The **strace** and **subversion** commands from Slackware software series **d**.
A while back someone asked me about a tablet writing app but I had never actually used one so I did a bit of research and discovered Xournal++
Does anyone have any examples of peripheral devices that can have their firmware upgraded by dropping a new firmware file onto a mounted volume? e.g. insert device, new disk appears, firmware file is copied over, then the firmware update completes?
This year there has been a lot of Linux kernel work around improving the handling of tiered memory servers, namely those with traditional system RAM augmented by Intel Optane DC persistent memory. There has been work to demote pages during reclamation to the slower persistent memory, improving NUMA balancing around such systems to optimize memory placement, transparent page placement and related work around tiered memory Linux servers.
The latest work comes by way of Alibaba and they are proposing speculative NUMA fault support for tiered memory systems. The proposed patches for speculative NUMA fault support will handle promotion of slow/hot memory to fast memory for enhancing system performance.
One of the Intel patch series we have been waiting to see mainlined since all the way back in 2018 is around per-client GPU metrics reporting for being able to show various GPU engine activity on a per-process basis. Every once in a while the patches have been revived but have yet to reach mainline. They recently were revved once again, leaving us hope that in 2022 we might finally see this standardized per-client/process GPU statistics reporting land in the mainline kernel.
While it started out as an Intel driver effort and fitting the needs of their "intel_gpu_top" utility for exposing to users various per-process GPU metrics, it was later expanded to become a DRM driver standard so it could be supported by other Direct Rendering Manager drivers like AMDGPU. In turn this would ease the burden on user-space software wanting to make use of this information like GNOME/KDE System Monitor or other software that may want insights into per-process GPU usage whether it be for 3D, media engines, etc.
phpBB is an Internet forum package in the PHP scripting language. The name “phpBB” is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board. Available under the GNU General Public License, phpBB is free and open-source.
Features of phpBB include support for multiple database engines (PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL, Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server), flat message structure (as opposed to threaded), hierarchical subforums, topic split/merge/lock, user groups, multiple attachments per post, full-text search, plugins and various notification options (e-mail, Jabber instant messaging, ATOM feeds).
It is easy to install phpBB on most web servers such as Apache and Nginx and also easy to administer and use.
In this tutorial, we learn how to install phpBB with Apache on Ubuntu 20.04.
GitLab allows you to host an on-premise Git repository that can be accessed from either your local LAN or (if you have an available public IP address) from outside your company. GitLab is an open-source repository manager based on Rails developed by GitLab Inc. It is a web-based git repository manager that allows your team to collaborate on coding, testing, and deploying applications. GitLab provides several features, including wikis, issue tracking, code reviews, and activity feeds.
In this guide, we will install the GitLab CE on the Ubuntu 20.04. We will install the GitLab CE using the ‘omnibus’ package provided by GitLab.
GitLab allows you to host an on-premise Git repository that can be accessed from either your local LAN or (if you have an available public IP address) from outside your company. GitLab is an open-source repository manager based on Rails developed by GitLab Inc. It is a web-based git repository manager that allows your team to collaborate on coding, testing, and deploying applications. GitLab provides several features, including wikis, issue tracking, code reviews, and activity feeds.
In this guide, we will install the GitLab CE on the OpenSUSE Leap 15.3. We will install the GitLab CE using the ‘omnibus’ package provided by GitLab.
In this guide we are going to install and set up PHP and Nginx in Debian 11. We will also set up a virtual host to serve a simple php info page.
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It is one of the popular programming languages for the web. Popular tools such as WordPress are coded using php. Big companies like Facebook also uses php heavily.
Nginx is a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache. It started out as a web server designed for maximum performance and stability. Nginx has grown in popularity since its release due to its light-weight resource utilization and its ability to scale easily on minimal hardware. Nginx excels at serving static content quickly and is designed to pass dynamic requests off to other software that is better suited for those purposes.
In this guide, we are going to set up NextCloud on a Debian 11 server hosted with Nginx, Mariadb and PHP (LEMP stack). We will be using Mariadb 10 and PHP 7.4 for this guide.
Nextcloud is an Open Source suite of client-server software for creating and using file hosting services. It is a a free self-hosted cloud storage solution similar to Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. With Nextcloud, you don’t have to worry about the pricey alternatives and since you will host your own files, you don’t have to worry about privacy or someone collecting your data.
NextCloud can be installed on a private home server or a virtual private server in the cloud. Files can then be uploaded and then synced to a local desktop, laptop or even a smartphone. This way you have full control of your data.
Ubuntu is one of the best open-source operating systems in the market today. It offers a veritable software ecosystem that provides a variety of premium services, each of which you would normally expect only within Windows or macOS.
To this effect, Ubuntu provides you with a default cache of fonts used extensively for various typographic purposes. Nevertheless, users can avail some of the highest quality Google Fonts on Ubuntu for different text processing purposes. Here's how.
The fsck (stands for File System Consistency Check) is used to check and repair one or more Linux filesystems.
This check will run automatically at boot time when a filesystem inconsistencies detected. Also, can be run manually as needed.
You can use the fsck command to repair corrupted file systems when the system fails to boot, or a partition can’t be mounted, or if it’s become read-only.
In this article, we’ll see how to use the ‘fsck’ or ‘e2fsck’ command in Linux to repair a corrupted file system.
OpenRazer as the open-source, community-maintained collection of Razer peripheral support for Linux is out with a new release.
OpenRazer is the independently-maintained software for supporting Razer lighting, mouse configurations, and other features on Linux that is normally provided by Razer's own (proprietary) software on Windows. OpenRazer is developed via reverse-engineering and over time has developed fairly robust Razer device support for Linux for not only their keyboards and mice but also headsets, base stations, Thunderbolt Dock, and other devices.
I’ve been learning how to code recently, but it takes a lot of my time to achieve even the basics since I have no IT background, which makes me unproductive for other stuff. And I was having some family health issues to take care of. I’ve decided to do what I like best instead; documenting, translating, subtitling.
Let me casually introduce you to compilation of C++ and Qt software. I’m sure you’ll learn at least something. You will need some basic C++ knowledge, though. I plan on making a learning trajectory for those interested in learning Qt/KF, but that day is not today.
To start off, we can make a simple C++ program just so we have something to compile.
This guide requires you to have installed your distro’s build tools, the Qt libraries, git, Make, CMake, QMake, KDevelop and QtCreator (which usually comes with the package qt5-tools), g++, clang++, ninja and qt5-doc-html. Needless to say, no automagic is possible without all the tools being installed on your system!
I think the final “product” looks nice. The RGB back-lighting still works, thought the new keycaps are not shine-through.
In addition I have now a full shine-through ABS keycaps set as backup parts for more keyboard modding. And some more or less useless Varmilo baseboard. But who knows, if I spill too much coffee or whatever in my board, I can still re-build the Varmilo board to have something that works (and pings).
Naturally that was not the way I meant to use the new keyboard, but good enough ;) And I must confess, a bit modding around on the keyboards was fun!
For any people interested in keyboards: I think both boards mentioned above are ok. Perhaps I just was unlucky with my Varmilo board and other builds of it don’t ping at all, like the most reviews tell.
