Source: http://www.infringementupdates.com/2009/06/index.html
Timestamp: 2017-03-25 19:33:20
Document Index: 316731682

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 284', '§ 289', '§ 284', '§ 289', '§ 284', '§ 289']

Best Tax Practices for Managing Intellectual and Intangible Property
On July 9, 2009, CCH is hosting a live audio seminar titled, "Managing Your Intellectual and Intangible Propery: Best Tax Practices for Domestic and Cross-Border Operations."
Learn the best tax strategies for working with intangible assets — in a timely and convenient two-hour audio seminar that you can participate in — right from your office — on Thursday, July 9th.
Intellectual property (IP) of U.S.-owned companies operating in interstate or cross-border commerce is increasingly becoming the most sophisticated and cutting-edge tax-efficient planning tool in the tax professional’s arsenal. Using the proper strategies and techniques available under present tax laws, there are significant opportunities available through the transfer of the exploitation rights of IP to the proper state and/or foreign jurisdictions.
Join noted tax advisor, author and presenter, William “Bill” Elliott, CPA, ABV, J.D., LL.M. on Thursday, July 9, in a timely and informative two-hour program as he discusses the fundamentals of intangible assets while providing practical strategies to manage the overall IP portfolio. Mr. Elliott will provide thorough coverage of the tax impact on intangibles for both domestic and international transactions. Visit the links above for complete details on this seminar.
June 30, 2009 in CLE | Permalink
| | | Calculating Damages Arising from Design Patent Infringement
I just received my print Summer 2009 issue of the ABA Intellectual Property Litigation newsletter. The following is excerpted from the above-titled article by Mark Gallagher and Kelly Caputo of Duff & Phelps:
So, what would you like in your hand now—a utility patent or a design patent? The answer may surprise you. This article compares and contrasts the calculation of damages for utility patents and design patents.
As one court noted, “[a]lthough the design patent is not as popularly known as its counterparts, the utility patent and the copyright, design patents perform a distinct function in the federal scheme of legal protection for creative works.” Indeed, damages resulting from infringement of a design patent are recoverable under § 284 or under § 289. Therefore, having a design patent in hand opens alternative, and possibly more advantageous, avenues to explore when calculating damages.
...a court can consider at least three theories when determining the appropriate damages award in connection with design patent infringement: (1) the infringer’s profits pursuant to § 284; (2) lost profits pursuant to § 289; and (3) a combination of lost profits and reasonable royalty pursuant to § 284 and § 289.
Read the full article here (ABA Section of Litigation membership required).
June 29, 2009 in Damages | Permalink
| | | Fourth Blogaversary!
June 27, 2009 in Weblogs | Permalink
| | | IP Trial Strategy: Buying Tivo's Bull
The following is excerpted from a June 26, 2009 article by Zusha Elinson of The Recorder appearing at Law.com:
As the make-or-break patent trial between Tivo Inc. and EchoStar Corp. got under way in Marshall, Texas, Tivo's top brass had an idea: Let's buy a cow.
It was late March in 2006, and that meant it was time for Farm City Week in the home of America's most popular venue for patent litigation. Featuring the Harrison County Cattlemen's Ball and the 4-H Cake Show, the main event at Farm City Week is the livestock auction, where prize-winning steers, heifers, lambs, goats, broiler chickens and rabbits are sold by dedicated young farmers. Samuel Baxter, perhaps the best-known lawyer in the Eastern District of Texas, was representing Tivo...Baxter bid on the Grand Champion Steer -- the most prized farm animal at the auction -- and bought it for what at the time was a record-breaking sum of around $10,000. The lucky steer-raiser was a high-school senior from Hallsville, who, like all the students selling animals, got to keep the money for herself to use for college. They named it Tivo.
Two weeks later, on April 13, the Marshall jury found EchoStar (now known as DISH Network) guilty of infringing Tivo's "time warp" patent, used in technology that lets viewers record, fast-forward and rewind TV shows. And it awarded Tivo $74 million in damages.
Did buying Tivo the animal help Tivo the company win -- perhaps steer the jury in the right direction? Read the full article here.
