Patent News - LTE Patent Owners Meet to Discuss Plan for Patent Pool

Interesting patent news from  www.cellular-news.com, please read and leave your comments below.

LTE Patent Owners Meet to Discuss Plan for Patent Pool
Via Licensing Corp announced that 14 Long Term Evolution (LTE) patent owners from eight countries met in San Francisco last week to build the framework for a joint patent licensing program (commonly referred to as a patent pool) to support the global adoption of the LTE standard.

"With LTE deployment now an operator reality, the economic logic of moving development cycles ahead to commercialization through patent pools is stronger than ever before," said Frank J. Bernhard, Technology Economist and Managing Principal, Supply Chain and Telecommunications Practice, OMNI Consulting Group. "Our research shows how patent pool licensing demonstrates certain efficiencies in minimizing product lifecycle costs while more quickly generating revenue productivity. From an industry perspective, this translates to a significant competitive advantage in moving technologies, such as LTE, to the foreground."

The companies working with Via Licensing to form an LTE patent pool represent a broad spectrum of leading LTE stakeholders from China, France, Finland, Germany, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and the United States.

"We are pleased with the progress of the recent LTE pool discussions and the participation of essential LTE patent owners from across the globe," said Jean-Michel Bourdon, President of Via Licensing. "The recent discussions provide critical input to our LTE patent licensing program helping address the needs of our partners across the 4G wireless ecosystem and facilitating market delivery of an LTE license on an aggressive time schedule."

The next meeting of LTE patent holders is scheduled for 11-12 March, 2010, in Washington D.C.

Category - Patent News

Source - www.cellular-news.com

China Patents Rise in 2009

China fifth in the world in patent filing, please see the video below:

Patent Infringement - Acacia Awarded $12.4 Million In Patent Infringement Case Against Yahoo

Patent infringement case against Yahoo, article from Washington Post, please check the news below and leave your comments.

Acacia Awarded $12.4 Million In Patent Infringement Case Against Yahoo
Robin Wauters
TechCrunch.com
Wednesday, February 3, 2010; 1:34 AM

Nice timing, Acacia Research Corporation. The mother of all patent trolls patent acquisition, development and licensing company, which was profiled in depth by BusinessWeek just two days ago, this morning announced that it has been awarded a total of $12.4 million in a patent infringement case against Yahoo.

On May 15th, 2009, a federal court jury decided that Yahoo's messenger program with IMVironments ¿ which revolves around interactive backgrounds that users can add to IM conversations ¿ infringes US Patent Number 6,205,432, filed by a trio of inventors and published back in 2001.

The patent was described as follows:

An advertisement system and method are provided for inserting into an end user communication message a background reference to an advertisement. In some embodiments, the background reference causes an advertisement image to be tiled, or watermarked, across an end user screen behind the text of an e-mail message or public posting.

According to today's statement, Acacia subsidiary Creative Internet Advertising Corporation received a $12.4 million final judgment stemming from its May 2009 trial verdict (PDF) and corresponding $6.6 million damages award in its patent lawsuit.

In addition, the District Court?s judgment awarded a post-verdict ongoing royalty rate of 23% for all of Yahoo?s IMVironments sales.

To learn more about Acacia Research Corporation and its business, I suggest you read up on the company by heading to the BusinessWeek profile.

To give you an idea: Acacia essentially buys patents from inventors and then seeks fees from companies that it says infringe on those patents. It's in the business of suing companies rather than producing products or services; the company is said to have filed at least 337 patent-related lawsuits since its inception in 1992.

Category: Patent Infringement

Source: Washington Post

China Patent - China fifth in UN patent filings, India way behind

China is moving fast in patent filings, beating India in number of patent filings, please check this article from business-standard.com and leave your comments below:

China fifth in UN patent filings, India way behind
D Ravi Kanth

China is on its way to become a global leader in scientific research, while India has a long way to go, according to data issued by a Geneva-based organisation on international patent filings.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (Wipo) data for 2009 reveal that Indian companies and scientists filed one-tenth of patent applications filed by their Chinese counterparts during the same period. China, for example, filed 7,946 patent applications last year, compared to 761 by India, followed by Singapore (594), Brazil (480), and South Africa (389), among others.