KDE Frameworks 5.89 is here to further improve the Plasma Wayland session by making the Morphing Popups effect work correctly so that panel tooltips have a smooth animation when they appear and disappear, fixing Plasma OSD (On-Screen Display) to respect KWin’s maximized window placement policy, and improves support for QtWidgets apps like Dolphin, Gwenview, or Okular so that the menu won’t appear as a standalone window when clicking on the hamburger menu button while their windows are unfocused.
KDE today announces the release of KDE Frameworks 5.89.0.
KDE Frameworks are 83 addon libraries to Qt which provide a wide variety of commonly needed functionality in mature, peer reviewed and well tested libraries with friendly licensing terms. For an introduction see the KDE Frameworks release announcement.
This release is part of a series of planned monthly releases making improvements available to developers in a quick and predictable manner.
I’m working with API data from a netbox instance. I want to select a device-typ URL based on the manufacturer. However, the value “manufacturer” in the result is a dictionary. I want to select where that manufacturer has the name “Ampere” or some other manufacturer.
Over the years I have received a few enquiries about how to get going with Yocto/OpenEmbedded -- I will call it OE from now on -- and in reply I have mentioned that it has a very steep learning curve. Start reading the documentation and your eyes will glaze over very quickly! However, you can follow some simple steps and compile 850+ packages without trauma. It should just work. Knowledge of how OE works can be learnt gradually, later on. One thing to understand is that OE mostly targets embedded systems, and is not really intended to build packages for a desktop PC. However, it is a testimony to the flexibility of OE that it can be made to do this -- my "dunfell" project tarball has many tweaks to achieve this. Another very important point is that it is a cross-compile environment. This is great, you can be running on a x86_64 Linux host system and compile for a aarch64 target, for example. I am currently supporting x86_64 (nocona) and aarch64 targets. However, cross-compiling is sometimes like trying to sweep dung uphill. Build recipes may have to do all kind of tricky things to perform a successful compile of a package. OE is incredibly sophisticated and despite the cross-compile hurdle can successfully compile large packages, such as Libreoffice.
Many projects (like robotic ones) need to get info about spacial position and direction. In this sense one of most useful device for projects involving Raspberry PI Pico is an HMC5883L magnetometer compass
In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to wire, calibrate (X / Y axes) and use an HMC5883L device, also known as a magnetometer, with Raspberry PI Pico using MicroPython.
The Python package ecosystem offers and abundance of readily available building blocks for your Python applications. Great for your productivity as a Python developer. However, it can quickly become a dependency nightmare. Especially when Python applications depend on different versions of the same Python package. You can sidestep this problem with the help of a Python virtual environment. This article explains how you create and manage a Python virtual environment in the Linux terminal.
The text file alpha-wide.txt contains only capital letters of the Latin alphabet (ABC… Z). Identify the character that most often occurs in the file immediately after the letter X. In the answer first write down this character, and then immediately (without a separator) how many times it occurred after letters X. If there are several such characters, you need to display the one that appears earlier in the alphabet.
As Chesterman mentions in the introduction to the book, “the field of AI and law is fertile,” and there are already books, dedicated journals and thousands of articles that discuss recent developments in AI, its actual or potential impact on the legal profession, and normative questions raised by AI. The majority of them concentrate on the activities of legal practitioners, their potential clients, or the machines themselves. This book, by contrast, Chesterman explains, focuses on those who seek to regulate the activities of AI, and the difficulties that AI systems pose for government and governance. Regulation here refers to two aspects; first. the exercise of control through rules and standards, including self-regulation; and second, that such control is exercised by one or more public bodies. This book focuses on the challenges raised by ‘narrow’ AI, meaning systems that can apply cognitive functions to specific tasks typically undertaken by a human. In doing so it asks how should we understand the challenges to regulation posed by AI? What regulatory tools exist to deal with those challenges and what are their limitations? And what more is needed – rules, institutions, actors – to reap the benefits offered by AI, while minimising avoidable harm? As such, the book is presented in three main parts: challenges, tools and possibilities.
Part one addresses the challenges of speed, autonomy, and opacity, with the aim of highlighting the gaps in existing regulatory models with a view to seeing whether the tools at our disposal can fulfil them.
Chapter one, Speed, examines three areas. First, considering the globalisation of information, which seeks to demonstrate the difficulty of containing problematic activity in an interconnected world where speed has conquered distance. Second, considering high frequency trading – where algorithms buy and sell stocks – which highlights the danger that speed of decision making can have on frustrating human attempts to limit or regulate it. Third, the chapter considers the challenges posed by the accelerated flow of information and AI on competition law. For example, tacit collusion by algorithms which conflicts with the regulatory framework.
The domestic cat has been the subject of much study, recently involving its genetic structure, genomic DNA sequence, and comparisons with other felines. The first such study was published in 2014, when an international effort led by Stephen J. O'Brien at the Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida reported the complete genomic sequencing of the domestic cat, Felix catus. The report, entitled "Annotated features of domestic cat – Felis catus genome," was published in GigaScience 2014, 3:13 (August 5, 2014) (see "Domestic Cat Genome Sequenced"). The study reported sequencing of a female Abyssinian cat named Cinnamon, a mixed-breed cat from Russian named Boris, and Sylvester, a wildcat ancestor of domestic cats. The report showed that domestic cats have retained "a highly conserved ancestral mammal genome organization" in comparison with ancestral cats (see Driscoll et al., 2007, "The near eastern origin of cat domestication," Science 317: 519–23). Both species, F. catus and Felix silvestris, have 38 chromosomes, 18 pairs of autosomes, and two pairs of dimorphic gender-determining chromosomes. Details of the domestic cat genome structure included the presence of 217 loci of endogenous retrovirus-like elements (amounting to 55.7% of the entire genome, comprised of long interspersed elements (LINEs), short interspersed elements (SINEs), satellite DNA, retroviral long terminal repeats (LTRs) and "others"); 21,865 protein coding genes (open reading frames or ORFs), detected by comparison with eight mammalian genomes (from human, chimpanzee, macaque, dog, cow, horse, rat, and mouse); and a wealth of genetic variability in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), insertion/deletion events (indels); novel families of complex tandem repeat elements; and short terminal repeat (STR) loci.
Pregnant people are at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, but they have been largely excluded from clinical trials, the process of testing vaccines’ and treatments’ safety and efficacy. They’re consequently left in a bind: there’s not great evidence about the safety and efficacy of products they can take to be safe from COVID-19. This lack of information might be part of the explanation for low vaccine uptake among pregnant people, particularly women of color. And while this lack of data isn’t particularly novel with respect to drug development, generally—we’re historically bad at generating robust safety data for pregnant people—failing to do so for COVID-19 seems to have outsized public health consequences. What’s behind this ongoing exclusion? And how should policymakers consider including pregnant people in COVID-19 clinical trials and beyond?
Well, damn. After six years of reliable service, I've just been informed that my Blackberry Z10 smartphone is going to be "decommissioned" -- i.e., remotely bricked -- on January 4th.
For those who have not yet seen it, this advisory from Apache describes a nasty vulnerability in the widely used Log4j package.
A critical zero-day vulnerability in Apache Log4j (CVE-2021-44228), a widely used Java logging library, is being leveraged by attackers in the wild – for now, fortunately, primarily to deliver coin miners.
