Information Filled Under 'The Business of IP' Category
REPORT: The Tort Law and internet service providers Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
The first Chinese law specifically dealing with torts will come into force in July 2010. Article 36 of the new law provides that an internet service provider may be held jointly and severally liable for the infringing acts of a website operator that uses its services
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REPORT: The Tort Law and internet service providers
In Procter & Gamble Inc v Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc the Federal Court has dismissed an appeal against a decision of the Trademark Opposition Board in which the latter had rejected Procter & Gamble Inc’s opposition to the registration of a striped toothpaste design. The board had dismissed all six grounds of opposition based on P&G’s failure to meet its onus of evidentiary burden and improper pleading.
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REPORT: Opponents reminded of importance of brushing up on opposition grounds
The IP investment bank MDB Capital Group has produced a study that it claims shows there is a predictive correlation between the strength of a company’s intellectual property and its revenue growth, gross margin and risk adjusted investment return. The study is based on a trawl of the bank’s PatentVest database, which covers 4,000 publicly quoted companies and contains information on four million granted US patents and a further two million applications. MDB scanned PatentVest to select the 100 companies which, according to its criteria, have the strongest patent portfolios, or highest tech score (HTS)
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BLOG: New study shows US small caps reaping IP dividends
Harari v. Hollmer , No. 09-1406 (April19, 2010) During an Interference proceeding, Harai was dismissed from the proceeding and the Board concluded that Harari’s claims were unpatentable for lack of written description due to an insufficient incorporation by reference statement
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Fed. Cir.: Incorporation By Reference Valid When Information is "Ascertainable" By the Examiner
Here’s an interesting development in Hong Kong picked up by The Intangible Economy blog: Five Hong Kong banks have joined the Intellectual Property Department in promoting intellectual capital management (ICM) under the second phase of the Intellectual Capital anagement Consultancy Programme launched today (March 2). The five Partnering Lending Institutions (PLIs) are the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, Chong Hing Bank Limited, Citi Commercial Bank, Hang Seng Bank Limited, and the Bank of East Asia Limited
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BLOG: Hong Kong banks sign up to groundbreaking intellectual capital initiative
The Federal Circuit has upheld a previous panel decision of the court in Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc v Eli Lilly and Co. The court’s decision held that the patent claims asserted against Eli Lilly for its drugs Evista and Xigris were invalid for lack of written description.
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REPORT: Federal Circuit issues en banc decision in Ariad v Eli Lilly
The Supreme Court has held that a research foundation delivering means for the exploitation of a patented invention may be liable for patent infringement, even where such means are developed during commissioned research work.
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REPORT: Research foundation may be liable for patent infringement
The long-running trade dispute between Brazil and the US over cotton subsidies looks like it has been resolved. An agreement was reached last week, just days before the Brazilians were due to impose sanctions on the US, including a number that directly targeted IP rights owned by American companies.
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BLOG: Brazil’s IP sanctions threat bears fruit as the US compromises in trade dispute
Bill Elkington, the Senior Director of Strategic Technology at Rockwell Collinns, has been in touch with a question about whether risk premiums should be applied to certain kinds of international licensing deals: I think this is a general question for anyone who does licensing internationally.
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BLOG: Risk premiums on cross-border licensing deals
The first ever interactive, online chief IP officer (CIPO) innovation game is taking place next Wednesday, 14th April. All readers of this blog are invited to take part completely free of charge. The game, which will take about an hour and is being staggered to suit people based in different time zones, is designed to identify the major challenges facing CIPOs as they do their jobs on a daily basis and strategise for the future
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BLOG: Just a week to go before groundbreaking CIPO innovation game takes place
Law 25/2009 has amended the Copyright Law in regard to the modification of certain laws in order to adapt them to the Law on Free Access to Service Activities and the Exercise Thereof. However, a study of the amendments shows that the brunt of the modifications are unrelated to liberalisation of the collective management of IP rights.
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REPORT: Liberalisation extended to collective management of IP rights
The Charter of the French Language is designed to promote the use of the French language throughout Quebec. A company doing business in Quebec and engaging in specified activities must ensure that the French language is used or, if used with another language, that the French portion is at least equal to the other language portion.
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REPORT: Trademarks and the Charter of the French Language
In two decisions issued in late 2009 the Paris Court of Appeal was asked whether the owners of trademarks ROLAND GARROS and JUVENTUS could prevent online betting sites from using these signs to identify and/or promote their services. The court took a different stance in each case.
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REPORT: New appeal court rulings add confusion to sports issues
From today’s opinion in Power-One, Inc. v. Artesyn Technologies, Inc ., 08-1501(March 30, 2010): Claims using relative terms such as “near” or “adapted to” are insolubly ambiguous only if they provide no guidance to those skilled in the art as to the scope of that requirement.
