IP Wise

Making A Federal Case Of It…

Pop Quiz: What do the Justice Department, Patent & Trademark Office, and Federal Trade Commission have in common? Answer: An increased concern about problems in the patent system. ****************************************************************************************************************** Yesterday the USPTO and the DOJ (Antitrust Division) issued a joint statement urging the International Trade Commission not to order injunctions in cases involving “standards–essential patents” (patents that cover basic...

The Wheres and Hows of Source Code Inspection

If your business is online—and what business isn’t online—then you’re a potential target for a lawsuit charging infringement of one or more patents that a plaintiff wants to read onto your website. Having filed a lawsuit, the plaintiff is entitled to discovery of relevant facts, and that includes your website’s source code, whether you wrote it or bought...

Google To Change Business Practices in Response to FTC Investigation

The Federal Trade Commission has been stepping up its activities in the patent arena recently. Today, the agency announced that Google has agreed to change some of its business practices in order to resolve an FTC investigation into potentially anti–competitive practices involving patents on standardized technologies used in smart phones, laptops, tablet computers, and gaming consoles. Under...

A Scam On Scanners?

A tip of the hat to ars technica for a detailed, if depressing, glimpse at another corner of the patent troll world. For those (many) businesses who found Innovatio IP Ventures’ patent “licensing” campaign against companies which use Wi–Fi (in other words, most every sizeable enterprise) alarming, ars technica’s journalistic piece may introduce the next generation of patent...

‘Tis The Season…

…to recycle an oldie, but goodie, from the US Patent Office. The twelve days of Christmas, patent-style. And a happy holidays to you and yours from those of us at IP Wise. Posted by Stacy Stitham

En Banc Re [CLS] Bank

Just a short follow up to our prior post regarding the Federal Circuit’s upcoming consideration of the patent-eligibility of computer-implemented inventions….Patently-O has collected the briefs filed to date in support of the defendant or in support of neither party, including the brief filed by the writers of this blog on behalf of Internet Retailers (in support of neither party,...

Patent Troll Cases Now a Majority of All Patent Lawsuits Filed

A quick–hitter coming out of the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice’s workshop on patent assertion entities (a/k/a non–practicing entities or patent trolls). As reported by Reuters, Professor Colleen Chien of Santa Clara University presented new findings thatan astounding 61% of all patent lawsuits filed through December 1, 2012, were brought by patent–assertion entities, up from a...

Putting Teeth To The Tiger

Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits the court to impose sanctions on a party that files a pleading, motion or other document that is presented for an improper purpose, is unsupported by existing law or by a non–frivolous argument for establishing new law, or otherwise falls under certain no–nos delineated by the...

Federal Circuit Strikes Down Free–Flowing Claim Against Patent Office

It’s a rough–and–tumble world in the air–filled packaging cushion industry by all appearances. In April 2009, Pregis sued its competitor, Free–Flow, seeking a judicial ruling that Pregis did not infringe a Free–Flow–owned patent, and that the patent was invalid. But Pregis did not stop there. Pregis also asserted a claim against the Patent Office under...

What’s Clear and Convincing to Juries

Litigants seeking to invalidate a patent in federal court face an uphill battle. Last year, the Supreme Court confirmed that, while patent–owners can prove infringement by a mere preponderance of the evidence, accused infringers must prove invalidity by clear and convincing evidence.  But what if the Patent Office had never seen the prior art—earlier examples of the...