David Ruschke’s ‘official’ photo

Summary: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), led by David Ruschke, continues to function as another ‘layer’ that ensures patent quality by weeding out bad patents and here are some of the latest cases

THE patents and litigation climate is rapidly changing in the US. It’s not just about software patents, but it has a lot to do with them as a lot of litigation emanates from such patents, notably troll litigation.

Just before the days of the holiday (whichever one) we learned about the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which is responsible for invalidating many software patents, being in the midst of this battle:

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board announced on Dec. 2 that it would uphold a patent filed by Securus Technologies, and that the challenge filed by rival company Global Tel*Link (GTL) was invalid. GTL maintains, however, that Securus only won a partial victory.

The patent (U. S. Patent No. 7,494,061 B2) that Securus maintains held up to the challenge from GTL, relates to biometric identity verification monitoring devices used in correctional facilities. According to a summary of the patent, “The term “biometrics” refers to technologies that measure and analyze human characteristics for authentication.”

This patent is a software patent by the sound of it. These are actually the sorts of patents which improperly use terms like “biometrics” to sound as though they’re anything but image analysis, which is my field of research (post-doctoral). It has nothing to do with biology and it’s all typically reducible to mathematics (matrices). Does the appeal board (PTAB) realise this? If not, maybe it’s time to reassess.

Another report, last Updated 6 days ago, is an article about appeals in Korea, published by Jay (Young-June) Yang, Duck Soon CHANG and Seung-Chan EOM from Kim & Chang (patent microcosm). Remember that Korea still blocks software patents (as it should) and we commend this decision, which guards software giants (also hardware giants, not to mention military equipment players) like Samsung and LG — both of which became Microsoft prey for using Linux nearly 9 years ago. We last reported on this 3 months ago (Microsoft wants more 'Linux patent tax' in Korea).

Going back to PTAB, there is a CAFC/PTAB case (CAFC having the authority to object) that MIP explained as follows: “The original Federal Circuit panel decision in the case – written by Judge Reyna and joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Stark – was issued on May 25. The court affirmed the Board’s denial of Aqua’s motion to substitute claims 22–24 of a patent concerning automated swimming pool cleaners.”

There is a 9-page PDF in there. As mentioned here some days ago, they are complaining because their patent was granted in error and now they want to change it. Imagine if granted patents were something dynamic you could just amend, edit, expand etc. as you go alone. What a ludicrous thing. Invalidate the patent and if they insist it’s not fair, then they should apply for the patent again (with amended claims).

MIP also explains how to use PTAB to squash bad patents (like software patents) even when it’s not so trivial. “Jim Brogan, Brian Eutermoser and Janna Fischer discuss the ways that the unsuccessful IPR petitioner at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board still can challenge validity in subsequent district court litigation,” MIP wrote.

MIP, to its credit, keeps abreast of PTAB cases (mostly because of Mr. Michael Loney), although it sometimes misinterprets the numbers it puts forth.

In better news about PTAB, here is PTAB having a go at software patents and getting a chance to kill them again. As PatentDocs put it:

Petitioner, iVenture Card Traveler Ltd, filed a Petition seeking to institute a covered business method patent review of all claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,765,128, owned by Smart Destinations, Inc. The Board, applying the standard that requires demonstration that more likely than not Petitioner would prevail with respect to at least one challenged claim, the Board granted Petitioner’s request to institute the CBM review.

We hope that PTAB will continue to do its job improving patent certainty by knocking out a lot of rubbish patents, leaving in tact only those that merit court cases (if any). █

Excellent news came through AP several hours ago: “Supreme Court throws out $399 million judgment against Samsung in company’s patent dispute with Apple over iPhone design.”

There will certainly be plenty of coverage about this, including quite a lot of rants from Apple advocacy sites. Apple lost a design/UI patent case. It has actually lost quite a few cases against Samsung by now. Many other patents in this domain will be generally lost too, by means of precedence (how many patents out there are no longer valid?).

Here is what Professor Crouch, who followed this case pretty closely, had to say:

In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court has reversed the Federal Circuit in this important design patent damages case. Although the case offers hope for Samsung and others adjudged of infringing design patents, it offers no clarity as to the rule of law.

There is also this bit of news that’s covered a week late and says:

Apple v. Ameranth: Federal Circuit Partially Reverses PTAB and Finds All Claims for Electronic Menus Unpatentable

On November 29, 2016, in Apple Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc. 15-1703, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) findings of unpatentable independent claims in a Covered Business Method (CBM) review and reversed findings of patentable dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101. On appeal, the Federal Circuit agreed with Apple that there was sufficient evidence to support the finding that dependent claims 3, 6-9, 11 and 13-16 of Ameranth’s U.S. Patent No. 6,982,733 (‘733 patent) were unpatentable as describing insignificant post-solution activities. Despite Ameranth arguing for a substantial evidence standard of review, the Federal Circuit applied a de novo review standard in its reversal of the PTAB’s decision.

Things don’t look too promising for Apple in this CAFC case and another CAFC case, Ameranth, Inc. v. Agilsys, Inc., now gets covered in another site (it’s about PTAB). █

Summary: A quick roundup of recent articles/reports/analyses about Apple v Samsung, including the impending Supreme Court (SCOTUS) case

APPLE’S longstanding patent war with Samsung (or Android, having started to attack it more than 6 years ago) has become a high profile story and probably the leading example of patent litigation in recent times, with a lot of money at stake.

As expected, patent lawyers go ahead and push forth their fairly tales about patents being surrogates for “innovation” (the 1%’s protectionism), this time in relation to Apple and Samsung. To quote Patent Lawyer Magazine:

The recent and numerous cases opposing companies like Apple and Samsung or Google and Oracle highlight that, today, patents are defensive weapons as well as offensive weapons according to the strategy developed by the holder. Many companies notice lately this functional ambivalence of the patent, just as a patent-related dispute happen, like its violation by a counterfeiter party who reproduces without any authorization the protected invention.

If adopting a strategy of patent application may appear expensive in front of the strategy of the secret which consists in keeping the invention undisclosed, it must be clear that the patents ensure an effective legal protection of the inventions against potential counterfeiters and also permit to the innovative companies recouping their Research & Development costs as a patent owner will be able to negotiate royalties for license agreements signed with firms interested in the use of the patented technology.

That’s a rather misleading framing. If one actually considers which patents Apple is suing with/over, then one hasn’t any doubts; it’s not about innovation at all. Maybe it’s about “first to file” or something along those lines. We have covered these patents many times over the years.

As should become apparent pretty soon — because certainly corporate media will be all over it — Apple’s patent war against Samsung will be discussed at SCOTUS, with design patenting as a whole coming under scrutiny. Here is an overview of some more cases to be discussed by SCOTUS:

Constitutional Challenge to Inter Partes Review: Although the Constitutional issues in Cooper v. Lee and MCM v. HP were law-professor-interesting, they were not substantial enough for certiorari. The Supreme Court has now denied the Cooper and MCM petitions — leaving the IPR regime unchanged. Although Cooper v. Square is still pending, its chances are slight. The Supreme Court has also denied certiorari in Encyclopaedia Britannica (malpractice), Gnosis (appellate review), and GeoTag (case-or-controversy).

A new 101 Challenge: In its first conference of the term, the Supreme Court denied all of the pending petitions regarding patent eligibility. However, Trading Technologies has filed a new petition asking whether a new card game is categorically unpatentable so long as it uses a standard deck (rather than a novel deck) of cards. My post on the case asks: Does the Patent Statute Cabin-in the Abstract Idea Exception? That question references Section 100 of the Patent Act that expressly allows for the patenting of new use of a known manufacture.

Extra Territoriality of Trade Secrecy Law: On the trade secrecy front, Sino Legend has petitioned to review the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of the International Trade Commision’s ban on Legend’s importation of rubber resins used for tire production. The underlying bad-act was a trade secret misappropriation that occurred in China and the question on appeal asks: Whether Section 337(a)(1)(A) permits the ITC to adjudicate claims regarding trade secret misappropriation alleged to have occurred outside the United States. A Chinese court looked at the same case and found no misappropriation.

Design Patent Damages: Oral arguments were held earlier this week in Samsung v. Apple. During the arguments, all parties agreed that (1) the statute does not allow for apportionment of damages but rather requires profit disgorgement; (2) the article-of-manufacture from which profits can be calculated may be a component of the product sold to consumers; and (3) the determination of what counts as the article-of-manufacture is a question of fact to be determined by the jury. The only dispute then was on the factors that a jury should be considered and when the “inside gears” of a product should ever be included in the calculation.

The fourth paragraph is about Apple (design patents, not software patents) and the second paragraph speaks of a Section 101 challenge, which isn’t yet likely to happen. Alice is likely to stay here for a long time to come. The focus of the above cases, or the framing that Patently-O has chosen, is ITC. The I in ITC stands for “international” — surely a misleading label. It’s like calling the KGB “international” because it goes (or went) abroad in order to get its way for its home country. The ITC is to US corporations what the FSB is to Russia’s government (or the Kremlin) and we should recognise that there’s nothing “international” about it. It’s not the UN. Now that the patent battles target Asian companies like Samsung IAM likes to obsess about the subject. This patent trolls-funded site wishes us to believe that patent tax that makes phones worse (removed features to avert risk of lawsuits) and more expensive is a desirable aspect. Phones from Samsung almost literally explode and all that IAM can think about is patents, patents, and more patents.

Over at MIP there has been more coverage of the above patent case of Apple v Samsung. Florian Müller foresees more action in this domain (not involving only design patents but much more).

Little attention is being paid to Apple’s practices or tradition of tax evasion with patents as a financial instrument. It continues to happen in Ireland where Apple has a notorious tax-dodging operation and pro-Apple sites touch on the subject yet don’t quite get to the bottom of it (“Apple Moves $9B Worth of iTunes Intellectual Property To Ireland”). Remember what we wrote about Patent Boxes earlier this year.

