Epstein on Obama at UChicago Law School

Thom Lambert has a post with material by Professor Richard Epstein of University of Chicago Law School on Barack Obama's time at the UofC, which comes from the WSJ by way of Reason TV:

Epstein: The difference between them [Bush and Obama], which is why Obama is the more dangerous man ultimately, is he has very little by way of a skill set to understand the complex problems he wants to address, but he has this unbounded confidence in himself.

Reason: So he’s the perfect Chicago faculty member.

Epstein: He was actually a bad Chicago faculty member in this sense: He was an adjunct, and we always hoped he’d participate in the general intellectual discourse, but he was always so busy with collateral adventures that he essentially kept to himself. The problem when you keep to yourself is you don’t get to hear strong ideas articulated by people who disagree with you. So he passed through Chicago without absorbing much of the internal culture.

KSR invoked in affirming obviousness in Tokai v. Easton

The CAFC stated:

Accordingly, the undisputed facts in this case—
including the state of the prior art, the simplicity and
availability of the components making up the claimed
invention, and an explicit need in the prior art for safer
utility lighters—compel a conclusion of obviousness as to
the subject matter of each of the asserted claims. KSR
Int’l Co., 550 U.S. at 419–20 (“One of the ways in which a
patent’s subject matter can be proved obvious is by noting
that there existed at the time of invention a known prob-
lem for which there was an obvious solution encompassed
by the patent’s claims.”). A strong case of prima facie
obviousness, such as that presented here, cannot be
overcome by a far weaker showing of objective indicia of
nonobviousness. See Media Tech. Licensing, 596 F.3d at
1339; Ryko Mfg. Co., 950 F.2d at 719.

The CAFC confirmed that mechanical arts are predictable:

Although a need in the prior art for safer utility light-
ers is not disputed, Tokai contends that the solutions to
this problem were “not at all predictable” and required
“radical modification” of the asserted prior art. We reject
these arguments. One of ordinary skill in the art would
not have viewed the subject matter of the asserted claims
as unpredictable. As the Supreme Court recognized in
KSR, the nature of the mechanical arts is such that
“identified, predictable solutions” to known problems may
be within the technical grasp of a skilled artisan. 550
U.S. at 421; see also Rothman, 556 F.3d at 1319 (stating
that, in the predictable arts, a claimed invention may be
invalidated more readily by showing “a motivation to
combine known elements to yield a predictable result”).

Of predictable variations:

The only missing claim limitation—the intended position of
the finger and thumb when using the lighter—is nothing
more than a predictable variation on the prior art. KSR
Int’l Co., 550 U.S. at 417. In both the claimed invention
and in Morris, the lighter is operated via sequential
action of the finger and thumb; a mere reversal in the
order of these actions does not confer patentability.

There were also issues concerning expert witnesses.

Daimler's bipolar flat-cell frame

BenzInsider reports on a patent to Daimler directed to a “bipolar flat-cell frame” which allows lithium-ion batteries to be cooler, more efficient and more compact compared to the current batteries that are in use in today’s electric vehicles. The patent may allow Daimler advantages to industrialize lithium-ion batteries and make them more viable for use in a wider range of vehicles.

"60 Minutes" on January 30, 2011

On "60 Minutes" on January 30, 2011, Steve Kroft looks into the world of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The interview was conducted in the English countryside, where Assange is under house arrest. Kroft to Assange: you were screwing with the forces of nature. The second story was on jaguars in Brazil.

Kroft started by saying "you've been called a lot of names." There was allusion to wikileaks being related to upheavals in Kenya and Tunisia. Biden was quoted: Assange a high tech terrorist. Kroft suggested few in the US thought Assange was a terrorist. Wikileaks is more of an online electronic drop-box. Assange said the US does not have the technology to take the wikileaks site down. The initial splash of wikileaks: Video of US Apache helicopter. In Nov. 2010, disclosure of State Dept. cables. Assange suggesting: we (the US) are supporting illegitimate authority. We don't go after particular organizational groups. We publish material that is likely to have significant impact. Relationship of Assange to the New York Times. Charge: Afghan documents were publicized without redacting individual names. Assange: our founding values are those of the American Revolution. Holder announced DoJ conducting a criminal investigation. It's about "keeping the illusion of control." Assange: No case of prosecuting a publisher under the 1917 Espionage Act. Assange: Publishers must be free to publish.

The second segment on Assange was directed to classifying Assange and Wikileaks. Assange prefers to be called a libertarian. Wikileaks prefers to make raw data available to the public. Assange attended 37 different schools. Knowing what is possible for other people to do. Wau Holland Foundation. Wikileaks took in about 1.3 million last year. Wikileaks needs to keep its sources secret. Kroft: you're a publisher and you're an activist. We are free press. We are about giving people the information they need. The issue of a poison pill. Discussion of Bank of America information. When you see victims elevated, that's pleasureable. Kroft: who's the check on you? Assange: our sources. This organization cannot survive for more than a few months without the support of the public.

