Latest News & Alerts

Summertime And The Living Is Easy…

First, while a bit belated, we’d like to thank our readers for IPWise’s recent milestone, crossing the page–view threshold into five–digit territory. To our regular subscribers as well as those of you who stumbled upon a post you enjoyed on our site—thanks for reading. Second, in honor of the Summer Games, we take a break...

Let’s Be Reasonable About Reasonable Royalties

In the absence of lost profits, patent infringement damages are generally measured by a “reasonable royalty,” which is in turn calculated through a “hypothetical negotiation” between the patent–owner and the infringer. As the Federal Circuit wrote way back in 1988, “The methodology encompasses fantasy and flexibility; fantasy because it requires a court to imagine what...

Unified Message from the Trial Court: Get to the Point Quicker (and Cheaper)

In the long dance of patent litigation, plaintiffs often try to assert as many claims of as many patents as they can in order to increase the workload (and headaches) for the defendants. By the same token, the defendants often try to respond in kind by identifying as many conceivable potential invalidating prior art references...

Manifestly Evident Divide Within The Federal Circuit Over Patent Eligibility

In an important opinion, an increasingly divided Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has once again addressed the delicate question of when the use of a computer renders an otherwise abstract idea patentable. As with other recent cases in this area, this opinion is as noteworthy for the division among the judges of the court as...

Internet Titans End Less-Than-Titanic Struggle

Less virulent than the Smartphone Wars, perhaps because the road has been a bit more traveled, the months-old struggle between Internet granddaddy Yahoo! and teenage Facebook has come to an apparently mutually-satisfying conclusion. According to a joint statement, the parties reached a settlement not only to resolve the patent infringement claims between them, but also...

Independence Day Innovations

We’ve called attention before to Article One Partners, an entity taking advantage of the global communication network to develop a more grass roots approach to prior art searching in patent cases. Before sending our readers off for fireworks, flags and frankfurters, we pause briefly to give a nod to Article One’s roster of the Top...

Another Bite of the Apple

Apple may have struck out in Illinois in its dispute with Motorola Mobility, but the company seems to be faring much better in the smart phone wars in California, winning a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus—just days after it was awarded a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. With Google heavily involved in both...

Everything’s Different, Nothing’s Changed

Perhaps Stephen Sondheim had the America Invents Act in mind when he wrote the lyrics to “Sorry–Grateful” for his show Company: “Everything’s different, nothing’s changed / Only maybe slightly rearranged.” Back in September 2011, Congress created a new statute, 35 U.S.C. § 299, as part of the America Invents Act, intended to prevent plaintiffs from...

News of Note: Chicago Edition

First, we would be remiss not to mention that the curtain has closed on Act I of the battle between Apple and Motorola over various smartphone technology. We say “Act I,” because an appeal seems almost inevitable—and it will be interesting to see what the more pro–patent Federal Circuit has to say about Judge Posner’s...

A Question Of Law

Patent lawyers generally salivate when the Federal Circuit (first stop for all your patent appellate needs) hands down an opinion. This past week was no exception, with the issuance of Bard Peripheral Vascular, Inc. v. W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. The upshot of Bard is that the “objective prong” of the test for willful patent...