Uber Learns Trade Secret Law the Hard Way in Settlement with Waymo over Self-Driving Car Technology By In the middle of trial with Google’s self-driving car company, Waymo, Uber settled the trade secret litigation brought by Google. Uber will turn over 0.34% of its equity, which has been estimated at $245 million dollars in value. The dispute resulted when Uber hired a former employee of Waymo, not knowing that the engineer had […] Continue Reading →
Federal Judge Rules Embedded Tweet Violated Copyright By In a surprising ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine B. Forrest, recently ruled that several news organizations and publishers violated a photographer’s copyright when they “embedded” a photo from Twitter on their websites without permission. Judge Forrest’s decision to grant the plaintiff’s motion for partial Summary Judgement is sure to be controversial and could prove […] Continue Reading →
The Future of GMOs in the UK Post-Brexit By Sarah M.D. Luth Following the United Kingdom triggering its formal exit from the European Union, negotiations regarding the details of the exit and the following transition period have begun. As one could expect, this negotiation process has brought to light underlying tensions between the UK and the EU. These tensions recently reached a peak when earlier this month […] Continue Reading →
The Plant Naming Conundrum … Protecting Your Plant Varieties in the Short and Long Term By Christine Lebron-Dykeman Development of a new plant cultivar or varietal often requires substantial research and development. These costs can be recovered, however, if a breeder is able to successfully market, sell and/or license the resulting product, while maintaining exclusive ownership rights therein. There are, of course, a variety of intellectual property protection schemes available to maintain those […] Continue Reading →
Time to Consider Patent Protection in China By Kirk M. Hartung In the past decade, the Chinese government has made substantial policy changes regarding protection for intellectual property, both for obtaining rights and enforcing rights. These policies are generally favorable to patent owners and are intended to incentivize innovation. In December, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published statistics for worldwide patent application filings for 2016, […] Continue Reading →
Space Systems Loral to Proceed with Trade Secret Theft Lawsuit Against Orbital ATK By Gregory Lars Gunnerson Daniel Wilson of Law360.com reports on Friday, February 2nd, U.S. District Judge Raymound A. Jackson “trimmed two claims from space technology company SSL’s suit accusing rival Orbital ATK of stealing its trade secrets through a shared NASA server, but refused to toss the suit, saying SSL had adequately pled the majority of its allegations.” SSL […] Continue Reading →
AIAA Honors Inventor Dr. Jay Gundlach By Gregory Lars Gunnerson On January 16, 2018, Lawrence Garrett reported The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) chose to honor Senior Member Dr. Jay Gundlach in the AIAA Momentum Member Spotlight for January 2018. With respect to Dr. Gundlach’s intellectual property endeavors, Lawrence notes: For the past two decades, Dr. Jay Gundlach has been a pioneering force behind […] Continue Reading →
Protecting Your Company’s Innovations By Kirk M. Hartung In 2017, over 600,000 patent applications were filed with the U.S. Patent Office, the most in its history. Clearly, a business plan for intellectual property may provide substantial value to your company, or you may be leaving substantial value on the table. Failure to plan is, in essence, a plan to fail. A thorough plan, […] Continue Reading →
PTAB Opinion Provides Reminder that Indefiniteness Rejections Must Establish a Prima Facie Case By Jonathan L. Kennedy In a recent USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) opinion, the PTAB reversed an Examiner’s indefiniteness rejection as the it failed to establish a prima facie case of indefiniteness. InEx Parte Kimura, Appeal No. 17-1293 (PTAB Jan. 25, 2018), the claims were rejected for reciting, “normal pumping operation.” The rejection stated the term was […] Continue Reading →
The Broad Institute has a Patent Revoked by the EPO on Technical Grounds By Blog Staff The CRISPR/Cas9 landscape continues to evolve around the world. On January 17, 2018, the EPO’s Opposition Division revoked Broad’s patent EP2771468 on the grounds it lacked novelty. The revocation will not be take effect until after any appeal is heard. EP2771468 claimed priority to a US provisional application, which would have allowed the patent to […] Continue Reading →