Reported to the Apache Software Foundation by Chen Zhaojun of Alibaba Cloud Security Team, the bug has now apparently been fixed in Log4j v2.15.0, just as a PoC has popped up on GitHub and there are reports that attackers are already attempting to compromise vulnerable applications/servers.
If you pay attention to tech news, you know what’s going on with log4j right now. It’s being called Log4Shell which is a great name. I’ll spare you repeating the details of the issue, there are many many stories about it at this point.
What I’ve not seen is a good explanation about why knowing if you are using log4j is hard, and fixing it will be even harder than finding it.
Hunting for log4j
If you have a java project, the very first thing you probably did was check to see if you are pulling in log4j as a dependency. The weird thing about Java projects is even if you aren’t using log4j, it could be in you project.
David Neal Cox admitted to the 2007 killing of his sister-in-law, Felecia Cox, a cold case in which he had long been the prime suspect, prosecutors said.
Outrage spread on social media in Myanmar on Wednesday over images and accounts of the alleged killing and burning of 11 villagers captured by government troops in the country’s northwest.
Photos and a video of charred corpses in Done Taw village in Sagaing region circulated widely Tuesday. They were said to be have been taken shortly after the men were killed and their bodies set on fire.
In a new lawsuit, three fired software engineers claim Google’s “don’t be evil” clause of its code of conduct amounts to a contractual obligation.
Netflix Inc. was accused in a lawsuit of unlawfully releasing a dubbed version of a hit South Korean film, wiping out the potential theatrical audience for producers who claim to have the rights to an English-language version of the movie.
Hollywood Innovations Group LLC said it obtained in 2019 the rights to all but the Korean-language version of “#Saraitda,” a blockbuster hit in Korea about a young man’s struggle for survival during a global pandemic -- which was written before the Covid-19 outbreak.
ASCI secretary-general Manisha Kapoor says self-regulation has paved the way for fast and efficient dispute resolution, and reduced the burden on courts
By that wordplay I don't mean the order by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granting Apple's motion to stay the consolation-prize injunction under California Unfair Competition Law (UCL) that the district court had granted Epic Games. Anything else would have been a major surprise. I explained on a few occasions that Apple handily met the criteria for a stay. In fact, I got a 3 out of 3 for my predictions in this context: I said the district court would clarify the narrow scope of the UCL injunction (as it did, though people are free to still pretend to be obtuse), and would uphold its own injunction, but the appeals court would stay it. Actually, it's even 4 out of 4 as you'll see further below in the context of an amicus brief Apple successfully opposed.
The order granting Apple a stay (that will practically be in effect for a couple of years) is terse and doesn't take a position on whether Apple's conduct raises competition concerns or not. However, a binary outcome is now most likely as the federal appeals court for the West Coast cites California's Chavez case law, according to which the failure of a theory under federal antitrust law (Sherman Act) spells doom for a California UCL claim on the same basis. I continue to wish Epic luck with their own appeal (of the rejection of nine of Epic's ten counts), though the hurdle is high and Epic has made some mistakes that it's too late to fix now. My guess is that the appeals court will not overturn the district court's finding that Apple is not a monopolist, and Epic's failure to prove something that is so obvious to me--that so-called Progressive Web Apps are not a viable alternative to native apps--is not the only issue but that one alone is probably sufficient all by itself to make Epic lose again.
My friend Walter Block, economics professor at Loyola-New Orleans, asked me to give a guest lecture today (Dec. 8, 2021) for his Law and Economics course, on the topics of intellectual property
The Biden administration’s proposed policy changes on patents essential to industry standards are part of a broader international rethinking.
In a draft and request for comments, the administration is taking another look at how to value patents on industry standards for technology needed for things to work together. The issues have become increasingly important with the rise of 5G and the Internet of Things.
The U.K. said Tuesday it was seeking comments on a standard-essential patent framework. The European Union is also preparing a regulation with a new licensing framework.
“The bottom line is that the system that currently exists doesn’t work efficiently,” said Maurits Dolmans, an attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in London.
“Manufacturers complain of being held up,” Dolmans continued, “while SEP owners complain they are not being paid enough. Litigation is often complex and can span three continents. That is why the U.S., the U.K., and the EU are looking at this again, to see whether they can find a more efficient solution.”
TheNewswire - December 10, 2021 – Global Cannabis Applications Corp. ("GCAC" or the "Company") (CSE:APP), (CNSX:APP.CN), (FSE:2FA), (OTC:FUAPF), a leading medical cannabis chain-of-custody compliance and data platform, obtained official Acknowledgement Receipt from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in filing US Utility Patent Applications.
GCAC filed the “System of Processing and Tracking Cannabis Products and Associated Method Using Block Chain,” Serial Number 63/126,555, filed the original application on December 17, 2020. Due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Patent was officially published on December 2, 2021. A second application filed November 24, 2021, for “Tracking System for Cultivated Products and Associated Methods,” Serial Number 17/457,385 was acknowledged simultaneously.
Advocates say the new pandemic preparedness treaty will be a good opportunity to promote a refocus of the debate away from forced licensing
Counsel at Bayer, Regeneron and two other companies explain what the rise of software in their firms means for IP protection and finding outside counsel
Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Preeti Dua, who received a cash prize of $2,000 for her prior art submission for U.S. Patent 8,725,924. The patent is owned by Longhorn HD, LLC, an NPE. The '924 patent generally relates to an information backup system with a storing mechanism, a power supply, and a host microcontroller. It has been asserted against Kyocera, TCT Mobile International, OnePlus Technology, and Samsung.
A lack of clarity on patent eligibility in court decisions and the examination process has undermined the credibility of the patent system.
The urgency for reform is recognized. A draft bill for eligibility reform was released by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Tom Tillis, R-N.C., and Reps. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, on May 22, 2019. However, consensus on that bill appears elusive.
As those familiar with the patent process will know, the requirements set by the European Patent Convention (EPC) are considered stricter than for many other jurisdictions – and this is particularly true when it comes to assessing basis for amendments. At the European Patent Office (EPO), the notoriously strict approach to added subject-matter has the potential to cause issues for proprietors during examination and also when defending their case during opposition proceedings.
So how can proprietors get the patent monopoly they want in Europe? Our attorneys at Gill Jennings & Every LLP have extensive experience of handling applications in the chemical field during examination, as well as in opposition and appeal proceedings before the EPO. Across a three-part series, we look at how our experience can help in the preparation of your patent applications and how to avoid the pitfalls of the EPC. For Parts 1 and 2 (focused on clarity, and inventive step) see here and here. In this final instalment, we will look specifically at how to prepare and prosecute European patent applications to provide the flexibility necessary to navigate the EPO’s strict approach to added subject-matter.
The UKIPO opened a highly anticipated call for views on the future of the UK’s rules on standard-essential patent licensing this week.
Stakeholders will have until March 1 to submit evidence on 27 questions, which largely focus on potential market power issues in the SEP licensing market.
In its announcement of the review on Tuesday, December 7, the UKIPO acknowledged concerns over the level of transparency in SEP licensing, which it said had made it difficult to establish a common understanding of what was fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND).
Several of the questions examined specific abuses of market power in SEP licensing, as had been alleged by some patent implementers.
For example, the UKIPO is seeking evidence of circumstances where implementers are required to buy licences to a broader range of patents not essential to the relevant standard.