Joseph Robinson & Robert Schaffer (over at Watchtroll) write about a related case (a different Apple v Samsung). It is apparent that this site is growingly concerned about yet another case reaffirming the death of software patents in the US. Apple has more than one case against Samsung; there are software patents at stake as well, hence the relevance to us. Watchtroll is still opposing patent reform and uses the terminology of anonymous Twitter accounts that taunt us, e.g. “Efficient Infringement”. What a cesspool Watchtroll has become…

Going back to Müller, here is what he recently wrote about both Apple v Samsung cases that are high profile:

Was it just a coincidence that the Federal Circuit made a decision on an Apple petition for a rehearing about eight months after the original decision and just days before the design patents hearing in the top U.S. court? It may very well have been. But when there are already other oddities (such as the decision not to invite further briefing from the parties and hold a rehearing), it’s not impossible that there is a hidden message or agenda.

The Federal Circuit decision certainly gives Apple leverage. Limited leverage, though: the relatively most valuable one of the three patents on which Apple had prevailed at the spring 2014 trial has expired and the most iconic one, slide-to-unlock, is about as valuable in the age of Touch ID and comparable technologies as an ISDN or floppy disk patent.

“Experts Urge Supreme Court To Take A Bite Out Of Apple’s Patent Win Over Samsung,” said this recent report, stating: “As two of the world’s largest consumer electronics companies face off at the Supreme Court Tuesday, experts in legal, patent, technology and consumer advocacy fields are urging the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling in the smartphone war between Apple and Samsung that awarded the iPhone maker the total profit of patent-infringing Galaxy devices.”

Matt Levy wrote about this also [1, 2]. That was 2.5 weeks ago when he pulished some thoughts about “A Funny Thing [That] Happened on the Way to the Court” and to quote:

A funny thing happened on the way to the Supreme Court in yesterday’s Samsung v. Apple design patent dispute. The high court was expected to review the lower court’s award of the entire profits made for 11 different smartphone models — just under $400 million.

[...]

Unexpectedly, some time before the argument Apple had agreed to concede that the “article of manufacture” didn’t have to be the entire product sold. That is, Apple agreed with Samsung and the government that the answer to the question that the Court had agreed to decide is “Yes.”

Will design patents not be challenged even by Samsung after all? IAM (wshfully) thinks there may be alignment on the horizon. To quote: “For the last couple of years it has been apparent that the smartphone wars that have raged in US courts since 2009 have been reaching their final skirmishes. Peace deals between the likes of Microsoft and Google and Apple and Google, have brought many of the battles to an end. Except, that is, for what has probably been the most significant confrontation – Apple v Samsung.”

There’s no “Microsoft and Google” “peace deal”; Microsoft continues to attack Android OEMs with patents and it was Microsoft that initiated antitrust action against Android in Europe. Microsoft is a malicious firm that would lie to anyone, anytime.

Joe Mullin asked: “How much punishment is appropriate when it comes to design patents?”

MIP’s coverage at the time spoke of the arguments and Patently-O offered a “view from inside the courtroom”. It said:

At oral argument, Samsung informed the Court that it was dropping its “causation argument” (i.e., that § 289 must be read in light of background causation principles from general tort law) and wanted to focus on its “article of manufacture” argument (i.e., its argument that a successful design patentee should be entitled to the “total profit” from the “article of manufacture” but that the relevant article should be determined mainly by looking at whether the patent claims a whole design or only part).

We eagerly await rulings against Apple in both cases, one involving software patents and another design patents, which in this case closely resemble software patents in multiple ways/aspects. What’s at stake here isn’t just the price of Samsung phones but the financial viability of Android (Linux-based) phones in general. █

“US Pat RE39231,” wrote a patent attorney, eventually meant that “Apple Must Pat MobileMedia $3M for Infringing this Patent” (MobileMedia is not as real company and we wrote about it before, in relation to MPEG-LA and Larry Horn; we wrote about him in [1, 2]).

How many people out there know that MPEG-LA is a patent troll whose head himself is/was a patent troll? Not many people know this. Horn relies on dishonest lawyers from Proskauer Rose and sues Apple, which itself is part of MPEG-LA (we already took note of how bizarre this is).

Well, “Apple loses ringtone infringement case to Nokia and Sony’s patent troll firm,” according to the headline of this report. To quote: “Apple has been ordered to pony up $3 million in damages by a Delaware judge for infringing the patent of a firm partially owned by Sony and Nokia. The case, which has been running since way back in 2010, saw MobileMedia Ideas originally accuse Apple on 16 counts of patent infringement. Six years and plenty of court activity later, the original claim has been whittled down to just one patent pertaining to iPhone ringer alerts, for which MobileMedia has been awarded a tidy sum of money.”

A patent troll connected to Nokia — a legacy of Microsoft entryism and subsequent passage of patents to trolls like MOSAID — is somewhat of a pattern we’ve seen a lot of recently. Android too is being targeted by these trolls.

“MobileMedia Ideas just won a Delaware trial against Apple over a former Sony patent,” Florian Müller wrote about it. “May file further lawsuit now over iPhone 4S and later.”

Tom O’Reilly from Mobile Media Ideas is advertising for this patent troll. He passed around the press release “MobileMedia Ideas Wins Trial against Apple” and it said:

(CHEVY CHASE, MD, US – 21 September 2016) – MobileMedia Ideas LLC is pleased to announce that the US District Court for the District of Delaware today found MobileMedia Ideas’ “polite-ignore” patent (Re 39,231) for mobile phone call silencing valid and infringed by the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 and awarded $3M in damages. The case did not include the iPhone 4S, 5/5C/5S and 6/6 Plus on which there may be further proceedings. The patent was filed in 1994 by Sony Corporation, a pioneer in the development of mobile and other consumer electronics technology, and is now part of the patent portfolio licensed by MobileMedia Ideas.

MobileMedia Ideas President and CEO Larry Horn said, “We thank the jury for its service and hard work. This case could have been avoided by the taking of a license, however. MobileMedia Ideas’ business model is based on offering reasonable licenses to a valuable portfolio of important inventions widely practiced across a broad array of mobile phone and other portable products. We still welcome Apple to respect intellectual property developed by others with the taking of a license.”

MobileMedia Ideas was represented by a team of litigators at Proskauer Rose led by Steve Bauer and Kim Mottley of the Boston office.

In relation to an article/report mentioned here earlier this week, there is now an important update. Coming from the Korea Times, it says that the tax authority is likely to reject Microsoft’s appeal for refund of tax. To quote the opening parts:

The South Korean tax authority is expected to reject an appeal by U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. to refund 634 billion won ($575.7 million) in a withholding tax, according to the tax authority and industry sources Thursday.

Microsoft filed complaints last month against the National Tax Service (NTS), seeking a refund of the withholding taxes paid by Samsung Electronics Co. to the NTS for using the software giant’s patents.

When will Microsoft pay the tax it has evaded? Above the law, still? A lot of the above sum comes from Linux-powered devices (we wrote about this many times before).

Those who believe that Microsoft has changed surely aren’t paying attention to what it does through patent trolls, through Nokia (which Microsoft demanded should pass patents to trolls), and in various distant countries like Korea. Microsoft just became a little more covert in its war against Linux. █

Giving aggressors like Microsoft sacks of patents to breed Mafia-like behaviour, not healthy competition

Summary: Revisiting the EPO’s vision of poor patent examination and the effect of discriminatory granting practices, favouring patent bullies such as Microsoft (which actively attacks Linux using low-quality and usually pure software patents)

“A skilled patent attorney working with a qualified searcher could cobble together a colorable obviousness argument against the vast majority of issued patent claims,” says a new article from Patently-O. Not to mention “abstract” criteria, prior art and so on. “Part of the difficulty for patentees,” continues the article, “stem from the the billions of prior art references available via increasingly effective search tools. Even when an invention results from a ‘flash of genius,’ patent law typically back-fills extensive knowledge for the obviousness analysis – even when that knowledge was not actually available at the time of the invention. The larger difficulty though is likely the large number of hard-to-pin-down facts such as the motivations, common sense, and level of creativity of a person having ordinary skill in the art.”

“In the case of large companies like Microsoft, mountains of patents (granted in bulk by the EPO]) can be used to compel companies to pay up without even a trial.”If the EPO replaces examiners with algorithms, things will exacerbate further and patents get granted incorrectly, leading to an ocean of frivolous lawsuits. In the case of large companies like Microsoft, mountains of patents (granted in bulk by the EPO) can be used to compel companies to pay up without even a trial. Recall the Microsoft v TomTom case. Picking on small companies is Microsoft’s thing; it doesn’t sue Google.

The above reminds us of the danger of poor patent quality as well as streamlining grants, which is what Battistelli’s EPO has in effect done for Microsoft (and evidence we showed for that led to legal threats from the EPO). They — like the USPTO — in effect facilitate patent racketeering by Microsoft.

“They — like the USPTO — in effect facilitate patent racketeering by Microsoft.”Watch this new article titled “Primetime: Microsoft’s Android Cross Patent Dealings”. That’s misleading because it's not cross-licensing, it's a patent settlement (in bundling form) and it’s essentially a patent shakedown without even a trial and without an opportunity to properly assess the quality (and thus in/validity) of patents. The article says that “to press on this advantage, Microsoft does need to sign into more cross licensing or similar patent deals with manufacturers. Given Microsoft’s patent portfolio and how useful this will be to those manufacturers wishing to break into the North American market, such as Xiaomi, we may be seeing more of these arrangements in the coming months. The alternative might be Microsoft suing any manufacturer that tries to sell devices into a patent-friendly market.”

