Number Of Unique Patent Assertions Declined Over Years, Patexia Finds 17/08/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch 3 Comments Pedram Sameni of Patexia writes: We recently studied the PTAB data and suggested that although the rise and fall in litigation indirectly affected the rise and fall in IPR challenges, the true driver of IPR challenges is the number of unique patents asserted each year. To learn more, we decided to look at the number of unique patents asserted against different defendants since 2010. We made several interesting discoveries, including the surprising fact that even though the number of cases has been rising, the number of unique patents asserted each year has been declining.
US Agencies Seek Comment On Updated Antitrust Guidelines For IP Licensing 17/08/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment In an age when licensing of intellectual property plays a critical role in business strategy, the United States Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are seeking public comment on a proposed update of the antitrust guidelines for IP licensing.
EFF Challenges DMCA Anti-Circumvention Provisions, Reopens “Dancing Baby” Case 16/08/2016 by Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Issues arising from the often-controversial US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prompted the Electronic Frontier Foundation to head to court in recent weeks to address what it sees as violations of free speech and the right to freely use copyrighted content in some instances.
Summer Changes Make A Splash In The IP Community 28/07/2016 by Catherine Saez and Alexandra Nightingale for Intellectual Property Watch Leave a Comment Over the summer months, people in the intellectual property world continue to circulate. UNITAID has changed heads, and other well-known figures in Geneva set off to new horizons. And no rest it seems for law offices, which maintained their usual level of moves between firms. Here is the latest on People in the IP community.
US Senate Judiciary Chairman Questions High Cost Of Medicare Drug Coverage 27/07/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments United States Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has demanded answers from the government Medicare programme regarding the rapid rise in costs of coverage of Americans’ prescription drugs. The demand follows a press report showing an extremely high climb in costs for the so-called “catastrophic coverage” program.
Google Anti-Piracy Report Criticised By Content Owners 27/07/2016 by Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Google is doing more to counter online copyright infringement than ever before, it said in its “How Google Fights Piracy 2016 Update,” claiming takedowns of over 500 million webpages in response to rights holder requests. Yet the music industry and an academic said the company needs to up its game.
Infojustice: NGO And Academics Letter To US Secretary Of State On Access To Medicines 26/07/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch, Intellectual Property Watch 3 Comments From Infojustice.org: Letter from 56 Non-profit Organizations and Academic Experts to Secretary Kerry Regarding State Department Pressure Against Access to Medicines Efforts
US High Court Restores Treble Damages For Patent Infringement 26/07/2016 by Steven Seidenberg for Intellectual Property Watch 3 Comments Pulse Electronics was guilty of patent infringement. That had been decided long ago. The only remaining issue was how much Pulse must pay for its wrongdoing. The company could be liable for treble damages, provided its infringement was willful. Fortunately for Pulse, willful infringement was almost impossible to prove, thanks to a standard established by the Federal Circuit. Unfortunately for Pulse, its lawsuit reached the US Supreme Court. And in its recent ruling on the case, the high court threw out the Federal Circuit’s standard, making it far easier to prove willful infringement. The decision is likely to have an important impact on patent litigation, the courts, and companies doing business in the US.
The “Denial Playbook”: An Original Product Of The Oil Industry 22/07/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments New documents reveal that the oil and tobacco industries took pages from the same book to engineer their decade long campaigns on denying the existence of climate change and smoking-related cancer. The playbook also appears to have originated not with tobacco, but with the oil industry itself, and the two even appeared to share patents.
Blockstream’s New Patent Strategy: Trust Us, We Won’t Sue You 21/07/2016 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Blockstream, which developed the blockchain technology and bitcoin, has announced a defensive patent strategy. The crux of it: assurance that users of its technology won’t be sued.