The call for views also includes other contentious topics in the field, such as the benefits and drawbacks of national courts setting global FRAND rates, and the role of patent pools in FRAND licensing.
UKIPO CEO Tim Moss said: “We want to ensure the UK’s framework remains robust and continues to be regarded as one of the best in the world, while keeping pace with global developments and challenges around SEPs and FRAND licensing.”
“It will help us better understand how our IP framework supports the SEP ecosystem, while ensuring a fair balance is achieved between all entities involved, and the maximum benefit to UK innovation,” Moss added.
It comes the same week as the US Department of Justice announced its own review of SEP policy, also focusing on the intersection of IP and competition law.
The government seeks views as to whether the Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) ecosystem (i.e. the enabling participants, commercial relationships, infrastructure, and legal and regulatory environment) surrounding SEPs is functioning efficiently and effectively and striking the right balance for all entities involved. The purpose is to help assess whether government intervention is required.
Our aim is to produce the optimal IP framework for the UK that will promote innovation and creativity both now and, in the future, while supporting the government’s ambitions set out in the Innovation Strategy and Diversification Strategy.
On December 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice, along with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, issued a draft policy statement on standards-essential patents (“SEPs”) and welcomed public comments by interested parties. The guidance modifies a 2019 policy statement issued under the Trump Administration, which we previously covered.
This mandamus petition has been denied, although the Federal Circuit has suggested that Judge Albright reconsider his denial of venue transfer.
AudioEye sued accessiBe for patent infringement (US10423709, et al.) as well as claims under the Lanham Act (false advertisement & product disparagement) and under New York State Law (product disparagement, tortious interference, etc). But, instead of suing in New York, AudioEye sued in W.D. Tex. The focus here is on screen-reader used to help individuals with disabilities better access the internet. The software particularly helps to fix non-compliant websites to make them more accessible.
Suing a Non-Resident for Patent Infringement: In TC Heartland, the Supreme Court severely limited the scope of “proper venue” in patent cases. Generally, the patentee can only sue a defendant in either (1) its state of incorporation or (2) some venue where it has a regular-and-established place of business. These limitations stem back more than 100 years, and the “limitation” offered in TC Heartland might be more properly seen as a rejection of venue-expansion by the Federal Circuit. One gap in the Supreme Court’s analysis in TC Heartland is how to treat foreign companies. The answer though is pretty clear under Brunette Machine Works, Ltd. v. Kockum Industries, Inc., 406 U.S. 706 (1972). In Brunette, the Supreme Court held that the more-expansive rules of the general law (Section 1391) apply when the defendant is not a US entity.
This case helps show that patent law has arrived at Nerdsville. Actually, I’ve been here for a while and so welcome to all you newcomers. In my view, the case also suggests that our claim construction doctrine has gone too far attempting to discern meaning where none exists. Rather, I would suggest that the issues here are really about infringement rather than claim construction.
The claims require “0.001%” of a formulation be the inactive ingredient PVP K25. The allegedly infringing formulation is slightly different — lets say 0.0008% — but it is within standard rounding error if 0.001% is seen as having one significant digit (0.0005 to 0.0014). Mylan argued that 0.001% should be given a narrower range — “the precise number, with only minor variation.” Mylan’s outcome would result in a range of something like 0.00095 to 0.00104.
An enduring and persistent (albeit until now unresolved) issue in the patent interferences involving the Broad Institute, Harvard University, and MIT (collectively, "Broad") as Senior Party and the University of California/Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC") as Junior Party has been the question of whether Broad had committed inequitable conduct in prosecuting its patents- and applications-in-interference. CVC raised the issue in its proposed motions in Interference No. 105,048 (see "CRISPR Interference Motions Set" and "PTAB Redeclares CRISPR Interference and Grants Leave for Some (But Not All) of Parties' Proposed Motions") and in this '115 Interference (see "CRISPR Interference Parties Propose Motions"). In both interferences, the Board denied CVC authorization to file its motions grounded in inequitable conduct as being premature but granted leave for CVC to file a motion for authorization to file their inequitable conduct motion at the end of the priority phase.
This is an interesting pro-pharma obviousness decision coming out of the PTAB regarding obviousness of particular drug dosages. Here, the particular drug was known to work well, but there were concerns about drug safety. And, there were a couple of particular tests that clearly would have been obvious to try. In fact, the patentee was legally required by the FDA to conduct the tests in order to ensure drug safety. Still, the outcome of the tests were not predictable. Nobody knew whether the particular dosage being was going to turn out to be “safe.” (Here “safe” is interpreted as having “an acceptable risk-benefit profile.”) The patentee ran the tests, found the dosage to be safe, and then patented a method of administering that safe-dosage to patients. Teva challenged the patent, but the PTAB and the Federal Circuit both sided with the patentee. They held that the unpredictable outcome of the test meant that the outcome was not obvious since there was no “reasonable expectation of success.”
I expect that the Supreme Court would reject the hard line drawn in this case in the same way that it rejected the TSM requirement in KSR v. Teleflex. I.e., obviousness is a flexible, open analysis asking “is there an invention here?” Former Kennedy clerk J.C. Rozendaal handled the appeal for Teva, and so I won’t be surprised to see a petition for writ of certiorari in 2022.
Schwentker, a principal at Fish & Richardson, tells Managing IP about his day to day, including the biggest challenges of his job and his favourite venues
The Federal Court of Justice has dealt with the important question of how the amount in dispute in patent nullity proceedings is to be determined with regard to a standard-essential patent. In principle, the amount in dispute is to be determined in the same way as for a “normal” patent. The Federal Court of Justice held that the mere fact that a standard-essential patent is involved does not justify a deviation upward from the usual practice of determining the amount in dispute.
On December 9, 2021, the USPTO issued a notice of intent to issue a reexamination certificate, canceling all claims of U.S. Patent 6,275,166, owned by Karamelion LLC, an NPE and affiliate of IP Edge. The ‘166 patent relates to relaying communications to appliances from a central computer and has been asserted in over 40 district court litigations. The reexamination certificate took less than a year to issue.
Across Europe, more patents are being filed related to battery technology. The European Patent Office (EPO) reported a 14.8% increase in the number of patents filed related to electricity storage from 2005 to 2018. This is significant compared with other technology areas that only averaged a 3.5% increase.
Systems for protecting intellectual property (IP) have been in place since the Middle Ages, encouraging skilled, innovative technicians by granting monopolies within particular industries. For hundreds of years, intellectual property policy has been driven by the imperative of rewarding the human creativity or ingenuity that brings new creative works and useful inventions to society, in exchange for disclosure of those works and inventions to further foster progress – the so-called “bargain.”
The Indian patent office has granted a patent to Achal Agrawal, CEO of Macsen Labs, Udaipur. The patent relating to the field of chemistry is titled Novel Improved Method for Synthesis of Diaminophenothiazine Compounds. The patent concerns a novel process for synthesising the compound Methylthioninium Chloride or Methylene Blue.