But again, these are not cross-licensing deals, these are patent shakedowns. One might even call this extortion or racketeering, even though Microsoft is too well-connected to face court charges brought forth by the government.

It is worth noting that many of Microsoft’s patents — those which it uses to shake down Android players (OEMs) — are not even valid anymore (if properly scrutinised), but there are so many of them that it would cost a fortune to demonstrate it to the court. It’s a numbers game, quantity rather than quality. It’s cheaper to just settle and let Microsoft continue to wield software patents like a weapon, even post-Alice. PTAB cannot take a request to review hundreds of patents from just one single company because it’s already overburdened by a growing number of reviews (IPRs).

Speaking of patent aggressors, there is this new software patent from Facebook (the usual, see our Facebook wiki page). These are oftentimes surveillance patents, but this time is’s about languages, at a time of increased competition with Google. Facebook's growing stockpile of patents is a real problem (Facebook has a history of going aggressive with them) and The Next Web says that “the US patent office issued 6,789 patents. Each patent adds a little something new to the human knowledge base. As we cannot list all six thousand, the PatentYogi team has selected the five most interesting patents.” How many of these are software patents that oughtn’t have been granted? How many of these will be toothless some time in the near future?

Patently-O says “The number of pending Ex Parte appeals continue to drop. Great work PTO.” There are other statistics of interest, based on PDFs from the USPTO (like this one). Patently-O claims they suggest that: “Design patent applications expected to reach 40,000 for FY2016 – up from under 30,000 in FY2010. The PTO is working to improve design patent prosecution speed – current wait of more than a year for a first office action.”

Well, the Office may have granted 40,000 patents on designs, but once reassessed the Office may need to throw them all away, on a per-request basis (post-Apple v Samsung at SCOTUS). Granting again for the sake of granting? Until the next Alice happens?

Patent quality control is the principal pillar of true and potent patent offices, otherwise they would be just archives of untested claims (a registration/filing system). █

Summary: Apple’s insistence that designs should be patentable could prove to be collectively expensive, as patent trolls would then use a possible SCOTUS nod to launch litigation campaigns

TROLLS, or patent sharks, typically use software patents, but what if they also had design patents at their disposal?

Apple‘s war on Android, which manifested itself in a now-settled case against HTC and later in a long patent war against Samsung, may prove to be counterproductive now that Apple attracts patent trolls like VirnetX, to which it might be forced to pay billions of dollars. A pro-software patents site now says that “Apple will also be an even richer target for the new breed of design patent trolls” if it wins its case against Samsung/Android (over design patents). To quote this new article:

On October 11, 2016, the Supreme Court will hear Samsung’s appeal of the Federal Circuit’s affirmation of the jury’s damage award to Apple of Samsung’s “total profits” on sales of the infringing smartphones even though it had only infringed Apple’s design of the iPhone’s outer shell. In upholding the “total profits” award, the Federal Circuit determined that it was bound to uphold the jury’s award by the “explicit” and “clear” statutory language relating to design patent infringement damages.

[...]

The importance of the Supreme Court’s ultimate ruling here is underscored by the numerous amicus curiae briefs filed (27 at last count). With over 205 billion in cash reserves at last count, Apple certainly doesn’t “need” the full nine-figure damage award. And, given the far reaching implications of this case, Apple may live to regret its aggressive pursuit of “total profits” for design patent infringement by finding itself battling design patent holders seeking to recover Apple’s total device profits for infringement of even a minor design feature. Apple will also be an even richer target for the new breed of design patent trolls already surfacing based, at least in part, on Apple’s success in this case. Clearly it is time for Congress to step in and amend Section 289 to add apportionment language.

No wonder technology companies are overwhelmingly supportive of Samsung in this case — a high-profile case over design patents.

In other news, Vera Ranieri from the EFF has this new update about one of their high-profile cases against patent trolls. Ranieri writes:

There has been significant activity relating to cases and patent infringement claims made by Shipping & Transit, LLC, formerly known as ArrivalStar. Shipping & Transit, who we’ve written about on numerous occasions, is currently one of the most prolific patent trolls in the country. Lex Machina data indicates that, since January 1, 2016, Shipping & Transit has been named in almost 100 cases. This post provides an update on some of the most important developments in these cases.

In many Shipping & Transit cases, Shipping & Transit has alleged that retailers allowing their customers to track packages sent by USPS infringe various claims of patents owned by Shipping & Transit, despite previously suing (and settling with) USPS. EFF represents a company that Shipping & Transit accused of infringing four patents.

The above is a timely and good example. It demonstrates not just of the harms of patent trolls but also the harms of software patents, which in the large majority of cases rely on them. If Apple made design patents stronger, with affirmation from the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), the damage would be enormous.

Apple is on the wrong side of history. █

Summary: Apple’s frivolous lawsuits against Android OEMs win the support not of technology companies (these actually oppose Apple’s actions) but of some “non-tech companies, high-profile designers and intellectual property associations”

A few days ago we mentioned Florian Müller‘s latest article on Samsung v Apple (or vice versa) — an article which he later corrected for errors (amici overlooked or simply not yet listed at the time). It turns out that Müller wasn’t far from the truth, however, as technology companies pretty much reject Apple’s position. Müller has since then continued to highlight Samsung matters such as this likely new IPO or Google’s antitrust worries in Korea [1, 2], the home of Samsung. “The South Korean government has delayed a decision on whether it will accept Google’s request to export South Korea’s detailed map data,” one of those articles says. “Less than 2 months to go until the Samsung v. Apple Supreme Court hearing on design patent damages,” he wrote about the case which involves patents granted by the USPTO in spite of their low quality (the EPO made similar mistakes under Battistelli).

“It turns out that Müller wasn’t far from the truth, however, as technology companies pretty much reject Apple’s position.”Not too long afterwards MIP published this article that says: “Ahead of a showdown over design patents at the Supreme Court in October, Samsung has received more support from US technology companies whereas Apple has received the backing of non-tech companies, high-profile designers and intellectual property associations” (i.e. not quite producing companies). Patently-O wrote about this as well, noting that Apple’s “visual design is critically important in the sales of complex products.” That’s just branding and hype (or compelling marketing), i.e. the bread and butter of Apple. Patent-granting should be a scientific process, entirely disconnected from hype or brand recognition. █

Summary: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) explains that decline in patent quality in the US is responsible for a hostile environment which fosters litigation rather than innovation; BlackBerry the latest example of patent assertion firms (trolls) which would make phones ‘dumber’ (features like a mechanical keyboard removed or never added in the first place)

LAST month we wrote about GAO in relation to the EPO [1, 2], demonstrating that the US patent system has gone out of touch and increasingly disconnected from the raison d’être of patents.

A good but somewhat belated article from TechDirt covers this topic, citing the Government Accountability Office for support:

This shouldn’t be a surprise. All the way back in 2004, in Adam Jaffe’s and Josh Lerner’s excellent book about our dysfunctional patent system, Innovation and Its Discontents, one of the key problems they outlined with the system was the fact that there was strong incentives for patent examiners at the US Patent Office to approve shit patents. That’s because they were rewarded for how “productive” they were in terms of how many patent applications they completed processing. Now, you might think that shouldn’t encourage approvals — except that there’s no such thing as a true “final rejection” from the patent office (they have something called a final rejection, but it’s not — applicants can just make some changes and try again… forever). So rejecting a patent, inevitably, harms your productivity rates as an examiner. Approving a patent gets it off your plate and is considered “done.” Rejecting it means having to spend many more hours on that same patent when the inventor comes back to get another chance.

After Jaffe and Lerner made that criticism clear, it seemed like the Patent Office started to take the issue to heart and they actually started changing some of how examiners were rated. And, for a few years, it seemed like things were heading in the right direction. But then, once David Kappos took over, he noticed that a lot of patent holders were complaining that it took too long to get patents approved. Apparently ignoring all of the evidence that pushing examiners to review patents quickly ends up in disaster, Kappos put back in place an incentive structure to encourage examiners to approve more patents. He kept focusing on the need to get through the backlog and speed up the application process, rather than recognizing what a disaster it would be. Of course, some of us predicted it and were mocked in the comments by patent lawyers who insisted we were crazy to suggest that the USPTO would lower its standards.

Of course, an academic study a few years ago found that was absolutely happening and now, to make the point even clearer, the Government Accountability Office, which tends to do really fantastic work, has written a report that agrees. It blames the Patent Office’s focus on rapidly approving patents for the flood of low quality patents and the resulting patent trolling epidemic…

Noting that last part about a “trolling epidemic” (to the point where 90% of all technology lawsuits are filed by trolls), we wish to highlight the correlation between abstract software patents and software patent trolls. Since half a decade ago we have highlighted the strong correlation between patent trolls and software patents, so had the USPTO stopped granting patents on software, a lot of this “trolling epidemic” would go away almost entirely. It would not be a viable business model for reasons we explained here repeatedly over the years. Given an extraordinary number of patents granted to BlackBerry (far too many to be deemed high quality), this is relevant to the past week’s news. BlackBerry, which is rapidly becoming a troll (or PAE) down in Texas [1, 2], has generated more and more headlines in recent days, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. “Blackberry is now a troll,” wrote Benjamin Henrion (FFII). “Too bad NTP did not kill them 10 years ago.”

BlackBerry is one among many such companies. Apple, for example, having totally lost the plot to Android in India (where Android is now estimated to have 97% of the market; see daily links for details), is suing endlessly. Is there another Apple-Samsung patent war in the making? As one site notes right now: “Samsung filed a patent for a smartwatch with a detachable strap. Detachable band straps are already there. So, what’s the big deal? Their new smartwatch looks like the Apple’s iWatch. Now, that’s a big deal.

“Samsung is not eyeing another patent war with Apple, hopefully, they aren’t. Because, the last time when they did it, they had to suffer for it. A California court had ordered Samsung to pay 548 million dollars.”

