Cisco sues Apple over iPhone trademark Apple, the company that dominates the digital music player market with the iPod, announced this week at the annual MacWorld show in San Francisco that Apple will be entering another lucrative consumer electronics market: the mobile phone. Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced his company's newest offering: the iPhone. Apple's stock increased 10% just from the […] Continue Reading →
Sioux Falls inventor files one millionth electronic trademark application with USPTO The USPTO recently received the one millionth trademark application filed electronically via its TEAS system. It took just under ten years for the one millionth electronic application to be filed, as the TEAS system first became available in November, 1997. The applicant, Donald Junck of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was flown out to the USPTO […] Continue Reading →
“Bare Licensee” Lacks Standing to Sue for Infringement In Propat International Corp & David Find and Helene Glasser (“Propat”) v. RPsot International Limted, Zafar Khan, Kenneth Barton and Terrance Tomkow (“Rpost”), the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision that Propat lacked standing to sue for infringement and, on the cross-appeal, affirmed the district court’s order denying RPost’s request for an award of […] Continue Reading →
“Use in commerce” not necessary to support trademark opposition, just use in the United States The Federal Circuit, reversing the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ("TTAB"), found that a Canadian company who arguably only did business in Canada could oppose a trademark application based on "spillover" use of its unregistered trademark in the United States. The Canadian company, First Niagara Insurance Brokers, opposed several trademark applications filed by a United […] Continue Reading →
Anheuser-Busch and Budvar reach agreement, but trademark fights continue United States brewer Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser beer, has reached an agreement with Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar, to distribute Budvar's Czechvar lager. This agreement is interesting because the two companies have been involved in trademark disputes around the world over which company has the right to use the name "Budweiser." Budvar's beer is sold as […] Continue Reading →
Supreme Court: patent licensee need not cease royalty payments to challenge patent’s vaildity Today the Supreme Court decided MedImmune v. Genentech, a case about the power of federal courts to decide issues related to patent infringement and validity when one party to the dispute is currently licensing the patent from the other party. In an 8-1 decision, the Court held that a licensee need not stop paying royalties, […] Continue Reading →
MIT Offers Free Course Materials on United States Copyright Law The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is offering an introductory course to Copyrights via its OpenCourseWare website. The website describes the course as “an introduction to copyright law and American law in general.” Topics covered include: 1) Structure of federal law 2) Basics of legal research 3) Legal citations 4) How to use LexisNexis? 5) […] Continue Reading →
Celebrities are inventors too Inventors come from all walks of life, so it shouldn't be a surprise that celebrities are inventors also. One blogger used the new Google patent search to search for famous names as inventors of patents. Click here for the list of patents he discovered. Figures from a few of my favorites after the jump. Click […] Continue Reading →
Speculation not required: IP litigation in 2006 produced $3.4 billion Contrary to the statement in the previous post, apparently speculation is not required to determine the amount of money that changed hands as a result of intellectual property litigation in 2006. According to a survey [subscription required to view full story] by IP Law 360, intellectual property litigation resulted in a combined $3.4 billion in […] Continue Reading →
Patent cases in 2006 result in over $1 billion in damages awarded According to a study released by Bloomberg, United States juries in patent cases awarded a total of over $1 billion in damages in cases that went to jury trial in 2006, the largest single year ever. The largest award went to Rambus, a California maker of computer memory chips, who won a $307 million verdict […] Continue Reading →