Mitra is the first inventor to incorporate nanoparticle into dental materials to produce stronger, more durable and more aesthetically pleasing fillings in products used by more than a billion people worldwide. She is the recipient of 100 US patents and their corresponding global equivalents and has more than 100 publications in the areas of polymer science, nanocomposites and dental materials. She is an internationally recognized lecturer on these topics and has given numerous presentations and courses in various universities and colleges in 45 countries. Additionally, she has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, was named the winner of the highly-prestigious European Patent Office Inventor Award 2021 in Non-EPO countries, and recognized with the EPO Inventors Award, American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry Award, Peyton-Skinner Award for Innovation in Dental Materials, and the Hollenback Memorial Prize from the Academy of Operative Dentistry.
In November 2020 we looked at looked at global patent filing statistics for the preceding twenty years in the computer-aided surgery sector in order to identify the key trends in the field. At the time we set out that the computer-aided surgery sector was at a pivotal stage in its maturity, with those innovating companies developing and effectively protecting the next dominant technologies likely to establish themselves in the market during the widespread adoption of robot assisted surgery in hospitals around the world.
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he EPO recognise that the control of surgical equipment can involve a technical effect. The below graph shows that while small, innovation in the field of surgical robotics using artificial intelligence has been growing rapidly over the last few years.
An Oklahoma federal court narrowed the scope of its injunction barring radio remote control maker Hetronic International Inc.’s European partners from selling trademark-infringing products, limiting its coverage to countries where Hetronic markets or sells products.
On December 2, 2021, the second chamber of the Austrian Parliament unanimously approved the draft legislation enabling Austria to ratify the Protocol on the Provisional Application of the Unified Patent Court. After the publication of the law in the Federal Gazette, Austria is expected to deposit its instrument of ratification to the Council of the European Union.
An artificial intelligence researcher wants the Federal Circuit to reverse a federal judge's finding that AI can't be listed as an inventor on a patent application, saying the decision hurts innovation.
AI researcher Stephen Thaler on Wednesday filed a corrected opening brief in his challenge to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's September decision that shut down his suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Inter partes review (IPR) is an incredibly powerful process for cancelling patent rights. We have a set of expert judges who are not afraid of digging into the details of a complex obviousness analysis. Still, IPR petitions are strictly limited to petitions based upon obviousness and anticipation theories and “only on the basis of prior art consisting of patents or printed publications.” 35 U.S.C. 311(b).
Successful IPR petitions always focus on prior art as the central basis for cancelling the patent claims. And yet, the petitioner usually also presents additional evidence to contextualize the prior art — most typically this comes in the form of expert testimony.
Six months after US v Arthrex, counsel at Thermo Fisher, Sanofi and two other companies set out how they plan to use the USPTO's director review process
UPC will offer both opportunities and risks, and many will want to watch its early goings-on from the sideline
Three-quarters of IP market leaders in latest IAM Panel Report say they’re taking a cautious approach to the UPC, which passed another key milestone for establishment last week
In recent years, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has invalidated or affirmed the invalidity of various biopharma patents under 35 U.S.C. €§ 112, which requires that a patent specification contain a written description of the invention and enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the invention. The court system, however, is not the only venue for such invalidity challenges. Post Grant Review (PGR) provides an alternative opportunity to challenge newly issued first-inventor-to-file patents on any and all grounds of invalidity, including €§ 112 grounds, before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). But, these challenges come with a significant estoppel risk. That is, an unsuccessful PGR petitioner will be estopped from raising arguments that “reasonably could have been raised” in the PGR process during subsequent district court proceedings. When weighing this heightened estoppel risk, one factor to consider is how €§ 112 challenges have historically fared at the PTAB.
In a prior survey of PGRs for bio, pharma, and chemical patents prior to April 30, 2020, a total of 28 cases, revealed an institution rate of roughly 64%. It further concluded that there was a 78% success rate of finding challenged claims unpatentable in the instituted PGRs that had reached a final written decision.
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A comparison between our results and the prior survey suggests that there has been a significant decrease in institution rates, but it should be noted that the numbers of PGRs in these analyses are small. Even if institution rates have markedly declined, it should not discourage patent challengers from bringing PGRs based on ۤ 112 grounds because no estoppel attaches in cases that are not instituted. And, when a PGR is instituted, the success rate for finding claims unpatentable has remained high.
The beginning of a series of articles on artificial intelligence (AI), which starts with an overview of the stance taken by the UKIPO and EPO when examining AI inventions
Be there when lawyers from 15 leading law firms pool their experience to help a fictitious client enforce its patent rights in Europe.
Following from this, he points to studies suggesting that an estimated 30% to 40% of issued patents are invalid or low quality.
For Lederer, alleged costs are a key metric associated with patent trolling. They amount to $29 billion dollars yearly in direct litigation expenditures (though the hyperlink reference is to a 2014 article), together with foregone expenditures in R&D (for which no monetary amount is provided).
That said, the author acknowledges that these costs declined from 2013-2017, only to once again rise. What accounts for this? This is where the article gets interesting. The key variable, he claims, were changes in post-grant review procedures, first facilitating those seeking to reduce patent trolling, but thereafter leading to increased patent trolling activity.
The recent decision of the English High Court in Bayer v Teva [2021] EWHC 2690 (Pat) is another example in which the UK courts have found a pharmaceutical invention to be the obvious outcome of routine drug development. In the Supreme Court decision Actavis v ICOS the court found a drug dose selection obvious in view of what was considered to be the obvious route that the skilled person would take through the drug development decision tree. The High Court in Bayer v Teva followed a similar reasoning to find the clinical formulation of Bayer's cancer drug, sorafenib, obvious in view of the preliminary phase I clinical trial results for the drug.
In Bayer v Teva, the patent in question EP (UK) 2305255 was directed to the salt form of sorafenib and its use in the treatment of cancer. The particular claim in contention related to sorafenib tosylate salt. Sorafenib tosylate (NEXAVAR) is approved in the US and EU for the treatment of various types of cancer. The SPCs for the basic patent covering sorafenib expired earlier this year. Teva brought revocation proceedings against Bayer's sorafenib formulation patent (which had an expiry date of Dec 2022) across Europe, including the UK and Germany.
For the past nine years, across more than 250 inter partes, post-grant reviews, and other forms of administrative challenge, Unified Patents, LLC has won every real party-in-interest (RPI) challenge, both at institution, final written decision, and on appeal. It has also won all Fintiv related discretionary arguments and all Arthrex remands, as detailed below.
Unified’s status as the sole RPI was challenged in its first IPR where the Board held that Unified was the sole RPI. Unified Patents Inc. v. Clouding IP, LLC, IPR2013-00586, Paper 9 (Mar. 21, 2014) (members were not found to be RPIs, where there was no evidence of funding or control of the particular IPR; challenged claims were later cancelled in a Final Written Decision issued April 26, 2015). As catalogued below, Unified overcame every such challenge in the proceeding years. As a result, many times Unified’s RPI status was no longer being challenged.
In 2018, the Federal Circuit had their first and (possibly only) opportunity to review the Board’s developing RPI jurisprudence in a case involving a different membership organization. That opinion endorsed the Board’s longstanding RPI test set forth in the Trial Practice Guide, but outlined facts particular to that situation (including a potential time-bar) and characteristics of that different membership organization that merited further scrutiny on remand. See Applications in Internet Time, LLC v. RPX Corp., 897 F.3d 1336 (July 9, 2018) (“AIT”). It remanded for further fact finding but was troubled with the presence of a time bar, lengthy communications with the barred party (who had unsuccessfully challenged the patent previously), and with the RPX business model of acting as a third-party middleman for settlement negotiations.