“It would mean that phones must have features and parts removed from them.”Apple has been suing Android OEMs for more than 6 years, starting with HTC. We expect BlackBerry to do the same thing pretty soon. Does that mean more innovation? Quite the contrary. It would mean that phones must have features and parts removed from them. █

–Alexis de Tocqueville

Summary: Highlighting some of the differences between the US patent system and other patent systems

THE most notable deficiency at the USPTO right now pertains to overly broad patent scope and poor patent quality (the same direction which the EPO takes under Battistelli) and this leads to a lot of litigation by patent trolls. Startups (sometimes known here as SMEs) suffer the most and we rarely hear their stories because they must settle in secret and pay ‘protection money’ to non-practising entities. This clearly does not promote innovation. A lot of this activity, perhaps more than 90% of it (on a global scale), happens in the United States.

“It says a lot about what the USPTO fosters and why the EPO must not follow the same footsteps.”As of days ago, Ericsson’s case (via a patent troll it increasing uses inside Europe) against Apple found momentum at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), home of software patents, according to this short report and BlackBerry has just beaten Mobile Telecommunications LLC, after this apparent troll (whose whole public existence revolves around this lawsuit) started a high-profile patent case in the US (BlackBerry is Canadian, but it can be dragged down south).

Leading Android OEMs are also embroiled in a patent war in the far east (Asia) and there are lots of articles about it [1, 2, 3, 4] (many hundreds in English alone, so they should not be hard to find even several years down the line).

What’s worth noting here is that in Asia, where a lot of the world’s phones are actually being made, patent trolls are hardly even a topic, whereas in the US patent trolls have become an epidemic. They are sometimes proxies of large companies such as Ericsson. In the case of Nokia, Microsoft has already created or armed trolls using its patents.

It is important to realise the difference between two manufacturing Android giants like Samsung (Kroea’s domain leader) and Huawei (China’s domain leader) having patent disputes and some random LLC du jour trying to tax large companies as well as small ones (these latter cases rarely make any headlines). It says a lot about what the USPTO fosters and why the EPO must not follow the same footsteps. █

Summary: A Supreme Court ruling on patents, its implications for software patent trolls, and how media that is promoting software patents and patent trolls covered it

THE dishonest/self-serving patent lawyers in the US might never openly admit this, but software patents are dying not only in US courts and PTAB but also, increasingly, at the USPTO. This does not necessarily solve the problem of patent trolls because trolls tend to go after small companies that have neither the will nor the budget to invalidate the asserted patents, e.g. by going to court.

“Court rulings like this,” say anti-trolls lobbyists, “make it much more urgent for Congress to pass patent litigation reform legislation this year” (they probably allude to the VENUE Act or the likes of it).

“This does not necessarily solve the problem of patent trolls because trolls tend to go after small companies that have neither the will nor the budget to invalidate the asserted patents, e.g. by going to court.”“Supreme Court Ruling in Halo/Stryker Case Will Lead to More Lawsuits from Patent Trolls, More Forum Shopping by Repeat Plaintiffs,” says the accompanying PDF. “Ruling Gives Small Businesses Less Incentive to Fight Meritless Suits,” says the second line. This is correct as it’s already far too expensive and laborious. The smaller the company, the more likely it is to just pay ‘protection money’ (extortion) because the ratio between the ‘damages’ and the legal costs in a court makes it the ‘correct’ business choice.

Suppose for a moment that patent trolls don’t get granted (or get to buy) the patents they use. The proposed reform legislation does not actually tackle software patents. The subject is not even on the agenda and that’s a problem. As long as software patents can land on the lap of patent trolls, these are guaranteed to be misused. Natalie Rahhal of MIP wrote about the same decision (Halo/Stryker case) as follows: “The Supreme Court decided both Halo Electronics, Inc v Pulse Electronics, Inc, et al and Stryker Corporation, et al v Zimmer, Inc, et al on Monday, in a decision that significantly lowered the bar for the issuance of enhanced damages in a patent infringement case.

“Gene the WatchTroll (or “Watchdog” as he prefers to think of himself) is so upset that judges are doing their job and eliminating software patents (after SCOTUS Justices ruled on the matter) that he shamelessly exploits these latest developments to assert Justices are writing legislation (untrue).”“Enhanced damages are set out by Section 284 of the Patent Act and allow the Court to award a patent owner up to three times the amount of the damages found, if the jury or the court determines that the infringement was wilful.”

Gene the WatchTroll (or “Watchdog” as he prefers to think of himself) is so upset that judges are doing their job and eliminating software patents (after SCOTUS Justices ruled on the matter) that he shamelessly exploits these latest developments to assert Justices are writing legislation (untrue). In our previous post we showed how he had exploited the Halo/Stryker case to accuse Justices of ignorance and here he is saying that §101 (Alice) is “overused”:

It seems as though once the court realized the claimed invention related to software, it pulled out its §101 goggles and ignored any other grounds for patent invalidity. Such an analysis, which pushes decision-making into 101, which is ill-suited to be used as such a brute force instrument, has perplexed and frustrated patent practitioners. Courts, including the Federal Circuit, simply disregard the other sections of the Patent Act in favor of §101, which for them is easier and leads to decision-making without the need of discovery and without presuming the issued patent is valid.

With or without Halo/Stryker, with or without Enfish, §101 still stands and it will continue to demolish software patents by the thousands (those that reach PTAB and the courts anyway). One can be sure that patent lawyers will keep saying “Halo” and “Enfish” any time they wish to defend trolls and software patents. Joff Wild, for a change, says the T word (“Trolls”) in his article about Halo (a case which we first mentioned here last week) and here is his opening paragraph: “There have already been plenty of articles written about the Supreme Court’s decision in Halo v Pulse, which was handed down yesterday. As is usual in cases where they review the work of the Federal Circuit, the court’s justices have decided that its practices are wrong. This time, it’s the approach that the CAFC has towards determining wilful infringement – it’s too rigid and lets too many potentially very badly behaved defendants off the hook. Instead, the Supreme Court has stated, judges should have a lot more discretion in deciding when a defendant’s behaviour has been so egregious that it deserves the sanction of triple damages.”

“With or without Halo/Stryker, with or without Enfish, §101 still stands and it will continue to demolish software patents by the thousands (those that reach PTAB and the courts anyway).”Expect this to be used to discredit §101 and defend patent trolls. Now that Ericsson’s patent trolls (in Europe) are about get ‘scooped up’ IAM celebrates and as another major lawsuit comes to light IAM says: “Earlier this week an entity called Global Equity Management (GEMSA) filed lawsuits against 20 separate operating companies including Spotify, Netflix and Uber over the alleged infringement of two patents. All of the suits were filed in the Eastern District of Texas.”

That’s just a patent troll in the Eastern District of Texas, as usual. “US Pat 6,690,400, Asserted Against Amazon Web Service Users,” Patent Buddy wrote, adding some of his information about the patent. Apparently that’s just fine with Wild and his colleagues, whose employer received money from patent trolls. This EPO‘s mouthpiece, IAM ‘magazine’, still treats the world's largest patent troll (and Microsoft-connected troll) like some kind of heroic entity that people ought to emulate. Last week it continued to groom this patent troll, Intellectual Ventures. They almost do public relations, having spoken directly to the company’s executives last month (the editor in chief did, the trolls denialist).

“It doesn’t seem to bother Congress enough. Why not? Follow the money.”Perhaps the saddest thing in it all is that most voices that weighed in on the latter (and we were able to find) treated a win for patent trolls as some kind of fantastic ruling from SCOTUS, except perhaps TechDirt with this article titled “Supreme Court Just Made It Easier For Patent Trolls”.

To quote TechDirt: “As we’ve noted over the past decade or so, the Supreme Court has been smacking down the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC) over and over and over again on issues related to patent law. And on Monday, the Supreme Court did it once again — but this time in a way that actually might not be good.”

The analysis ends with: “At the very least, this seems like an argument for Congress to finally stop sitting around and doing something to fix the patent troll problem.”

It doesn’t seem to bother Congress enough. Why not? Follow the money. Why is IAM so soft on trolls? Again, follow the money.

We could say a lot more about IAM’s sheer bias. Consider its latest coverage from Asia. IAM, as usual, misses the point. LG and Samsung are absolutely massive companies (almost part of the nation itself, including the military in fact); they are the exception, not the norm, when it comes to the number of patents. IAM says “Korean companies own some of the world’s largest patent portfolios, including of course the single biggest stockpile of US grants – by some margin – which belongs to Samsung Electronics.” But IAM does not mention that this is pretty much limited to just two companies. Regarding Japan, which has a lot more than just two or three giant technology companies, IAM suggests some kind of patent liquidation. Notice how they ascribe or use the word “asset” to refer to a patent (the A in IAM is “asset”), as if it’s some kind of physical object. Euphemisms are everywhere at IAM. It’s lobbying disguised as news. █

Slide to unlock: novel or medieval?

Summary: A couple of new developments in Apple’s dispute about the ‘design’ of Samsung’s Android phones, which emulate extremely old concepts in digital form

WE are definitely not friends of Samsung (never have been), but some of its patent cases in recent years (especially against Microsoft and Apple) have had profound implications/impact.

“How on Earth were such patents granted in the first place?”Here is Professor Mark Lemley sharing his “brief for 50 IP professors on design patent damages in the Samsung v. Apple Supreme Court case” (local copy to ensure it endures the test of time). This is one of several such cases that involve Apple and Samsung. Florian Müller wrote that this is about as absurd as Microsoft’s patent bullying “over tiny arrow”. To quote the relevant part: “This is one of the patents Microsoft is presently asserting against Corel. Last summer I reported on Corel drawing first blood by suing Microsoft over a bunch of preview-related patents. A few months later, Microsoft retaliated with the assertion of six utility patents and four design patents. The Electronic Frontier Foundation named one of Microsoft’s design patents-in-suit the “stupid patent of the month” of December 2015 because it merely covered the design of a slider. But that patent isn’t nearly as bad as U.S. Design Patent No. D550,237, which practically just covers a tiny arrow positioned in the lower right corner of a rectangle. If you look at the drawings, particularly this one, note that the dotted lines mark the parts that aren’t claimed. What’s really claimed is just a rectangle with another rectangle inside and that tiny graphical arrow in the bottom right corner.”

