star belied her own apothegm by hiding a brilliant, inventive mind beneath her photogenic exterior. In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, she patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two decades ahead of its time. We've still got a ways to go when it comes to removing gender stereotypes, but we've come a long way, baby. It's encouraging, today, to see fashion magazines recognize women for their brains, not just their beauty. This week, Glamour magazine named Google's Marissa Mayer as a 2009 Woman of the Year. “It’s pretty hard to overstate her impact,” says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “She built the team that designs the products we all use.” With...

More than one IPKat reader has been anxiously asking him about the impact of the Treaty of Lisbon on the names of European institutions. Are we going to have to plough thousands of tons of stationery, livery and souvenir t-shirts which have the word "Community" on them, replacing it with the word "Union" on every occasion? The IPKat hopes not. While the Commission of the European Communities will be renamed the European Commission -- which is what many of us have been calling it for years -- the only other changes that will significantly affect/inconvenience the IP community will be having to remember to call the Court of Justice of the European Communities the Court of Justice of the European Union and to practise saying the General Court in place of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities. The Kats don't think that the Community trade mark, design and plant varieties rights are about to be unionised, but they thought they'd check with their readers just in case. On...

By Sherri Oslick -- About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring. Novartis AG et al. v. Apotex Inc. et al. 1:09-cv-06950; filed November 4, 2009 in the Northern District of Illinois • Plaintiffs: Novartis AG; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. • Defendants: Apotex Inc.; Apotex Corp. Infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,025,391 ("Enteric-coated Pharmaceutical Compositions of Mycophenolate," issued February 15, 2000), 6,172,107 ("Entric-coated Pharmaceutical Compositions," issued on January 9, 2001), and 6,306,900 (same title, issued on October 23, 2001) following a Paragraph...

November 9-10, 2009 - Patent Litigation 2009 (Practising Law Institute) - Atlanta, GA November 9-11, 2009 - Developing IP Strategies for Crystalline Forms*** (International Quality & Productivity Center) - London, England November 10, 2009 - The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT): Important Tool for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Independent Inventors (World Intellectual Property Organization) - Baltimore, MD November 10, 2009 - The 'Day After' Show: Analyzing the Bilski Oral Arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court (Intellectual Property Owners Association) - 2:00 PM (EST) November 11, 2009 - Bilski Spreme Court Arguments: Eyewitness Report and Expert Analysis (Practising Law Institute)...

Here is IP Think Tank’s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories, and please do let us know if you think we’ve missed something important, or if there is a source you think should be monitored. You can separately subscribe to the IP Think Tank Global Week in Review at the Subscribe page: http://duncanbucknell.com/subscri... Highlights this week included: ACTA negotiations, Seoul (Michael Geist) (Michael Geist) (Michael Geist) (Michael Geist) (Public Knowledge) (Public Knowledge) (LawFont) (Michael Geist) (BLOG@IP::JUR) (EEF) (PC World) (TorrentFreak) (IP Watch) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting, Barcelona; US Senate letter urges IP rights (IP Watch) (IP Watch) (IP Watch) (IP Watch) Global Global - General Keynote on what’s happening in the world of IP strategy IP Think Tank podcast 26 Oct 2009 (IP Think Tank) WIPO, donor community...