In fact, India’s performance in patent filings came down sharply from 1,070 in 2008, an indication that there is no sustained push to accelerate research and development activities. In the top 15 countries of origin of patent applications last year, China was ranked fifth after the United States (45,790), Japan (29,827), Germany (16,736) and South Korea (8,006).

Filing of patent applications under Wipo’s Patent Cooperation Treaty enables companies to secure patent protection in various countries.

It is a measure for knowledge-based economy and a barometer to judge the spread of innovation-based companies in each country.

Though international patent filings dropped by 4.5 per cent last year with total applications of about 155,900, compared to the previous year, the decline in patent applications is not as sharp as originally anticipated, says WIPO director-general Francis Gurry.

A recent report by the Financial Times had suggested that China would displace the US as the world’s leading producer of scientific knowledge in term of volume by 2020. China also dominated the BRICs countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — in peer-reviewed papers.

China produced almost 112,318 scientific papers in 2008 as compared to 332,916 papers in the US.

The stark differences between India and China are due to the underlying differences in their overall economic activity. While software and services dominate the Indian economy, new manufacturing activities are driving China’s growth.

Up until now, industrialised countries like the US, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia dominated the global rankings in patent filings.

Among companies seeking patents for their new inventions, China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd came second with 1847 fresh patent applications, compared to Japan’s Panasonic Corporation, which is first with 1,891 patent applications. Strangely, there is not one Indian company among the 100 companies.

Although many of them continue to occupy the top positions, the emergence of Korea and China as two leading innovation-driven economies brought a change in the prevailing rankings.

Category: China Patent, Patent News

Source: business-standard.com

Apple Patent - Apple, Microsoft sued for patent infringement

Emblaze sues Apple and Microsoft for patent infringement, news brought by news.cnet.com, please read the article and leave your comment below.

Apple, Microsoft sued for patent infringement
by Jim Dalrymple

Apple and Microsoft are being sued for patent infringement, according to a report on AppleInsider on Thursday.

The patent in question, entitled "Apparatus, method and a computer readable medium for generating media packets," was awarded to Emblaze, who filed for the patent in 2002.

The patent describes "a method for generating media packets, the method comprising the steps of: providing at a storage unit packet boundary information representative of locations of potential packet boundaries within media objects; said packet boundary information facilitating generation of packets of varying sizes; wherein said packet boundary information comprises intra access unit offsets; selecting at a packet generator packet boundaries in response to a packet size selection information; and generating media packets in response to the selected packet boundaries."

In other words: a streaming server. Emblaze said in a statement published on Thursday that Apple's HTTP Live Streaming Application (PDF), used in the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Mac OS X infringe on its patent. In addition to sending notification of the lawsuit to Apple, Emblaze also included a license agreement in case the company wanted to settle the dispute quickly.

"Emblaze has made substantial investment into research and development to build a rich portfolio of intellectual property over many years. While we are happy to license our technology to third parties, we will vigorously defend our rights and our competitive position," Naftali Shani, chairman of Emblaze, said in a statement.

Emblaze also says that Microsoft's IIS Smooth Streaming infringes the same patent. The lawsuit gives Microsoft until March 15 to reply.

Category: Apple Patent, Patent Infringement

Source: news.cnet.com

Sharp, Samsung Settle All Outstanding LCD Patent Cases

A confidential agreement ends a multi-year legal battle between Samsung and Sharp.

Patent India - India Sets High Bar for Patent Protection, But Is it Too High?

Interesting article about Patent Protection in India from The Wallstreet Journal Blog, leave your comments below:

India Sets High Bar for Patent Protection, But Is it Too High?
By Ashby Jones

Be careful what you wish for.

It might be what multinational drug companies are thinking in regard to India’s recently overhauled patent system.

Let us explain, with a little help from this article, from the WSJ’s Geeta Anand. Until 2005, India’s patent regime recognized only process patents for making pharmaceutical products—and not the actual products, much to the chagrin of drug companies eager to jump into the world’s most populous democracy. When the country adopted an expanded patent law, it was widely hailed and multinational firms began moving in. 