“This sounds good on the surface, but unless the SCOTUS Justices rule on this, the perceived legitimacy of design patents may persist.”How on Earth were such patents granted in the first place? It’s not surprising that USPTO patent quality has declined so badly and so quickly and there are new patent quality studies regarding the USPTO. Will any similar studies look closely at EPO patent quality as well?

According to an Apple advocacy site, patents on design might not reach SCOTUS after all. This is bad news to all who hoped that SCOTUS would put en end to design patents once and for all.”Samsung Electronics welcomes support for overturning U.S. court ruling in Apple case,” said this new article, which along with others said “Justice Department Urges High Court Overturn Award to Apple Over Samsung Smartphones”. This sounds good on the surface, but unless the SCOTUS Justices rule on this, the perceived legitimacy of design patents may persist. As Müller put it: “Reading all amicus briefs in Samsung v. Apple (design patent damages). Momentum behind call for reasonableness is very impressive.” It looks very likely that if the SCOTUS rules on this, it will help demolish many design patents by extension, in the same way that Alice at SCOTUS put an end to many software patents in the United States. “A federal appeals court awarded about $500 million in damages to Apple for design patent infringement,” recalled one article, demonstrating just how much money can be at stake due to one single patent. “Design patent owners shouldn’t get 100% of the profits when only 1% of the product infringes, EFF tells court,” according to the EFF’s Twitter account and accompanying blog post that says: “The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the U.S. Supreme Court today to reverse a ruling that required Samsung to pay Apple all the profits it earned from smartphones that infringed three basic design patents owned by the iPhone maker.

“Apple is the aggressor, whereas Samsung — like Google — is hardly ever initiating patent lawsuits.”“The $399-million damage award against Samsung, upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Apple v. Samsung patent lawsuit, should be thrown out, EFF told the court in an amicus brief filed today with Public Knowledge and The R Street Institute. Forcing defendants to give up 100% of their profits for infringing designs that may only marginally contribute to a product’s overall look and functionality will encourage frivolous lawsuits and lead to excessive damage awards that will raise prices for consumers and deter innovation.”

Don’t fall for the corporate media’s narrative of Apple as the victim even when software patents are to blame. Apple is the aggressor, whereas Samsung — like Google — is hardly ever initiating patent lawsuits. We hope that Samsung will take this all the way up to the Supreme Court (more expensive to Samsung but collectively beneficial to all) and eventually win. The net effect might be the end of many design patents in the US. Those patents so often threaten GNU/Linux or Android products, as we have repeatedly shown here over the years. Will Samsung do a public service here? █

Summary: A look at some of Samsung’s ongoing high-profile patent cases which involve Apple

“The Samsung case [one of several ongoing cases] is particularly interesting,” said Standard Law the other day, “because it turns on the “non-discrimination” prong of RAND. Little case law on what ND means.”

RAND (or FRAND) is an anti-Free software (FOSS) loophole. It’s how proprietary software giants like Apple and Microsoft every so often try to exclude FOSS while calling this reasonable, non-discriminatory and fair (i.e. a series of euphemisms, one longer than the other). In practice, RAND is means UnReasonable and Discriminatory, sometimes UnFair too (FRAND). It’s typically about software patents.

“RAND (or FRAND) is an anti-Free software (FOSS) loophole.”“In a statement to Patently-O,” it has just been said, “Samsung argued that “If the current ruling is left to stand, it would value a single design patent over the hundreds of thousands of groundbreaking technology patents, leading to vastly overvalued design patents.” The itself brief cites Professor Rantanen’s 2015 essay for the proposition that the high damage is likely result in an “explosion of design patent assertions and lawsuits.””

In the mean time, another (new) article by Jason Rantanen explores CAFC appeals — a stage that Samsung has already been through. It will soon reach the Supreme Court (the design patent case at least).

Sharing Samsung’s Supreme Court brief, one said a few days ago that we now have access to “Samsung’s Supreme Court brief addressing the question of whether section 289 of the Patent Act requires the disgorgement of the defendant’s total profit from sales of design patent infringing products, or only the profit attributable to the infringing component.”

“For all we know, not a single case at SCOTUS will present the chance/opportunity to challenge software patents, or override Alice as a precedent.”Patently-O still keeps track of new Supreme Court patent cases and there is a new short article by Dennis Crouch which zooms in on one particular case. He wrote: “On remand from the Supreme Court vacatur, the Federal Circuit has reaffirmed its prior NuVasive decision and – in the process limited the reach of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision of Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1920 (2015).”

For all we know, not a single case at SCOTUS will present the chance/opportunity to challenge software patents, or override Alice as a precedent. The case of Samsung is about design patents and one new article says that “in the next five years the chances are this isn’t going to go away anytime soon. So what has this continuing battle demonstrated about patent law?”

“It’s going to be interesting to see which companies will oppose Apple’s ludicrous design patents (probably Google and Facebook, judging by what happened before).”The deadline for amici curiae has passed and Samsung can now wait and prepare for this important case that will hopefully determine design patents are out of line. As a bit of background on this: “More than two months ago, the Supreme Court of the United States granted Samsung’s petition for writ of certiorari (request for top-court review) regarding design patent damages, which was supported by Google, Facebook and other tech giants. Tomorrow [last week actually], Samsung has to file its opening brief. At this level of proceeding the parties’ positions, theories and arguments are largely known, but it will be very interesting to see what priorities they set, what case law they can find in support of their positions, and which amici curiae (“friends of the court”) will support them.”

We are still not aware of any information related to this, maybe because the amicis have not yet been published. It’s going to be interesting to see which companies will oppose Apple’s ludicrous design patents (probably Google and Facebook, judging by what happened before).

Speaking of certiorari, Patently-O reports that “Hospira explained that both the district court weighed the secondary indicia of non-obviousness and found them “not sufficiently strong to overcome the showing of obviousness arising from an analysis of the prior art.” To Hospira, the petition was basically a request that the Supreme Court conduct its own factual analysis.”

The very fact that the Supreme Court is not revisiting any software patents cases (so far) may serve to suggest confidence in the Alice case, much to the chagrin of Big Business lobbyists. █

Article as ODF

Publicado en GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, Patents, Samsung at 10:58 am por el Dr.

Sumario: Casi dos años después de la histórica decisión Alice compañías que se embarcan de manera grade en las patentes de software (y regalías de patentes) están perdiéndo su preeminencia en elsistema de patentes de los EE. UU.
De acuerdo a este nuevo informe de IAM, Samsung es ahora el número 1 en las patentes de los EE.UU. (total). IBM está cayendo por la escalera con bastante rapidez en medio de despidos y vale la pena mencionar que IBM es ahora un agresor patentes. Ataca a las empresas legítimas, con las patentes de software como arma [1, 2] (estrategia de patentes típico de las empresas que estan en decadencia). Hablando de estas empresas, Microsoft está en el número 4 en su país de origen, tras haber perdido impulso no sólo como empresa (ahora en su mayoría una sanguijuela y parásito de patentes), sino también como un solicitante de patentes.

La buena noticia de todo esto es que, tradicionalmente, como muchos sitios señalan correctamente, las empresas coreanas no son agresivos con patentes. Samsung no es una excepción a esto. Además, que Samsung es una empresa productora (hardware), por lo que no muchos de sus patentes pertenecen al software. Samsung utiliza una gran cantidad de Linux en sus sistemas; en algunos casos se desarrolla sus propios sistemas operativos como Bada Tizen, o en lugar de confiar ciegamente en Android.

Otro informe IAM admitió que no era correcto. Habíá afirmado previamente que el troll de patentes de Ericsson se estaba cambiando el nombre/reformado de nuevo, pero esto resulta ser falso. IAM luego dice que algunas personas en Taiwan consideran hacer lo mismo (la creación de un troll propio, como el Licensing de Microsoft o Unwired Planet en el caso de Ericsson), pero sobre todo cita a las personas que se benefician de un litigio, no tecnólogos. Bueno, eso es clásico solamente de parte de IAM …

Mirando a algunos sitios centrados en patentes más creíbles, rápidamente nos enteramos de más de burbuja estallándo en este ámbito de las patentes. “La decisión del juez Dyk y unidos por el Juez Principal Prost y el juez Taranto afirma el despido de un tribunal inferior on-the-escritos de demanda por infracción de patentes de GTG,” dice Patently-O. “La celebración es que el procedimiento reivindicado para el análisis de ADN para el desequilibrio de ligamiento no es elegible para reclamar la manera más eficaz una ley de la naturaleza. La idea básica se deriva del descubrimiento de los inventores de que las regiones codificantes (exones) típicamente se correlacionan con “enlaces” ciertas regiones no codificantes (intrones). [...] GTG es una empresa australiana que había demandado previamente a unas pocas docenas de compañías por infringir la patentes 179. Las demandas se han reexaminado (a petición de Merial) y la patentabilidad confirmado.”

Actualmente, las patentesd de software no son tan potentes como solían ser (en las US courts/PTAB) lo muestran. Esperamos que las decisiones de los años venideros enviáran la señal de que hay poco/inexistente incentivo para las patentes de software, irrespectivamente de la laleniencia de la USPTO.