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Indeed, in every post-grant challenge that has raised arguments related to these discretionary denials, the Board has ignored or declined patent owner arguments that General Plastic or Fintiv applies. See, e.g., Unified Patents, LLC v. Oceana Innovations LLC, IPR2020-01463, Paper 11 (Feb. 23, 2021) (“We agree with Petitioner that the General Plastic factors weigh against denying an inter partes review under the circumstances here”).
Lastly, Unified has not lost a Director review request under Arthrex. See Smith & Nephew Inc. v. Arthrex Inc., No. 19-1452 (U.S. June 21, 2021) (remanding then-pending appeals to allow for requests for Director review); see, e.g., Fall Line Patents, LLC v. Unified Patents, LLC, IPR20 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (remanding), request for review denied, Paper 49 (Nov. 6, 2021).
As catalogued below, Unified has been distinguished from AIT in every decision following that decision and the remand. The PTAB has thoroughly reviewed this issue in numerous cases when confirming that Unified was the sole RPI.
On December 9, 2021, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,049,850, owned by Arigna Technology Limited, an Atlantic IP Services Limited subsidiary. Formerly owned by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., the ‘850 patent is generally related to a high voltage integrated circuit. The patent has been asserted against BMW, Honda, Nissan, GM, Volkswagen, Daimler, and Mercedes-Benz.
Obtaining a granted patent anywhere in the world can be a lengthy process, and the European Patent Office (EPO) is no exception, sometimes taking several years to grant meaningful, wieldable protection. There are numerous essential substantive and administrative hurdles to navigate between filing the initial request for the grant of a patent and receiving the notice of the EPO’s intention to grant.
However, options are available to applicants which can enable them to speed up this process, should they wish. Whilst none of these options improve the eventual chances of obtaining a granted patent, they do allow the applicant to accelerate the process, either by skipping certain steps, completing certain steps more rapidly, or a combination of these two strategies. This article aims to outline the options available to applicants, and to evaluate their relative merits.
With yesterday's official signing of the new Coalition Agreement and today's parliamentary voting on her successor, Germany's so-called 'Ampel' (traffic light) coalition struck a blow to to Angela Merkel’s chances of becoming Germany’s longest serving Chancellor, should she still be in office on 19 December to overtake Helmut Kohl. With Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat leader and current Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister, at the helm, the alliance of the Greens, yellow Social Democrats, and red FDP, represents something of a changing of the guard after sixteen years of Merkel’s CDU/CSU-dominated leadership.
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The Ampel parties want to promote science communication and societal exchange at all levels, including anchoring it to funding approval and supporting science journalism and continued education for decision-makers (whose fruition may come as welcome news to digital policy, data protection, and AI reform advocates at the EU level). They also want to integrate perspectives from civil society more strongly into research and to strengthen Open Access and Open Science.
The EPO (European Patent Office) opposition process offers third parties the opportunity to attack the validity of a European patent after grant. The opposition process is a centralised system, offering a valuable tool for opponents to limit, or even revoke competitor patents across all European designated states. For tips and advice on navigating this process from the point of view of the patent proprietor, see our previous article here. But from the point of view of the opponent, how can you maximise your chances of success? Whilst the exact strategy will always depend on the facts of each case, Rebecca Matheson and Ash Earl investigate key tips for opponents during these contentious proceedings.
Iran's Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) is the only Iranian company, which has been listed among 25 leading firms active in oil and gas nanotechnology inventions, Trend reports citing IRNA.
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It is worth mentioning that nanotechnology patents of the 25 oil companies have been registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO).
The EPO has now issued a notice that in light of this pending referral before the Enlarged Board of Appeal, all examination and opposition proceedings before the EPO in which the decision depends entirely on the outcome of the referral will be stayed until the Enlarged Board of Appeal has issued its decision. The notice clarifies that only cases where the assessment of inventive step is exclusively based on evidence which was not publicly available before the filing date of the patent application (so called “post-published evidence”) will be stayed.
It is not yet clear how strictly and at what point during proceedings the above criteria for staying a particular case will be applied. In particular, for complex opposition proceedings it appears that it may be difficult for the Opposition Division to reach the conclusion that the assessment of inventive step is based “exclusively” on post-published evidence, or that the decision depends “entirely” on the outcome of the referral, without hearing the arguments of all parties during oral proceedings.
As published today on gov.uk, the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has launched a call for views on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), intended to inform the position on whether the present framework requires change in order to best support innovation.
This is a highly topical issue, with methods or devices which utilise technology that is essential to implementing a standard often being protected by patents, running the risk that a third-party manufacturer would be unable to create standard compliant products. Prominent examples include the wireless technologies used in smartphones and connected cars. As such, access to SEPs is to be granted on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND), with previous IPKat coverage of both topics available here and here, respectively.
Moreover, interoperability and ability to communicate between products from different manufacturers is vital in order to provide consumer functionality, a concern which is of increasing importance in an age of the Internet of Thingsââ¬Â¯(IoT)ââ¬Â¯and AI and often also reliant on these standards.
Biofrontera AG (NASDAQ: BFRA; Frankfurt Stock Exchange: B8F), an international biopharmaceutical company, announces that its wholly owned subsidiary Biofrontera Pharma GmbH has received a notice of allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark office (USPTO) with respect to the patent application "Illumination device for photodynamic therapy, method for treating a skin disease and method for operating an illumination device" (US 17/215,785), which protects a number of innovations in the recently FDA-approved RhodoLED XL lamp.
Peter Meier-Beck: By and large, no. I have never considered patent and antitrust law to be antagonists. Rather, patent law has always played a role in controlling competiton. However, the senate had to decide on two FRAND cases that were on the borderline of antitrust and patent law. These changed my view on the antitrust aspects of such cases.
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Can the UPC be a success without the UK?
I do think so, although it is a considerable loss for the Unified Patent Court that it will have to take place without its British colleagues. They are all very smart and pleasant partners with whom one can have good discussions and find common solutions, despite differences between the legal systems.
I recently had the pleasure of assisting the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys with the IP auditing of finalists for the Earthshot Prize organised by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Royal Foundation. The prize has characterised 5 environmental challenges to be solved, and awards €£1million to a winner in each of the 5 categories for their innovative solutions.
Connected venues and cities, connected cars, connected factory and connected home are just some of the scenarios that will be made possible by the technical benefits of next-generation WiFi 6 technology. Yet the licensing of WiFi 6 SEPs is gradually becoming an issue, particularly where licensing needs to be negotiated among SEP owners and standard implementers for an array of different applications and use cases. IPlytics’ research provides an illuminating snapshot of the WiFi 6 patent landscape as it currently stands.
On October 26, 2021, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) issued the Administrative Measures for the Establishment of Permanent Representative Offices in China by Foreign Patent Agencies (Draft for Comment) (å¤âÃ¥âºÂ½Ã¤Â¸âå˩代çÂâ æźæžâåŨåŽ设ç«â¹Ã¥Â¸Â¸Ã©Â©Â»Ã¤Â»Â£Ã¨Â¡Â¨Ã¦Åºæžâ管çÂâ 办æ³â¢Ã¯Â¼Ëå¾Âæ±âæâÂè§Â稿)). The draft Measures will allow foreign patent agencies to open up representative offices in China (as distinct from foreign law firms, which are already allowed to open up representative offices). However, unlike trademark agencies opened by many foreign firms, patent representative offices will not be allowed to prosecute Chinese patent applications.
