Fourth Circuit: Plagiarism detection service is fair use of students’ copyrighted papers In a recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the court decided that the anti-plagiarism service provided by iParadigms at turnitin.com, did not constitute copyright infringement of high school students' papers submitted via the service. Instead, the court held the service was a fair use of the copyrighted works and therefore […] Continue Reading →
Attendance at single trade show to display infringing product sufficient for personal jurisdiciton In a case of first impression for the Federal Circuit, the court addressed the issue of how to apply Federal Rule 4(k)(2) (the Federal Court's long-arm statute) to a defendant. The court, in agreement with several other circuits, that a Rule 4(k)(2) analysis is appropriate when (1) the plaintiff's claim arises under federal law, (2) […] Continue Reading →
En banc Federal Circuit to address potential patent misuse issues in license practices The Federal Circuit has agreed to hear en banc an interesting issue with regard to the potential for patent misuse in licensing. The case is Princo Corp. v. ITC. At issue is the patent pool related to the technology used for CD-R and CD-RW discs. The alleged infringer, Princo, admitted infringement before the ITC, but […] Continue Reading →
Dependent claim can’t be obvious when indepdendent claim is not; verdict vacated as inconsistent In a recent decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part a district court's decision regarding obviousness, holding the defendant was not entitled to summary judgment that the asserted claims were invalid for obviousness. The court vacated the district court's entry of judgment of an inconsistent jury verdict of obviousness: the jury held a dependent claim obvious but […] Continue Reading →
Claim and continuation rules dead: thousands of practitioners breathe easier In a Federal Register notice today, the USPTO has officially withdrawn the claim and continuation rule changes from the Code of Federal Regulations. This is consistent with a press release from Thursday announcing the rules were no longer going to be pursued. The summary of the notice: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) […] Continue Reading →