June 26, 2009 in Litigation Case Management | Permalink
| | | Professional Liability Policy Excludes Patent Claims
Kenneth J. St. Onge writing today, June 25, 2009, for Insurance Journal:
A professional liability policy does not cover legal fees for patent infringement lawsuits brought by a competing company, a Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled. The ruling comes in response to a suit brought by Transcore, a company that makes technology for electronic tolling on roadways, against its insurer, Caliber One Indemnity Co. The suit stemmed from Caliber One's refusal to pay nearly $825,000 in legal fees spent by TransCore to defend itself in a patent lawsuit brought by a competitor, X-Cyte. X-Cyte alleged that TransCore, formerly known as Amtech, was violating X-Cyte's patent protections in a system it installed for high-speed tolling. When notified of the case, Caliber declined to pay the legal fees. Transcore then hired its own lawyers and defended the action in court, ultimately winning the underlying lawsuit brought by X-Cyte.
TransCore then sued Caliber One, claiming the insurer -- part of PMA Capital Corp. -- improperly declined coverage. ...the Superior Court found that a professional liability policy is not designed for claims brought by third parties, such as contract or patent infringement claims. Professional liability, the court said, encompasses claims made by entities that have a professional relationship with the insured. By definition, the court ruled, competitors are not counted among that group.
June 25, 2009 in Infringement Litigation Case News, Litigation Case Management | Permalink
| | | Business Method Patents on Supreme Court Docket
From BPCouncil:
Some 30 years after it last looked into the subject, the Supreme Court decided to weigh in on the burning issue of software and business method patentability by granting the certiorari petition and hearing the appeal filed by inventors Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw. The two requested the Court to reverse the Federal Circuit’s decision in re Bilski (now known as Bilski vs. Doll), which changed the test for determining patentable subject matter in the US. While some experts are surprised at this development – saying that the Circuit’s ruling closely followed Supreme Court precedent – others saw it coming. According to Eileen McDermott, in her article for managingip.com, this latter group contends that the issues are too critical, the dollars involved too large, and the implications on the US economy (where many inventions are tied to the computer) just cannot be ignored.
Inventors Bilski and Warsaw had sought to patent a method of hedging risks in the sale of commodities, that is, a way to buy or sell energy at a fixed price based on the expected weather for a season. The application was denied by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the case went to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In a 9-3 ruling that basically narrowed the scope of business processes eligible for patent protection, the Court of Appeals upheld the rejection, ruling that business method patents applied only to those tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or processes that transformed an item from one state to another. By ruling as such, the appeals court actually overturned its own 1998 decision that patents should protect business methods that had a “useful, concrete and tangible result.”
Now, the current Bilski petition to the Supreme Court asks the Court to consider whether the Federal Circuit erred in its ruling under US law and whether its machine or transformation test contradicts Congressional intent that patents protect methods of conducting business in 35 U.S.C. Section 273.
June 24, 2009 in Infringement Litigation Case News, Software Patents | Permalink
| | | LARGO Models Supreme Court Decision Making
I just finished reading an article by Cara J. Hayden in the print edition of the Spring issue of Pitt Magazine (electronic version will eventually post here). The article titled, "Supreme Decisions," discusses the work of Pitt professor Kevin Ashley who has developed a software program that employs artificial intelligence to explore how the U.S Supreme Court makes decisions. The program called Legal Argument Graph Observer or LARGO, was developed "to help law students follow and interpret complex Supreme Court debates."
Professor Ashley's research is of particular interest to me in light of the work I have done for clients using decision analysis to assist counsel and corporate executives evaluate whether to settle or ligitate cases based on defining the key potential decisions in the litigation and the associated damage value with each possible combination of decisions and outcomes.
If you do not have access to Pitt Magazine, you may learn more by viewing the presentation titled, "Largo, an ITS for Teaching Argumentationwith Hypotheticals" [Download LARGOTalk2].