Automakers, high-tech software companies, and electronics companies are increasingly facing similar challenges as vehicles become computers on wheels. For example, the global chip shortage is delaying the production of phones, laptops, and vehicles alike. Unsurprisingly, these similarities are also extending to how the automotive sector is being targeted by non-producing entities (NPEs) for patent infringement law suits.
Software and electronics companies were historically some of the largest targets for patent infringement law suits, including those brought by NPEs. Typically, companies engage in patent infringement suits, or patent wars, to capture market share by excluding rivals from the market. However, for developing markets, such as the electric and autonomous vehicle (E/AV) market, the high cost of patent litigation makes patent wars counterproductive. This is why some leading E/AV makers are attempting to lure competitors to the market by intentionally not enforcing their patents, anticipating that this will spur market growth and consequently increase demand for their products. It is possible that these companies expected to revert to patent wars within the decade since they continue to build their patent portfolios and the E/AV market is rapidly developing, which creates the high stakes that justify patent litigation.
With the transformation of his Waco courtroom into the venue for more than 25% of all patent cases in the United States, Judge Albright can’t keep up with all the business he’s “drummed up” for his courtroom. He’s made heavy use of technical advisors—one of whom made more than $700,000 in the first half of 2021 alone—as well as deferring almost all non-patent cases to his magistrates for all pre-trial proceedings.
But even with a magistrate and technical advisors, it seems like Judge Albright needs more help managing the patent docket he created in Waco. Earlier this year, the Judicial Conference authorized a second magistrate judge for the Waco court. And Judge Albright has arrived at his selection for that role, naming litigator Derek Gilliland to the position.
Gilliland is a Texas lawyer, most recently operating out of Tyler in the Eastern District of Texas. But Gilliland hasn’t been a stranger to Waco. Most recently, he was plaintiff’s counsel in multiple NPE lawsuits in front of Judge Albright. Two of them stand out as particularly noteworthy.
Yesterday three U.S. government agencies--the Antitrust Division (ATR) of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)--invited stakeholders to submit comments by early January on a new draft policy statement on standard-essential patents (SEPs).
I applaud the Biden Administration for taking--at least this stage--a very centrist position. Rather than go from one extreme (the Trump Administration's take on SEPs) to another, the three agencies have put forward a statement that reflects a good-faith effort to strike a very reasonable balance. The draft statement warns against the risks to innovation and standards from both the overleveraging of SEPs by their owners and what others simply call hold-out tactics by unwiling licensees. As a litigation watcher, I'm well aware of the existence of either problem.
My favorite part is in footnote 8, which says that "[p]roviding additional information with the licensing offer . . . may be particularly helpful to small entities that do not have the expertise or resources to fully address SEP issues and may lack access to information from which to draw assurance that proposed terms are F/RAND."
Yesterday, December 2, 2021, the Austrian Federal Council unanimously approved the ratification of the "Protocol" on the preliminary Application of the UPC (Agreement on a Unified Patent Court), following the corresponding decision of the Austrian Parliament of November 19, 2021.
So far, the instrument of ratification has not yet been deposited, but this should be now only a "formality". With the deposit of the instrument, the required number of ratifications for the "Protocol" would be reached, so that the necessary preparations for the start of the EPC (Unified Patent Court) could be made. It is planned that Germany will officially deposit its ratification of the UPC in the near future, with the consequence that the court could start after the expiration of another three months (Article 89 UPC). Hence, Germany can – and intends to - "trigger" a proper start of the UPCA in close coordination with the other Member States.
Fresenius Kabi was sued by two Pharmasphere units that want the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to withdraw approval of Fresenius’s calcium gluconate in sodium chloride injection solution in Freeflex bags because it allegedly infringes two patents.
Genetic Technologies Limited (ASX: GTG; NASDAQ: GENE, “Company”, “GENE”), a global leader in genomics-based tests in health, wellness and serious disease confirms that the Company’s US patent application for its novel geneType COVID-19 Risk Test has been accepted:
The tendency of companies and startups from all around the world to protect the names of their green-related products and services was highlighted by a recent study carried out by the EU’s patent office (EUIPO).
The European Parliament Own Initiative Report on an intellectual property action plan is an important step to support the EU’s recovery and resilience following the pandemic and on equitable access to medicine.
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“The European Parliament has clearly voted for a strong and fair IP system by underlining the importance of timely generic and biosimilar medicine competition. The misuse of divisional patents, the need to enlarge the scope of bolar to include API and all regulatory and administrative steps, and the long overdue ban anti-competitive patent linkage are well known problems that the Commission should address in the IP Action Plan. The Parliament has voted; the Commission must act.”, said Adrian van den Hoven, Director General at Medicines for Europe.
ABP Burger has recruited Eike Schaper (49) as its new head of litigation, and as managing partner. Schaper has worked in the market-leading team of IP boutique Rospatt Osten Pross in Düsseldorf since 2007.
A mixed IP boutique, ABP Burger is one of the strongest litigation outfits in Austria for hard and soft IP. With the addition of Eike Schaper, the firm is now strengthening its presence in Munich. ABP Burger’s only patent attorney, as well as four other lawyers, are also active in this location.
CVR Medical is pleased to report that the European Patent Office (the "EPO") has issued a Notice of the Intention to Grant application no. 16812333.9 for Non-Invasive Method for Measuring Sound Frequencies Created by Vortices in a Carotid Artery, Visualization of Stenosis, and Ablation Means. This application, exclusively licensed to CVR Medical, is directed towards a method for measuring sound from vortices in the carotid artery and is integral to CVR Medical's Carotid Stenotic Scan (CSS) diagnostic tool. The company has paid the grant fees in certain key European markets and anticipates receiving the EPO's Decision to Grant in due course.
SEP owners say they won’t get a fair hearing in China, and that clashes over jurisdiction may be inevitable
Back in February of 2020, in recognising the rapid growth of the patent filing trend of computer implemented inventions (CIIs) and the expanding role of these new technologies in the Chinese economy, particularly in the fields of AI, Internet+, big data and block chain, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) introduced a whole new section 6 in Part II, Chapter 9 of the Patent Examination Guidelines (2020 Amendment) to provide, for the first time, specific guidance on the examination of patent applications related to these information technologies.
With the 2020 Amendment, CNIPA opened up a new horizon for the examination practice of CII applications. To begin with, the 2020 Amendment explicitly states that any patent claims related to abstract algorithms or business rules, insofar as they contain technical features, shall not be excluded from patent protection under Chinese Patent Law Article 25(2).
Further, claims directed to abstract algorithms or business rules may be regarded as a “technical solution” under Chinese Patent Law Article 2(2), hence eligible for patent protection, provided that the relevant technical means solves a technical problem by utilising the law of the nature.
On December 8, 2021, Unified Patents added three separate PATROLL contests with an opportunity to collect up to $6,000 in cash for prior art on at least claim 1 of three patents - U.S. Patent 7,388,587; U.S. Patent 7,629,977 and U.S. Patent 8,035,644 - all owned by Cine Graphic Solutions, an NPE and a subsidiary of Strategic Intellectual Solutions, LLC. Each patent generally relates to providing animation in electronic communications, such as emails and websites. The patents have been asserted against Motorola, Samsung, and Fujifilm.