But, as Anand explains, little noticed at the time was that the new law sets a higher bar than Europe and the U.S. for approving patents. As a result, India’s patent office and courts have repeatedly declined to defend patents widely accepted in many other countries on some of the world’s best-selling medicines.

In the latest example, Bayer AG failed this week to persuade the Delhi High Court to direct India’s chief drug regulator to not give marketing approval to a competitor’s copy of its cancer medicine Nexavar. Other top-selling, life-saving medicines, including the anticancer treatment Glivec from Novartis; anticancer drug Tarceva from Roche; and HIV medicine Viread from Gilead Sciences all have failed to win protection from India’s patent office or the judicial system.

It’s a problem, say drug executives. “If this science and innovation can’t be patented, it is sending a very strong message about how limited India’s patent protections are,” says Gregg Alton, executive vice-president of corporate and medical affairs at Gilead Sciences.

In court and in interviews, Indian officials and companies contend the Indian system is fair and that, by contrast, international patent offices grant patents where there isn’t significant innovation or benefit. They say it is India’s duty to grant patents only when there has been significant innovation, and to foster a competitive environment that keeps prices low so the country’s vast and mostly poor population can afford medicines.

“The U.S. would grant a patent to a piece of toilet paper,” says Amar Lulla, chief executive of Cipla, the Indian generics drugmaker. “Just because the U.S. granted a patent, doesn’t mean it should be valid.”

Category: Patent India, Patent News

Source: blogs.wsj.com

Patent Free Energy Blueprint Explained

Interesting buzz about Energy Patent below, please leave your comments:

Gene Patent - Pathologists and Patient Groups Challenge BRCA1 & BRCA2 Gene Patents in Court

Latest new about Gene Patent from  www.darkdaily.com, please read and leave your comments below.


Court case will directly affect future development of new pathology and molecular tests

In New York’s Southern District Court, a trial is underway that tests the legality of patenting genes. In Association for Molecular Pathology, et al v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 09-civ-4515, pathologist groups, patient advocacy groups, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are challenging patents for the BRCA I and BRCA II genes which are held by the University of Utah and licensed exclusively to Myriad Genetics, Inc., of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Many experts believe this lawsuit has the potential to produce new case law that addresses the ability of individuals and companies to hold patents on human genes. A ruling in favor of either party in the lawsuit will directly affect the clinical laboratory testing industry and diagnostic tests that utilize gene-based technologies.

The lawsuit was filed in May 2009 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It named as defendants the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Myriad Genetics, and the University of Utah Research Foundation.

In recent weeks, on February 3, Judge Robert W. Sweet heard testimony regarding the two sides’ motions for summary judgment. This testimony revealed the basis for each side’s position in the suit. Christopher Hansen of the American Civil Liberties Union, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, argued that the University of Utah had patented a part of the human body and a law of nature, both of which have previously been ruled as not patentable.

Category: Gene Patent, Patent News

Source: www.darkdaily.com 

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Samsung Patent - Samsung and Sharp have finally agreed on LCD patents

Samsung & Sharp patent related news from www.htlounge.net, leave your comments below:

On February 8, 2010, Samsung announced its cross-licensing deal with Sharp, which leads to the end of a series of conflicts between the two companies. According to the electronics manufacturer, this deal gives each of the two the right to use technology patented by the other. The company has not mentioned anything about the financial terms of this deal.

Samsung and Sharp are angry on each other and have complained to the US International Trade Commission in 2007. The conflict refers mainly to the use of a certain LCD technology used in screens with wide viewing angles. In June 2009, ITC has issued a decision, which was favorable to Samsung. Therefore, some of Sharp’s HD LCD TVs have been banned from USA’s market. As an effect, in December 2009, Samsung has filed another suit.

The recent deal between the two companies is meant to cancel all ITC’s decisions, including the one made in June 2009.

Category: Samsung Patent, Patent News
Source: www.htlounge.net