IT IS already known, as confirmed by Microsoft itself, that Microsoft is investing in the world's largest patent troll, which is also its own creation. This patent troll recently invaded and subdued India while Microsoft was working to subvert the law and breaking it by attempting to sneak in software patents.
So it was interesting to read a report that the biggest ands scariest one of them all, Intellectual Ventures, founded by the redoubtable Nathan Myhrvold, had come to India. Intellectual Ventures, according to the Wall Street Journal, has more than 20,000 patents and patent applications “related to everything from lasers to computer chips”. Myhrvold was the chief strategist and chief technology officer of Microsoft before he sent up Intellectual Ventures, an idea that he owes to Bill Gates. Microsoft had a huge patent liability problem with a seemingly endless line of people suing the company for infringement of their patents. It was then that Myhrvold came up with the idea of accumulating patents under one roof to manage them better. His rationale: it is more efficient for companies to deal with him than thousands of patent holders. The transaction costs alone make it worthwhile for companies to pay Intellectual Ventures its steep fees.
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Intellectual Ventures debut here [in India] coincides with the news that CSIR is considering a move to transfer its patent lode to an independent holding company that will manage it professionally. The patents would be monetised in various ways, licensing being one option.
On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded Microsoft a patent for the Automatic Censorship of Audio Data for Broadcast, an invention that addresses 'producing censored speech that has been altered so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible.'
Some judges of the CAFC are even patent attorneys. It is sure that those "specialized" judges have a serious biais in favour of patents. Some critics says that they even lowered the barriers of novelty, making easier to get patents.
This is also what a spanish expert said recently about the introduction of specialized patent courts in Spain.
So those patent judges have a bias towards the patentee, against the interests of the defendant.
--Dean Drako, Barracuda's CEO
14-year-old newspaper column becomes prior art in patent litigation
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GraniteGeek of the Nashua Telegraph illustrates how a newspaper article can become prior art in a patent litigation. It also illustrates (as does the Ciba-Geigy v. Alza case) that enablement standards for prior art can be looser than for patent applications.
VMware and Patent #6397242 Go Back About 10 Years
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Nice catch by Andrew Dugdell: it’s about 10 years ago that Scott Devine, Edouard Bugnion and Mendel Rosenblum filed patent #6397242, “Virtualization system including a virtual machine monitor for a Computer with segmented Architecture”.
The French EU Presidency will close by December 31, 2008, and if no deal is struck until that day, most probably there will be no Community Patent for a long time to come. According to McCreevy, the stumbling blocks are the linguistic and translation requirements, and the setting and distribution of annual fees to maintain the patent. In his speech he stresses that significant progress has been made since April 2007, and then comes to his belief in technical solutions.
Dear Mr Horns, As I said to a pro-swpat guy at the recent patent conference organised by the French Presidency, I am still waiting for your clarifications or proposals for drawing a line from the patent community. FFII has proposed that the contribution to the knowledge has to be in the physical field (forces of nature), I heard patent guys laughing about it, but I am still waiting for their critics on paper because laughing is not convincing anybody.
The topic of Intellectual Property and Open Source does have a wide ranging audience for itself. With the seeming explosion of software engineering applications driven by web and e-commerce, this maybe a good book for grasping the finer legal details. The primary focus of the legal terms in this book are with respect to the U.S. Legal framework and sometime with European variants.
And talking of business method patents, it struck me last night that one consequence of the current turmoil in the financial markets is that we will see far fewer of them in the future, whatever happens with Bilski. After all, financial institutions have been among the major players in the business method patent field as they seek to protect innovative investing strategies, risk models and the like. However, there are not as many of these institutions as there were a few months ago, while those that are left are much less likely to be looking for new and exciting ways to make money. Instead, they will be going back to basics. If this is the case, patenting is going to be the last thing on their minds.
Azure Networks LLC vs. Nokia Inc.
Plaintiff Azure is a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Longview.
Azure claims it owns the rights to U.S. Patent No. 6,981,158 entitled "Methods and Apparatus for Tracing Packets" issued on Dec. 27, 2005.
Also, Azure claims it is the owner by assignment of U.S. Patent No. 7,302,704 entitled "Excising Compromised Routers From an Ad-Hoc Network" issued on Nov. 27, 2007.
Companies being sued for patent infringement just got a get-out-of-the-Eastern-District-of-Texas-rocket-docket-for-free card, thanks to an en banc ruling from the 5th Circuit.
In a split 10-7 decision, the panel on Friday issued a writ of mandamus ordering Eastern District Judge John Ward to transfer a product liability case against Volkswagen to Dallas, where the car crash in the underlying case took place.
The majority wrote that "the district court clearly abused its discretion and reached a patently erroneous result," when it denied Volkswagen's efforts to have the case moved. The car company argued that the proper venue should be the district where the crash took place.
Although the case -- a family suing over design defects in the Volkswagen Golf after a fatal accident on a Dallas freeway -- has nothing to do with patent law, the circuit's decision will have big implications for the flood of patent infringement lawsuits regularly filed in what has come to be known as the country's most plaintiff-friendly venue.
--Richard Stallman