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Fed. Cir. On Relative Claim Terminology
Earlier this week I spoke to Cheryl Milone, the founder and CEO of Article One, the patent validation business. I have reported on the company a couple of times on this blog, most recently when Marshall Phelps became a director, and it was an opportunity to find out a bit more about what it does. In a nutshell, the Article One proposition is that it can call up a worldwide community of advisers to assess the strength of a particular patent and to see whether there is any material out there that may invalidate it
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BLOG: Inside Article One
USPTO Director David Kappos was in London for a flying visit last week to attend the launch of a new publication that reports on the economic damage being done by the global patent backlog, as well as to announce a major work sharing initiative with the UK IP Office. While he was over here I had the chance to sit down with him to talk through some of the major issues he is currently grappling with
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BLOG: International work-sharing is key to tackling quality and backlog problems, says Kappos
Intellectual Property Today has published a list of what it describes as the “2010 Top Patent Firms” in the US. It is based on the number of US patents obtained for clients in 2009. In the latest issue of IAM, published at the beginning of February, we did a ranking of US law firms based on the quality of patents they obtain for their clients.
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BLOG: Patent quality and quantity rankings show significant differences
Avancept LLP has published a new report entitled Publicly Auctioned Patent Buyers: Intellectual Ventures & Others. This seeks to identify the organisations that bought patents at te publicly-held Open Tomo auctions that took place between 2006 and 2009, up to – and I think – including the last one that occurred before the OT auction business was sold to ICAP.
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BLOG: New report reveals IV’s Ocean Tomo auction buying spree
A trademark is what the business says it is, while a brand is what the consumer sees it as. What differentiates successful businesses from their competitors is the ability to market a brand effectively by integrating and implementing the perspectives of both trademark practitioners and marketers.
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REPORT: Trademarks and brands: maximising the value of trademark practitioners and marketers
The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market Board of Appeal has upheld a claim by Gucci regarding its G logos and has revoked a Community trademark registration for the device mark G GLITZY. This case is significant because the board recognised the existence of an earlier right according to the national law of only one EU member state.
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REPORT: Board rules on confusingly similar device marks based on copyright protection
The Intellectual Property Exchange International (IPXI) is not going to make its initial target of being open for business during the first quarter of 2010. However, CEO Gerard Pannekoek reports that the exchange is attracting significant interest and could be operating by the end of June. I spoke with Pannekoek last week and he told me that since he joined IPXI at the end of November 2009 he has met with 25 US and European companies that most people would consider to be “in the top category of global businesses”.
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BLOG: IP exchange will not make target opening date, but CEO hopes for second quarter progress
Bender v Motorola Inc ., No. 09-1245 (N.D. Cal., February 26, 2010, order) Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a complaint contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” If a complaint fails to satisfy Rule 8, it “must be dismissed” under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted
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Vaguely Identified Devices in Patent Complaint Fails Twombly
In order to address concerns raised by trademark owners regarding the problem of “shadow companies” in Hong Kong, the new Companies (Amendment) Bill 2010 considers, among other things, certain changes to the company name registration system with a view to enhancing enforcement against possible abuses by shadow companies.
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REPORT: New companies bill benefits trademark owners
In Maple Leaf Foods Inc v Consorzio Del Prosciutto Di Parma the Federal Court of Canada dismissed Maple Leaf Foods Inc’s application for judicial review of a notice for the adoption and use of the trademark PARMA (and ducal crown design) as an official mark in Canada.
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REPORT: Application for judicial review dismissed as abuse of process
Just under 10 months to the day since the IAM blog broke the news that Alison Brimelow had decided to stand down as the President of the European Patent Office, we now know who is going to succeed her.
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BLOG: Battistelli will be EPO president, but important questions remain unanswered
Patrick Leahy, the chair of the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee, has reported that progress has been made on proposed legislation to reform the patent system in the US. Speaking on Thursday, Leahy stated: “We have reached a tentative agreement in principle that preserves the core of the compromise struck in Committee last year with the help of Senators Feinstein, Specter, Cornyn, Klobuchar and others.
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BLOG: Patent reform back on the legislative agenda in the US, maybe
It’s that time of year when the annual International Property Rights Index is released. It covers 125 countries, accounting for 97% of the world’s GDP. According to the website on which it is published, the aim of the index is to provide: “An international comparative study that measures the significance of both physical and intellectual property rights and their protection for economic well-being.” Essentially, the index ranks countries by the protection they afford to different types of property right, including IP.
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BLOG: Flawed property index names best and worst countries for IP protection