Summary: Nearly two years after the historic Alice decision companies that rely a great deal on software patents (and patent royalties) are losing their prominence in the US patent system

According this new IAM report, Samsung is now number 1 in US patents (total). IBM is falling down the ladder rather quickly amid layoffs and it is worth mentioning that IBM is now a patent aggressor. It attacks legitimate companies, with software patents as a weapon [1, 2] (typical patent strategy of failing companies). Speaking of failing companies, Microsoft is at number 4 in its home country, having lost momentum not only as a company (now mostly a leech and patent parasite) but also as a patent applicant.

The good news about all this is that traditionally, as many sites correctly point out, Korean companies are not aggressive with patents. Samsung is no exception to this. Morever, Samsung is a producing company (hardware), so not so many of its patents pertain to software. Samsung uses a lot of Linux in its systems; in some cases it develops its own operating systems such as Bada or Tizen, rather than blindly rely on Android.

Another IAM report admits that it was wrong. It previously claimed that the patent troll of Ericsson was being renamed/reshaped again, but this turns out to be false. IAM then says that some people in Taiwan consider doing the same thing (creating a troll of their own, like Microsoft Licensing or Unwired Planet in the case of Ericsson), but it mostly quotes people who profit from litigation, not technologists. Well, that’s just IAM…

Looking at some more credible patents-centric sites, we quickly learn of more bubble-bursting in this area of patenting. “The decision by Judge Dyk and joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Taranto affirms a lower court’s dismissal on-the-pleadings of GTG’s patent infringement claim,” says Patently-O. “The holding is that the claimed method for analyzing DNA for linkage disequilibrium is ineligible for as effectively claiming a law of nature. The basic idea stems from the inventors discovery that coding regions (exons) typically correlate with “linked” certain non-coding regions (introns). [...] GTG is an Australian company that had previously sued a few dozen companies for infringing the ‘179 patent. The claims have been reexamined (at Merial’s request) and patentability confirmed.”

Nowadays, software patents aren’t quite as potent as before (in US courts/PTAB) and it shows. We hope that the coming few years’ decisions will send out the signal that there’s little incentive to software patenting, irrespective of USPTO lenience. █

Summary: Dumb patents on very dumb/trivial ideas (like gate-locking, or slide to unlock) still a subject which the higher US courts deem worthy of Supreme intervention (while Samsung itself joins the problem with new patent filings)

KOREAN giant Samsung, the market leader in the Android space, is an attractive target for patent lawsuits, even though conventionally Korean companies aren’t combative patent aggressors themselves (they don’t deserve the pricey defendant’s treatment). There’s no escaping the aggressors for Samsung, which even got attacked using EPO patents on software and designs (Samsung won as the EPO patents turned out to be bogus, i.e. erroneously granted).

“There’s no escaping the aggressors for Samsung, which even got attacked using EPO patents on software and designs (Samsung won as the EPO patents turned out to be bogus, i.e. erroneously granted).”Samsung is pursuing design patents of its own now, based on the latest news, e.g. [1, 2, 3] (we found more than a dozen articles about this one) and Apple’s attack on Samsung using design patents is still a subject of discussion, even 2.5 weeks after it was news. This one new blog post says: “Oral argument has not yet been scheduled, but I imagine it will be held sometime in October or November after the Court returns from its summer recess. For now, at least, it seems likely that the Court will still consist of only eight, not the full complement of nine, justices.”

By extension, a lot of design patents will be considered/assessed by SCOTUS, but why were they being granted in the first place? Designs are often covered by laws other than patent law. In the context of patents it’s common for callback functions, i.e. software (behaviour), to be incorporated into the static (visual i.e. plottable) design.

“In the context of patents it’s common for callback functions, i.e. software (behaviour), to be incorporated into the static (visual i.e. plottable) design.”As we pointed out here a long time ago, design patents are in many cases just a subclass of software patents, hence they both need to go away. MIP does not quite agree and in a very recent post about “design rights” (not quite the same as design patents) it said: “After attending the recent INTA/AIPPI conference on “Designs: Into the Future”, James Nurton summarises what there is to love about designs – and also a few reasons not to love them. On the following pages, we also look in depth at the recent Trunki decision in the UK and the pending Apple v Samsung case in the United States”

The Trunki case has been mentioned many times in our daily links. It’s truly dumb and some might call it outrageous. But it’s not about patents. There is hardly a connection/parable here. Either way, to conflate or interject it into the Apple v Samsung would only mislead. █

Summary: A roundup of recent news about patents and stories about patent trolls that use software patents against large companies

TECHRIGHTS is not against patents; it is against particular patents, or put another way, there are types of patents that are exceptionally problematic (because of other protections) and scientific fields (or domains) that should not have patents on them because these are inadequate for technical and economic reasons (technical because they retard development or innovation and economic because there’s insufficient evidence that they bring about overall prosperity or increase/improve competitiveness).

“Samsung fights on because Apple too infringes/steps on a lot of Samsung patents (many of them on software).”Dr. Glyn Moody bemoans patents on genes today (he wrote a whole book on the subject), IAM writes about patents on drones today, and an interesting new article by Joe Mullin speaks about a patent troll, SimpleAir, which attacked Google and wanted $85 million for a stupid software patent. He notes that “a SimpleAir expert said that Microsoft had likely paid $5 million to license the ’914 patent.” (to be fair, it’s not just a Microsoft thing because, to quote Mullin, “SimpleAir used its “push notification” patents to file waves of lawsuits in 2008 and 2013 against companies like CBS, eBay, Amazon, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, and MySpace.”)

“It really ought to be widely accepted (it’s increasingly realised in industry) that a lot of the problems stem from software patenting, not just trolls.”Now consider VirnetX‘s case against Apple, which sees Samsung on the same side as Apple, in spite of the Supreme Court level Apple lawsuit against Samsung and other such cases (the EPO‘s clueless President doesn't seem to know what Apple does in European courts). What we deal with here is a software patent used by a troll to amass money at the expense of companies which actually create something. A new article titled “How the Samsung vs Apple Supreme Court battle affects Android” says that “Apple successfully sued Samsung for iPhone patent infringement in 2012, but now the real battle has begun. Despite Apple’s pleadings, the Supreme Court – the highest court in the United States – is reviewing the case. As this is the first patent case taken up by the court in more than 120 years, the outcome would have a massive effect on smartphone design in the future – the Galaxy S8 included.”

When it comes to Apple and Samsung, both companies have a lot of patents. If Apple was purely a patent troll (or relied on trolls as satellites), then for Samsung to retaliate would be virtually impossible and settlement money would be coughed out faster. Samsung fights on because Apple too infringes/steps on a lot of Samsung patents (many of them on software).

It really ought to be widely accepted (it’s increasingly realised in industry) that a lot of the problems stem from software patenting, not just trolls. █

Publicado en America, Apple, Patentes, Samsung at 11:50 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

La sin precedentes barra de baja examinación en la oficina de patentes de Estados Unidos hizo una gran cantidad de patentes de software sospechosas o totalmente falsas

Sumario: Sellando unas felices examinaciones en cuanto se trata de patentes de software, esta teniendo su tardío efecto en los aplicantes quienes ven sus patentes o inválidadas or masívamente devaluados después de que la Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos (SCOTUSP) las evalúa

“La definición de un Troll de patentes es totalmente simple,” escribió una persona temprano esta semana, haciendo eco a lo que algunos de nostros define “[cref 90921 PAE” estos dias. Es “cualquier compañía que hace la mayoría de su dinero usando patentes al amenazar con litigatión.”

Eso es exactamente lo que el “licensing de Microsoft” esta haciéndo. Microsoft ahora tiene su in-house troll de patentes, or PAE, de lo que escribimos la semana pasada.

“Eso es exactamente lo que el “licensing de Microsoft” esta haciéndo. Microsoft ahora tiene su in-house troll de patentes, or PAE…”Afortunadamente la consecuencias de la mayoría de trolles (or PAES) esta en las rocas por Alice. Las patentes de software no pueden dejar de morir, en ambas PTAB y en las cortes. La USPTO últimamente permite que casi cualquier cosa sea patentada (la EPO tiene que observar esto y tomarlo como algo precaucionador), pero simplemente por que una patente es otorgada, no significa que sea válida si/cuando es desafíáda de la manera apropiada, especialmente si esta patente cubre o se relaciona al software.

“Esta decisión de la PTAB invalidándo los reclamos de la patente IV bajo 101 es transtornada,” escribió un abogado de patentes, linking a esta decisión contra Intellectual Ventures, el TROLL de PATENTES de Microsoft y Bill Gates, así como el troll de patentes MÁS GRANDE DEL MUNDO.

“La única patente buena es la patente muerta.”“La hermana de esta patente,” añadió este abogado (citando la patente #9050977), “Conseguí una Rechazo 101” o como este tweet lo pone: “This reads like an un-patentable mental process that drivers do-just “done on a computer”. http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat9290181.pdf” [patent #9290181]

La única patente buena es la patente muerta. Otro nuevo ejemplo de patente de software muerta es esta. Para citar el blog de Docket Rport:

En una escrita decisión final, el Jurado encontró recmaos de un contenido electrónico de distribución no-patentabje bajo
35 U.S.C. § 101. “La ’patente 464 describe que publicaciones electrónicas fueron comúnmente repeditas en una forma leíble por computadora en storage magnético o óptico diskettes y distribuídos a tiendas o por ventas directas de correo. Así el concepto de distribución de publicaciones (contenido), ha sido conocido mucho antes que la patente ´464. Más aún acordamos con el petitioner que distribución de publicaciones (versus publicaciones electrónicas), han sido conocidas por largo tiempo… [Nosotros] determinamos que los reclamos están dirigidos al concepto ABSTRACTO de distribuír contenido electrónico, o más específicamente, a seleccionar, transportar, guardar y enseñar contenido electrónico.”

