A case before the U.S. Supreme Court might just take the "first sale" doctrine of copyright law into murky waters. And it all hinges on where the product in question was made - and where it was intended to be sold.
The Supreme Court case is based on a few precedential cases, one of them being John Wiley & Sons v. Kirtsaeng.
Last year, as everyone familiar with the term "patent auction" is aware, a consortium of Big Tech's heavy hitters (well, except Google) and calling itself Rockstar Bidco paid $4.5 billion for the patent portfolio of Nortel Networks. Where are they now?
Rockstar is still around, but now calling itself the Rockstar Consortium. The company has control of 4,000 of the 6,000 patents and patent applications purchased in the Nortel auction.
Jury trials, statistically speaking, are usually a good thing for patent owners. But as patent litigation becomes ever more complex, and the technology underlying the patents ever more mind-boggling, what happens if the case in question goes right over the jurors' heads?
As the bickering continues between Apple and Samsung in their supersized patent, trademark and trade dress litigation, so does Judge Lucy Koh's chastisement of both parties.
Despite both parties' scaling down their lawsuits considerably as per the judge's request, Judge Koh said on Thursday, May 10, that the lawsuits should be narrowed even more.
This week, we finally see the conclusion of a trademark infringement lawsuit that began nine years ago. That's enough litigation to drive anyone to drink, so it's appropriate that the two parties involved were the Maker's Mark bourbon distillery and the maker of Casa Cuervo tequila.
This blog has followed the lawsuit for the past couple of years (see our most recent entry on the subject, In Defense of Good Taste).
Well, that's one way to curb the patent wars a bit: Judge Lucy Koh ordered Apple and Samsung to reduce the number of claims in their patent litigation against each other. Between the two companies, they have sixteen patents, six trademarks, five "trade dress" claims and an antitrust case, all of which disputes are spread over 37 products.
And that's after both companies already scaled their claims down a bit.
When speculators start flipping properties, you know that the real estate market is hotter than hot. But we haven’t seen much property flipping in the intellectual property market — until now. In an unexpected move, Microsoft unloaded much of the patent portfolio it has recently acquired from AOL to Facebook. But was it really that unexpected?
Yahoo has fired another salvo in its patent battle with Facebook, adding more allegations of infringement (from 10 patents to 12) and accusing Facebook of violating an agreement between the two companies to notify each other of possible infringement before filing suit.
This week, Twitter seemingly took a bold stance against the "Patent Wars" when the social networking company made public its new Innovator's Patent Agreement (IPA). But a closer look at the document (which you can view here on GitHub) reveals how much legal leeway Twitter left itself.
A poet and pillow-maker has filed a copyright infringement suit against department store chain Stein Mart Inc. as well as K&K Interiors Inc., Debra McMurray DBA Creative Quilts and Carol Strawn DBA Full Life Photography.
Seven isn't always a lucky number: A patent lawsuit that's been in the works for seven years, and which was supposed to go to trial May 7, ground to an abrupt halt this week when the judge found that the seven patents-at-suit were invalid. (Anvik Corp. v. Nikon Precision Inc.)
Talk about a wild ride: Patent owner Marine Polymer Technologies won its patent infringement lawsuit against HemCon, Inc., only to have that decision reversed by the CAFC, and then reinstated (along with a $29.4 million damages award) by the CAFC last week.
Almost two years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in the infamous Bilski case) that the "machine or transformation" test was not the only measure of patentability, the debate over whether software or business methods should be patentable still rages. And the waters have gotten even murkier, with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruling differently on software patents in different cases.
So much for owning the interactive Web.
Shortly after the true "father of the Internet," Tim Berners-Lee, testified in the case of Eolas Technologies v. several Web giants, a jury found Eolas' patents invalid.
A pretty exciting scene took place in Tyler, Texas recently. In a lawsuit brought against some big Internet names including Google, Amazon and Yahoo by Eolas, a company with a patent on the "interactive web," the star expert witness was the guy who actually did invent the World Wide Web. (And no, it wasn't Al Gore!)
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web back in the early 1990s, was that witness. But when asked by Jennifer Doan, the attorney for defendants Yahoo and Amazon, if he'd applied for a patent on the World Wide Web, he replied that he hadn't.
Normally we stick to IP stories from the U.S. But we couldn't pass up this gem of a
trademark tale which, though it hails from the European Union, involves a well-known drug from a well-known American company.
Jill and Burt Kohler opened a cosmetology school in Scottsdale, Arizona...and a whole can of worms along with it.
The Kohlers were sued for trademark infringement by the Kohler Company. Kohler (the company) is probably best known for their faucets, toilets, bathtubs and other plumbing-related items, but holds over 30 trademarks that also include spa and salon services, as well as "guitars, pianos, candy, candles and horse breeding and stud services."
Just because two entities had unnervingly similar and equally grotesque ideas for marketing fashion to youngsters doesn't mean that copyright infringement is involved. That was the judge's finding in the case of Belair v. MGA Entertainment Inc. et al..
Writer Lisa Belkin used to pen a blog on parenting issues for the New York Times called "Motherlode." When she left the NYT to work for the Huffington Post, the "Motherlode" blog continued but with guest bloggers. Belkin, meanwhile, continued blogging in much the same vein for HuffPo but named her blog there "Parentlode."
What do you think of when you hear the phrase "Transformer Prime"? If you grew up in the 80s, you probably immediately think of the Transformers cartoon and the character Optimus Prime. (Admit it: Now you're trying to get the Transformers theme song out of your head.)
Hasbro holds the trademark for "Transformer" for its line of toy robots that change into vehicles and back into robots. The brand is still going strong, fueled by a recent series of live-action movies, more toys and, of course, a new generation of little boys to collect them.