June 23, 2009 in Tools | Permalink
| | | China's Guidebook for Pharmaceutical Patent Protection
Research and Markets announced today, June 22, 2009, in a Business Wire press release:
The addition of the "China's Guidebook for Pharmaceutical Patent Protection" report to their offering. China is expected to become the fifth largest drug market in the world by 2010 with a growth rate of 20-25 percent per annum in next three years. As China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) and integrates more completely into the global economy, it will further open the door to a lucrative drug market for overseas pharmaceutical companies, which attracts more and more overseas pharmaceutical manufacturers and producers to enter such drug market and seize a larger part of such drug market. However, the Chinese social environment for the protection of intellectual property right is complex. The locally produced generics and copy products dominate the Chinese drug market. It is estimated that about 97 percent of the drugs produced by local companies are generics or counterfeits. Facing such complex social environment and market, most overseas and multinational pharmaceutical companies fear that their imported drugs and pharmaceuticals produced in China will be imitated or copied, in turn, their intellectual property will be infringed and benefit will be violated. What reason incurred such fear of overseas and multinational pharmaceutical companies? Why did Eli Lilly & Company fail in its litigation of patent infringement dispute case in China? Why can Pfizer win in an administrative proceeding against the Patent Reexamination Board of the China State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) for its Viagra patent? Lack of knowledge of the Chinese intellectual property right system and legislation institution, the cultural difference between China and Western countries as well as the language barriers incurred such result. Guidebook Highlights China's Guidebook for Pharmaceutical Patent Protection provides a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the Chinese patent system relating to pharmaceuticals, the detailed administrative, civil and criminal judicial pathways for protections of patent right, and the design for composition of optimized protection strategies. The organization structure of patent authorities and judicial system; A comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the Chinese patent system and the relevant laws and administrative regulations relating to pharmaceuticals; The patentable subject matter relating to pharmaceuticals in China; Administrative protection for patent right; Civil judicial procedures and remedies for patent right; Criminal punitions for infringement of patent right; Design for compositions of optimized protection strategies; Case studies and comparative analyses of patent infringement disputes. See the full press release here.
June 22, 2009 in Books, China, Reverse Payments | Permalink
| | | fuelperks! Patent Infringement Suit Filed Against Safeway
The following is excerpted from a June 18, 2009 press release available at Business Wire:
Excentus Corporation announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against Safeway, Inc. and Safeway subsidiaries, including Blackhawk Network, Inc., Blackhawk Marketing, LLC., and Randalls/Tom Thumb in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Abilene, alleging willful and deliberate patent infringement and the misappropriation and theft of trade secrets, among other things. The lawsuit seeks injunctive and equitable relief along with unspecified damages. During 2006 and 2007, Safeway, through its Blackhawk subsidiaries, attempted to acquire Excentus as well as the patents owned by Auto-Gas Systems, Inc. (which are now owned by Excentus). The suit alleges that after Blackhawk failed to complete a transaction with either party, Safeway wrongfully used the patents, trade secrets and confidential information belonging to Excentus to develop its fuel rewards program called PowerPump Rewards. Excentus’ complaint also asserts that Safeway’s PowerPump Rewards program is a willful and deliberate infringement of four patents owned by Excentus. “We believe our patent-protected fuelperks!® rewards program is the most powerful customer loyalty program ever offered in the United States,” said Dickson Perry, President and CEO of Excentus. “We have made significant investments over the last ten years to develop our world-class technology, services and expertise and acquire the related trademarks and patents, all of which are valuable components of the fuelperks! program and assets of our Company. When faced with situations like this one with Safeway, we are prepared to take the necessary steps to assure our assets and interests are protected.” Read the full release and complaint.
June 19, 2009 in Infringement Litigation Case News, Willful Infringement | Permalink
| | | 2nd Annual Pharmaceutical Congress on Paragraph IV Disputes
The Center for Business Intelligence is hosting the above-titled conference in Philadelphia, PA on October 22-23, 2009.
Paragraph IV litigation is reaching an all-time high with almost $85 billion in product sales that potentially could be affected by pending litigation and more than twenty-five drugs going off patent before 2012. Today’s pharmaceutical companies, both brand and generic, have much at stake in this costly, complex and constantly changing area of patent litigation. CBI’s 2nd Annual Pharmaceutical Congress on Paragraph IV Disputes brings both sides of the issue together for two days of presentations and panel discussions to discuss litigation strategies, statutory guidelines, current cases and their landmark decisions.
Inequitable Conduct and Exceptional Cases – What Does Recent Case Law Tell Us? * Inequitable conduct and recent Federal Circuit decisions o Aventis Pharma v. Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and Teva * Exceptional cases o What makes a case exceptional? o Assess Takeda v. Apotex and Alphapharm and prior “exceptional” case examples Anthony J. Viola, Partner, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP
Analyze FTC Enforcement Activity and Reverse Payment Policy Initiatives
* Evaluate continuing development of antitrust litigation * Analyze pending reverse payment policy and evaluate the force(s) behind it * Discuss authorized generics and their impact on competition * Understand the FTC’s findings in their report on FOB market entry and pioneer/FOB competition Saralisa Brau, Deputy Assistant Director, Health Care Division, Federal Trade Commission
June 18, 2009 in CLE, Reverse Payments | Permalink