Es buenho ver noticias como la de arriba porque no sólo devalúa existentes patentes de software pero también reduce el incentivo de llenar aplicaciones por nuevas patentes. ¿Hará SCOTUS lo mismo con las patentes de diseño pronto?

El Caso Apple-Samsung

“A diferencia de Apple, esta compañía Asiática actualmente produce cosas, no simplemente hacen propaganda y rediseñan sus logos.”Vis-à-vis diseño de patentes and patentes de software at SCOTUS, siguiendo talvez miles de reportajes de los medios en casos como este, IDG sirvió para confirmar lo que Florian Müller había pronósticado, principalmente esto. De la historia de IDG: “la Jueza Lucy Koh está preoucpada que el resultado del juicio pueda ser cuestionado después de una revisión de la Corte Suprema” (extraído por Müller).

¿Habrá alguna vez paz? Bueno, todo eso depende de Apple, quién comenzó toda esta guerra total con sus patentes de software y diseño (usuamente GUI software). Esto es lo que pasa entre compañías Asiáticas como Samsung ahora mismo: “Midea y Toshiba anunciaron la semana pasada que ellos han firmado un memorandum de entendimiento por un tratado el cual vería a la más larga compañíá China fabricante de apáratos para el hogar adquirir la mayoría del gigante Japonés bienes blancos.” A diferencia de Apple, esta compañía Asiática actualmente produce cosas, no simplemente hacen propaganda y rediseñan sus logos. Apple ahora gasta un montón de dinero en abogados de patentes; no nos sorprende el porque sus productos están obscenamente con sobreprecio (costos asociados con propaganda sin fin y abogados de patenes son pasados al consumidor). █

Summary: Stamping-happy examination when it comes to software patents takes its belated toll on applicants, who see their patents either invalidated or massively devalued after the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) weighed in

“The definition of a Patent Troll is quite simple,” wrote one person earlier this week, echoing what some use to define "PAE" these days. It’s “any company that makes the majority of its money using patents by threatening litigation.”

That’s exactly what “Microsoft licensing” is doing. Microsoft now has its own in-house patent troll, or PAE, which we wrote about in the previous post.

“That’s exactly what “Microsoft licensing” is doing. Microsoft now has its own in-house patent troll, or PAE…”Fortunately, the tool of most trolls (or PAEs) is on the rocks because of Alice. Software patents just can’t stop dying, both in PTAB and in the courts. The USPTO nowadays allows virtually anything to be patented (the EPO too should watch out and treat it as a cautionary tale), but just because a patent is granted doesn’t mean it’s valid if/when properly challenged, especially if this patent covers software.

“This PTAB decision invalidating IV patent claims under 101 is deranged,” wrote a patent lawyer, linking to this decision against Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft’s and Bill Gates’ patent troll, as well as the world’s biggest patent troll.

“The only good software patent is a dead one.”“The Sibling Patent to This One,” added this lawyer (citing patent #9050977), “Did Get a 101 Rejection” or as this tweet puts it: “This reads like an un-patentable mental process that drivers do-just “done on a computer”. http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat9290181.pdf” [patent #9290181]

The only good software patent is a dead one. Another new example of a dead software patent is this one. To quote the Docket Report blog:

In a final written decision, the Board found claims of an electronic content distribution patent unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101. “The ’464 patent describes that electronic publications were commonly replicated in computer-readable form on magnetic or optical storage diskettes and distributed to retails stores or by direct mail sales. Thus, the concept of distributing electronic information products (content) was known prior to the ’464 patent. Further, we agree with Petitioner that distribution of publications (versus electronic publications), has long been known. . . . . [W]e determine that the claims are directed to the abstract concept of distributing electronic content, or more specifically, to selecting, transporting, storing, and displaying electronic content.”

It is nice to see news like the above because it not only devalues existing software patents but also reduces the incentive to file applications for new ones. Will SCOTUS do the same to design patents soon?

Apple-Samsung Case

“Unlike Apple, these Asian company actually produce things, not just advertising and refining their logos.”Vis-à-vis design patents and software patents at SCOTUS, following perhaps thousands of media reports such as this, IDG served to confirm what Florian Müller had foreseen, namely this. From the IDG story: “Judge Lucy Koh is concerned that the outcome of the trial could be questioned after a Supreme Court review” (excerpted by Müller).

Will there ever be peace? Well, that all depends on Apple, which started this whole war with its patents on software and design (usually software GUI). Here is what happens among Asian companies like Samsung right now: “Midea and Toshiba announced last week that they had signed a memorandum of understanding for a deal which would see China’s largest home appliances manufacturer acquire the majority of the Japanese tech giant’s white goods business.” Unlike Apple, these Asian company actually produce things, not just advertising and refining their logos. Apple now spends a lot of money on patent lawyers; no wonder the products are obscenely overpriced (costs associated with endless advertising and patent lawyers get passed down). █

Summary: The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is going to deal with inane Apple patents that are being used in an effort to make billions of dollars (‘Apple tax’) out of a Linux-based operating system (Android) which competes against Apple’s

TECHRIGHTS has among its primary goals the abolition of software patents and the success of FOSS, which is ascending in Europe these days. This would be beneficial to software developers and probably for the public as a whole. The losers? Probably patent lawyers and their biggest clients, who refer to their patent portfolio as a “war chest”.

“We believe that real change can come from the courts, especially the high ones, which everyone must follow.”We recognise that significant change hardly comes from politicians anymore, as they are nowadays funded (especially in the United States) by the aforementioned “biggest clients”. We believe that real change can come from the courts, especially the high ones, which everyone must follow. Consider the long-awaited SCOTUS appeal regarding an Android case. Can SCOTUS bury so-called ‘design’ patents, which are essentially akin to software patents (usually a GUI with some buttons and unspecified callback functions for behaviour)? After Alice, which changed a lot, we sure hope so.

We have been covering Apple’s attacks on Android/Linux since the very beginning (the Apple vs HTC case). It’s still being dragged on, even several years after the death of Steve Jobs, which says a lot about Apple (they are still an aggressive patenting company). The expected decision on whether it shall be dealt with by SCOTUS was scheduled for Monday, after some people waited in vain on Friday. This has been covered to death in the media by now, so we won’t bore our readers with yet more of the mundane pertinent details (we covered these before anyway, including the laughable patents at hand [1, 2]).

“It’s still being dragged on, even several years after the death of Steve Jobs, which says a lot about Apple (they are still an aggressive patenting company).”To give just a short media survey/roundup, Spicy IP oddly enough chose to focus on another case. It said: “We’ve been given to believe that the Roche vs Cipla appeal came up at the Supreme Court today.”

An article by Joe Mullin, on the other hand, noted: “Are design patents for “carpets and wall-papers and oil-cloths” or smartphones?”

Korean English-speaking media said the obvious, FOSS proponents like SJVN spread the news early on, and maybe hundreds if not thousands of media outlets wrote about this as well. To quote SJVN: “Years in the making, the Supreme Court has agreed to listen to Samsung’s appeal of Apple’s design patent awards. [...] At first it looked like Apple won its design patent wars over Samsung. As time went on, that “victory” started looking more like a defeat as Samsung won its appeals. Now, Apple is in even more trouble. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has elected to hear Samsung’s appeal of the $548-million award lower courts gave Apple.”

“The expected decision on whether it shall be dealt with by SCOTUS was scheduled for Monday, after some people waited in vain on Friday.”To quote Florian Müller, who used to be a FOSS opponent (Microsoft/Horacio Gutierrez paid him for this) but later seemed to have flipped back to pro-FOSS, he wrote: “The Supreme Court of the United States has just published a decision it had already made on Friday (March 18): Samsung’s December 2015 petition for writ of certiorari (request for Supreme Court review) in Apple’s design patents case has been GRANTED with respect to question 2 (damages). As a result, the Apple v. Samsung damages re-retrial scheduled to begin later this month in the Northern District of California is almost certainly going to be postponed indefinitely, as Apple is seeking unapportioned infringer’s profits on all five products still at issue and won’t be entitled to that if Samsung prevails in the top U.S. court.”

“For my take on why design patents were neglected for such a long (and crucial) time,” wrote this person to Müller (whose expertise is this one particular case), linking to the paper about design patents. To quote part of the abstract: “This project, initially published as a two-part series of articles entitled ‘Design and Deviance: Patent as Symbol, Rhetoric as Metric,’ reveals the unrecognized power of gender and sexuality norms in the deep discourse of pivotal American case law on design patents.”

“A re-retrial was scheduled to take place in California in a week,” Müller wrote. “In light of the Supreme Court decision I’m sure Judge Koh will cancel it.”

The reason we quote Müller so extensively about this particular case is that, with respect, he did follow this case for many years. He later added:

• “Apple’s lawyers filed 10 pages to tell Judge Koh the re-retrial should go ahead despite SCOTUS cert presenting risk of re-re-re-retrial…” (source)
• “Now, I understand Apple’s lawyers in the sense they want to just dismiss Samsung’s Supreme Court case and say “hey, they ain’t gonna win it”” (source)
• “But when a case has already had a trial and a retrial, and needs a re-retrial, then the judge won’t take the risk of a re-re-retrial.” (source)
• “I actually thought it was not a bad thing to have a Korean-American judge in charge to understand cultures, documents etc.” (source)
• “What I accuse her of is upholding ultraweak patents. Injunctions: granted some, denied some, appeals court was moving target.” (source)

“Watch how some patent lawyers view things. It’s all about money to them (even a crude picture of dollars).”Here is an analysis by a Professor of Law (journalists tend to be clueless about these matters) and Patently-O‘s take from Jason Rantanen and Professor Crouch, who looks for some input through a survey.