Alium, a joint patent pool venture between MPEG LA and Unified Patents, is supporting the development of Open RAN by providing a solution to the uncertainty and risk posed by the more than 100,000 essential patents already self-declared.
On December 9, 2021, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 9,928,275, owned by Mirror Imaging, LLC, an NPE. The ‘275 patent is generally related to financial document retrieval and storage systems and has been asserted against Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Capital One, PNC Bank, BancorpSouth Bank, and others.
Unified Patents LLC lost its challenge to a patent essential to a video coding standard, although a patent review board said it didn’t have to decide whether Unified members should have been named as interested parties.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board said Unified hadn’t shown the disputed claim in U.S. Patent No. 8,867,854 is invalid. The patent, covering a video compression technique, is owned by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and other Korean research groups.
Managing IP digs into the low appeal and settlement rates in trademark litigations and administrative actions in China
Tom & Martha LLC's application to register the mark LOCH MOOSE MONSTER for gift shop goods and services survived a feeble summary judgment attack by frequent TTAB plaintiff Monster Energy, who claimed that the applicant lacked a bona fide intent to use the mark in commerce. Although the evidence did not show that applicant "took concrete steps to launch all the goods and services in its application," it did show applicant's "capacity to market" them. The existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to applicant's bona fide intent precluded summary judgment. Monster Energy Company v. Tom & Martha LLC, Opposition No. 91250710 (December 8, 2021) [precedential].
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Applicant argued, and Mr. Byrne confirmed in a declaration, that applicant is a small business that has developed a number of marks intended for use on a wide range of consumer goods; its brand development strategy is to identify a brand, file an intent to use application for the intended goods, and then start the process of bringing the goods to market. Moreover, applicant produced photographs showing use of its LOCH MOOSE MONSTER mark on hooded sweatshirts, t-shirts, canvas tote bags, hats, and mugs.
The USPTO refused registration of the proposed mark EVERLASTING ROSE for "Ornaments of glass; Ornaments of glass, namely, glass roses," finding confusion likely with the identical mark registered for "Dried flower arrangements; Dried flowers; Flowers, dried, for decoration." Applicant submitted three third-party registrations for EVERLASTING-formative marks (for baskets for flower arrangements, live plants, and jewelry) in arguing that "EVERLASTING" is a weak formative, and it pointed to registrant's arguments regarding the weakness of "EVERLASTING" when the registrant overcame a refusal of its underlying application. How do you think this came out? In re 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., Serial No. 88690528 (December 6, 2021) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Cindy B. Greenbaum).
Absent proof of use, third-party registrations do not impact the commercial strength of the cited mark. However, coupled with a dictionary definition of "everlasting," this evidence led the Board to conclude that "everlasting" is suggestive of dried flowers, "as consumers would expect the dried flowers to last longer than live flowers, but they would not expect them to last literally forever." In any event, none of the three third-party marks is as close to registrant's mark as is applicant's mark. [How could they be? - ed.].
Katfriend Federica Combariati (TM IP Counsel at Assa Abloy) discusses a recent decision relating to AC Milan’s attempt to extend its international trade mark registration for its club logo to the territory of the European Union.
The General Court rejected an appeal brought by AC Milan (nicknamed also Rossoneri) and considered that the brand characterizing Rossoneri’s emblem could not be registered as an EU trade mark (EUTM) since it would give rise to a likelihood of confusion with the earlier German trade mark ‘Milan’ held by the company InterES.
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InterES Handels-und Dienstleistungs Gesellschaft GmbH & Co KG, a German company very active in the office supply industry, began its battle for protecting its brand back in 2017, when AC Milan filed an international registration designating the European Union before the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). Registration was sought for the following figurative sign concerning, inter alia, goods in Class 16 (stationery and office supplies) of the Nice Classification...
In today’s ever-expanding ecommerce environment, online brand protection and enforcement has become a necessary undertaking of paramount importance for brand owners in efforts to combat the illicit trade of counterfeit and infringing products. With around 2 million active sellers on Amazon, and approximately 200 million active Amazon Prime subscribers, it’s easy to understand why brand owners choose to offer their products on Amazon.
Amazon has established itself as the gold standard of the modern consumer experience, offering essentially unparalleled fast and efficient customer service. However, brand owners selling their products on Amazon have struggled to control the consumer experience, risking reputation and goodwill established in their brands that may have taken significant amounts of time and money to develop.
AAN Holding, LLC. applied to register the mark GOAT GREATEST OF ALL TIME for vodka, but the USPTO refused registration on the ground of Section 2(e)(1) mere descriptiveness. Applicant pointed to five Principal Register registrations for marks that include a variation of GOAT GREATEST OF ALL TIME without disclaimer or Section 2(f) claim, arguing that these registrations "show an Office practice of allowing GOAT GREATEST OF ALL TIME and other common phrases and expressions to register." How do you think this came out? In re AAN Holdings, LLC, Serial No. 88130411 (December 6, 20201) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Marc A. Bergsman).
The Board affirmed a Section 2(e)(1) refusal of 5 DAY FASTING DIET, finding the proposed mark to be merely descriptive of nutritionally balanced prepared meals for medical use sold only after consultation with a doctor. Applicant L-Nutra feebly argued, inter alia, that the word "fast" could not immediately describe its goods because the word has 37 different dictionary meanings. Not so fast, said the Board. In re L-Nutra, Inc., Serial No. 88757432 (December 3, 2021) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Christopher Larkin).
L-Nutra insisted that a consumer could not, just by looking at the mark, understand that the goods require a medical consultation. The Board pointed out, however, that "these arguments reflect an all-too-common and fundamental misunderstanding of the test for mere descriptiveness, but they are particularly troubling here because Applicant’s counsel is not writing them on a clean slate." The Board had rejected the same arguments in two other appeals filed by L-Nutra: for the proposed marks 1 DAY FASTING DIET and FASTING BAR. As the Board pointed out in both prior decisions, "the fact that the word 'fast' 'may have other meanings in different contexts is not controlling.'”
A single color mark on a product design is registrable only upon a showing of acquired distinctiveness. Wal-Mart (citing Qualitex). Applicant Dimarzio, Inc. failed to prove that its claimed color "cream" for electronic guitar pickups met that test, and so the Board affirmed a refusal to register under Sections 1, 2, and 45 of the Lanham Act. Among other problems with Dimarzio's evidence, the Board found that its use of the proposed mark was not substantially exclusive, as required under Section 2(f). In re Dimarzio, Inc., Serial No. 87213400 (December 3, 2021) [precedential] (Opinion by Judge Mark Lebow).
Pagination problem: Dimarzio led off with a sour note when the Board refused to consider its appeal brief because the brief exceeded the 25-page limit of Rule 2.142(b)(2). Examining Attorney Tasneem Hussein blew the whistle, pointing out that the brief was 16-pages long but not single-spaced, as required by Rule 2.126(a)(1). The Board sustained her objection, agreeing that the brief would have exceeded 25 pages if double-spaced (at 250 words per page). The Board, however, did consider Dimarzio's reply brief.
