9 Dec 2013
In a case involving the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (the ACPA), the Ninth Circuit Court agreed with a lower court’s decision that the ACPA does not provide a cause of action for contributory cybersquatting. Under the ACPA, cybersquatting is defined as registering, trafficking, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from...
4 Dec 2013
Last week, I wrote an article discussing the disputed Cracker Barrel moniker in use by Kraft Foods Group, Inc. and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. In it, I noted “if you want to avoid unnecessary and costly legal action, make sure your brand is unmistakably yours.” A court decision released in late November drove home...
27 Nov 2013
Back in July of 2012, a jury returned a powerful verdict against Samsung, in a suit filed by Apple (AAPL), claiming Samsung infringed on several patents, and diluted Apple’s trade dress for the iPhone. That jury found that 26 Samsung smartphones and tablets infringed Apple patents and that six Samsung smartphones diluted Apple’s registered iPhone...
27 Nov 2013
Kraft Foods Group, Inc. (KRFT), a company whose mention instantly conjures up images of arguably delicious and unfortunately lactose-filled cheese, recently obtained a preliminary injunction stopping Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (CBRL) from selling food products in grocery stores using the Cracker Barrel moniker. To simplify matters, the court and the relevant parties acronymized Cracker...
19 Nov 2013
At long last, Google has won. Specifically, Google has won the right to continue providing snippets of over 20 million books digitized from the collections of top public universities and libraries through its Google Books Library Project. Avid readers and researchers, most notably librarians and other scholars, are hailing the decision as an important step...
11 Nov 2013
Innovative persons, groups, or businesses that believe they have a patent-worthy invention often submit a non-provisional patent application to the USPTO, typically through in-house or hired patent attorneys. After a hard-fought battle with a designated patent examiner, an applying party may be lucky enough to receive the hallowed “notice of allowance,” signifying the application’s acceptance...
7 Nov 2013
Patent practitioners refer to communications regarding a successfully filed patent application from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Office that require the patent applicant to respond as an “Office Action.” A successfully filed patent application is one that has received a filing date from the USPTO. Further, patent practitioners actually only refer to...
5 Nov 2013
When most people talk of patents and protecting their inventions they are implicitly talking about “utility patents,” which protect the way an invention works. However, there is an entirely different class of patent, the “design patent,” that United States patent law recognizes and that those seeking a patent should also consider. The Differences… First, the...
4 Nov 2013
Last week, Canadian company Wi-Lan Inc. (WILN) lost a $248 million patent infringement suit against alleged infringer Apple Inc. (AAPL). On October 23, a Texas jury ruled that Apple did not infringe Wi-Lan’s U.S. Patent RE37,802 entitled “Multicode Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum,” and also determined that independent claims 1 and dependent claim 10 of the...
4 Nov 2013
When done correctly, broadening the claims allows a patent owner to broaden the scope of the patent in order to capture design-arounds or perhaps new products, which are not covered by the previous claims. While it is proper to broaden the scope of a patent under certain circumstances and procedures, the broadened claims must be...
1 Nov 2013
Apple, Microsoft, and others, team up to battle Google, Samsung, and several Android smartphone makers. Headlines on various reports appearing all over the net today are referring to a recently filed action for patent infringement as an all out nuclear war among technology giants. The suit names “Rockstar Bidco” – a group consisting of none other...
28 Oct 2013
The Innovation Act of 2013, if passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by President Obama, could beget important and much-needed change for the patent litigation industry, especially as it pertains to so-called patent trolling. Patent trolling is a practice in which a group, typically a large corporation, procures an impressive portfolio of patents...