Levy from CCIA (lobbying) wrote: “CCIA argued to the Court that this interpretation overreached in an unconstitutional way, and that the correct interpretation could be found by looking at a related statute, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act.” Rob Lever, a journalist, said that: “The US Supreme Court on Monday opened the door to reducing the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages owed by Samsung to Apple in the blockbuster patent case between the world’s biggest smartphone makers.”

“We look forward to following the case and hopefully we shall see Apple walking away with nothing.”Watch how some patent lawyers view things. It’s all about money to them (even a crude picture of dollars). To quote a part of it: “It is penny-wise and pound-foolish to scrimp on “preparation and prosecution” of patents—which if the invention is any good, will be infringed and attacked—and then to spend hundreds of millions on patent infringement and validity and damages litigation and appeals.”

We look forward to following the case and hopefully we shall see Apple walking away with nothing. As usual, only the lawyers are guaranteed to win. █

Publicado en America, Apple, Courtroom, Patents, Samsung at 12:43 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Sumario: Casos de patentes en Texas, prospecto de reforma de patentes, casos de Delaware, y algunas actualizaciones acerca de casos de gran importancia

Eastern District of Texas

BASADO en los últimos números de Lex Machina, cuyas figuras son típicamente usadas para oponerse a ligigación excesiva y apoyo por una reforma de patentes (simplemente miren quien está detrás de Lex Machina), indica que hay una reducción/decline en prospectos para litigación de patentes. Los máximalistas de patentes interpretan esto como sigue: ¨sabemos que los caso en los US estuvieron de nuevo arriba, no alcanzándo los niveles del 2013 pero todavía fue el segundo record. Sabemos que la actividad en Noviembre fue unprecedente gracias a nuevos, estrictos estandares de pelea a ponerse en efecto en Diciembre. Y también ha sido ampliamente reportado que incluso por sus propios estándares sobresalió en el Distrito Este de Texas, donde 44% de casos nuevos fueron traídos, y el Juez de ese Distrito Rodne Gilstrap quien se anotó un increíble 1686 nuevas demandas”.

“Alguos creen que una reforma en las juridicciones simplemente ayudaría a mitigar/limitar el problema.”El Distrito Este de Texas, la capital de los trolles de patentes, es absolutamente un pozo negro. Incluso se anuncia a sí misma como tal (barra baja de patentes en los tribunales).

Basado en este nuevo artículo from Heather Greenfield (de CCIA): “Senadores Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., y Mike Lee, R-Utah, han introducido a bill cuyo objetivo son los trolles de patentes llevando a cabo abusivos casos de patentes en el Distrito Este de Texas, considerado territorio amigable para aquellos cuyo negocio principal son los juicios de patentes en vez de hacer productos. El Distrito Este de Texas tomó 44 por ciento de todos los casos de patentes el 2015. Juez Gilstrap del Distrito Este esta basado en Marshall, Texas, que tiene una población de 24,000 people, sin embargo el esta a cargo de un quinto de todos los casos de patentes en los Estados Unidos.”

Ambos usan las mismas estadísticas y puntos de vista: “El Distrito Este de Texas tomó 44 por ciento de todos los casos de patentes el 2015.”

Algunos creen que una reforma basada en juridicción de patentes simplemente ayudaría a mitigar el problema.

Juicios en Texas Trials y Preguntas de Jurisdicción

Escribimos previamente acerca del caso Metaswitch/Genband y esta de regreso en los titulares de nuevo [1, 2, 3, 4]. Compañías reales (practicantes) de Europe estan siendo afectadas, nos deja preguntándonos por que le toma tanto tiempo al Congreso hacer algo. Uno sugirió una clase de reformas basadas en la vena de juridiscción/cambio, o sanciones en el. Una mejor solución identificaría em modelo de patentes mismas (patentes de software) y trabajan para aplastarlas.

“Un tipo sugerido de reforma se refiere a la jurisdicción/cambio de lugar, o sanciones en él.”Vean este nuevo artículo titulado “Venue and Personal Jurisdiction Updates” y tambien “ANDA llenado crea una Juridiscción Personal a nivel Nacional”, que la precede. Es acerca de génericos, envuelve a la CAFC, y dice: “Los echos aquí envuelven a Mylan buscando a la FDA aprobar su mercadeo de drogas genéricas que eventualmente serán vendidas en Delaware (como también en todos los estados de la Union). Al considerar esa acción, la courte encontró que tiene suficiente juridicción personal para casos irradiando de una aplicación de aprovación de ANDA.”

Aquí esta la parte acerca de jurisdicción: ¨En este caso de jurisdicción personal, el Circuito Federal ha afirmado el juicio emitido por al Corte de Delaware, que la corte tiene específica jurisdicción sobre dos casos paralelos de Mylan. En un super amplia tenencia la corte encuentra que cuando una compañía de genéricos llena una nueva aplicación por genéricos (ANDA) con la FDA, y que su llenamiento abre la puerta a la jurisdicción personal de cualquier estado donde la Compañía Genérica venderá la droga si es aprovada. Esto efectivamente significa que la compañía genérica puede ser enjuiciada en cualquier estado de la Unión.¨

“Una mejor solución identificaría em modelo de patentes mismas (patentes de software) y trabajan para aplastarlas.”Hablando de Delaware, vemos esta nueva actualización acerca de otro caso allí (detrás de la pared de pago). La parte accesible al público dice: “La compañíá de tecnología Wireless Novatel y una compañíá dueña de patentes que la acusó de infringir dos de sus patentes de communicaciones han acordado deshacerce de su caso, una semana después que un juez Federal de Delaware estrechó las pretensiones de la demanda y la tiró a cabo expertos de ambos lados.”

Delaware, a diferencia de Texas, esta al noete, y no es tan amigable como Texas en cuanto se trata de los demandantes.

Patentes Dudosas

Un artículo por Timothy Geigner cubre una materia que hemos tratado aquí dos veces antes. “Es frecuentemente reclamado,” Geigner escribe, “litigaciones de que patente y marcas es empleada frecuentemente como medida de simplemente alejar/bloquear competición libre.” Eso es exáctamente lo que tenemos aquí. Para citar su artículo:

El fundador de Global Archery, John Jackson, en el otro lado, aparece perfectamente voluntario de salir y describir su motivación por llenar un juicio de infringimiento de patentes y marcas contra a LARPing entusiásta que vende flechas no-letales al lado.

Pero primero veamos el marco. LARP representa juego de acción vivo, para aquellos que no lo saben todavía. Para ayudar en el rol de reescenificar batallas, LARPers usarán ¨armas¨ no letales, como espadas y flechas de espuma, y parecidos. Larping.org es un sitio de pasatiempos de fabricantes de tercera parte. Ahora, Global Archer tiene patentes en específicos diseños de flechas, que principalmente se refieren en la manera en que la cabeza de la flecha se asegura al mango. Una mitad del reclamo de la compañíá contra Larping.org es por infringimiento de esas patentes.

¿Porqué fueron tales patentes otorgadas en primer lugar? ¿Cuánto costaría al acusado probar que ellas son falsas?

Sanciones

Apple ha confíado en embargos, o amenazas de embargos, en order de forzar a compañías a pagarles por aparatos Android y/o remover funciones básicas (como un slider que abre la pantalla). La ITC ha sido usada por apple para ello, y Microsoft lo ha hecho también. Ambos están atacando a Linux (especialmente e aparatos) usando patentes de software. Este nuevo artículo sirve para reforzar estimados de tiempo dice que será el Lunes cuando conocerá si Apple [ref 89542 puede llevar Android (actualmente Samsung) a la Corte Suprema). Para citar:

Decisiones en el caso Apple versus Samsung de infringimiento de patentes ha oscilado ampliamente para ambos lados, sugiriendo que las cortes son incapazes de emitir juicios justos para el rápidamente-cambiate sector de alta tecnologíá. Pero dos expertos aconsejan tomar una perspectiva más amplia acerca cambios históricos en la ley de propiedad intelectual, uno de ellos probablemente todavía adelante.

La Corte Suprema de los US podría decider este Lunes (Mar. 21) si escuchará o no una apelación en diseño de patentes envuelta en el caso. ¨No muchos casos han percolado a la cumbre…[pero] hemos visto le perfil de derechos de diseño salir de las aguas al candelero,¨ dijo Christopher V. Carani, un socio e McAndrews Held & Malloy Ltd. (Chicago) quien se especializa en patentes de diseño.

Apple todavía esta tratándo duramente de extraer billones de dolares de Samsung, bajo una intensa presión de embargos y que no. Apple usó HTC como precedente contra Samsung. Si Samsung cae, ¿quién será le próximo en el camino de destrucción de Apple? También consideren el siguiente nuevo artículo:

ZTE se apresta a apelar un ban de exportaciones de los US

ZTE Corp de CHINA apelará unas duras restricciónes de exportaciones en los US impuestos la semana pasada, de acuerdo a una persona familiar con la materia, después de que el esfuerzo de cabildeo del fabricante de equipo de telecomunicaciónes falle de evitar las preocupaciones acerca de sus negocios.

El Departamento de Comercio de los US impuso restricciones a los proveedores de los US proveyendo cruciales componentes a ZTE por supuestas violaciones contra las sanciones contra Iran, un movimiento que disruptirá su cadena de provisión global.

“El Departmento de Comercio de los US y ZTE Corp están en continuas discusiones,” dijo un oficial mayor del Departamento de Comercio. “Estas discusiones han sido constructivas, y continuaremos buscando una resolucion.”

¿Quién se beneficia de tales embargos políticos? Seguramente Apple debe estar a favor, Este caso fue mencionado temprano este mes por IAM, que cree que se relaciona indirectamente a los embargos inducidos por patentes. ¿Cuán lejos irá el sistema de los Estados Unidos? Los embargos o sanciones no ayudan a los consumidores; ¿cuándo se darán cuenta de ello? y ¿cuándo el público se dará cuenta que el exceso de patentes perjudican a todos? █