Patent Reform Act of 2011

Text within an article on patent reform in the News-Journal by Jonathan Starkey talks about "first inventor to file":

The bill also grants patents to the first applicant rather than attempting to determine the product's true inventor.

Of post-grant review (aka opposition):

And it beefs up the process of allowing third parties to challenge new patent awards with the PTO. That offers companies a streamlined opportunity to overturn "bad" patents, said Mike Walker, the chief intellectual property lawyer at DuPont.

"Sometimes the patent office can make a mistake. They are very busy. They have a big backlog of cases," Walker said. "Bad quality patents can prohibit innovation because they're difficult to challenge in the current [system]."

The current system includes a re-examination procedure which allows the USPTO to take a second look. As IPBiz has noted many times, in a true Deming quality system, one would focus resources on the production step (examination) rather than a product inspection step (opposition).

One commenter wrote:

DuPont Senior Management should be less worried about "bad patents", and more worried about the theft of DuPont's valuable proprietary knowledge and technologies in the Peoples Republic of China, where they are investing $billions. Certainly China is very attractive with its notoriously lax safety and environmental regulation and its coolie cut-rate labour costs, but it comes at a price, a "patently" high price.

J&J/Cordis lose stent case

Bruce Saffran, a doctor from Princeton, N.J., sued J&J and Cordis in 2007 in ED Texas, asserting that Cypher stents infringed on claims of his 1997 patent covering technology to deliver injury-healing medication inside the body. A jury ordered payment of $482 million in damages.

Camden to get "Eye in the Sky" , but does it really matter?

A commenter to a news post that the city of Camden, NJ is installing a camera system:

What a great waste of money. Now, just like Newark, Camden will have a video of the crimes AFTER they happen rather than having cops on the street to PREVENT them and respond to them.

Cameras are mainly reactive and only very rarely proactive. Someone has to be watching to identify an impending crime and then cops have to respond in time to thwart the crime.

Sort of like management-types who get their intellectual property news from television or the New York Times, and don't have a clue about the technical art in science or patent databases.

Of Camden, recall the IPBiz post
Glycol a killer in Mentalist Bloodhound episode : The director of the homeless shelter was portrayed as unsavory, and a local bus driver was a dope dealer. Was this filmed in Camden?

CBS Sunday Morning on January 30, 2011

Charles Osgood introduced the stories for January 30, 2011. Closely following events in Egypt. Then, the cover story, on finding one's voice, reported by Mo Rocca, on the subject of stuttering. Second: "The Envelope Please" on supporting actors, featuring Geoffry Rush (by Rita Braver). Third was Pop Star, on Roy Lichtenstein. Fourth was "Many Thanks" by Steve Hartman, on writing thank you notes, a piece which had already appeared on Couric's evening news. Tracy Smith on Maddy Ross the character in True Grit. Then, reverse brain drain.

Headlines: More protests in Egypt, and roaming gangs and escaped prisoners. Al Jazeera's local bureau closed. Elbaradei was featured in the news piece. President Obama met with his national security advisors. Private jets going to Dubai. In Germany, train crash. Social Network. Zuckerberg on Saturday Night Live. Midweek storns for the northeast.

The initial story was the Sunday Journal on the Egyptian uprising. The introduction noted the role of social networking in the uprising. 2/3 of Egypt's 80 million are under 30. Kids took on the police on the first day. In 2010, 1.6 billion of US aid to Egypt. US State Dept. "tweet" on January 29. All Egypt is holding its breath. "The Facebook Revolution." Young people organize rallies. Facebook announcements, then spread via Twitter. Until Friday, Egyptians enjoyed an open internet. The dark side of internet freedoms. "The Net Delusion." The Iranian government hanged two social activists. The internet's pivotal role as an agent for change.


The cover story is a piece on stuttering introduced as "A Matter of Speech." From broadwayworld.com :

With so much interest in the movie "The King's Speech," CBS Sunday Morning is taking a look at stuttering - a condition that impacts around 3 million Americans and 65 million people worldwide - on January 30th. Our Time founder Taro Alexander and some of the Our Time kids will appear with "King's Speech" Academy Award nominees David Seidler and Geoffrey Rush.

Mo Rocca began with a clip on the "Our Time" workshop featuring various children. Five were featured. What does it feel like when your stuttering. Feels like there's no air. Locks in your throat. Word that George VI was feeble-minded. Three million Americans stutter. Involuntary disruption of rhthym of speech. Boys three times more likely than girls. Purdue University has a "stuttering project." Smith and Weber-Fox have been studying a group for five years. There is a genetic component to stuttering. Taro Alexander was 11 when he realized he was a stutterer. Developed a tool box of tricks to conceal his stuttering, including yawning, whispering. The story ended with a list of famous stutterers, including James Earl Jones, Marilyn Monroe, Carly Simon, and Havey Keitel.

Almanac. January 30, 1948, the death of Orville Wright at age 76. The Wright Brothers: Better inventors than businessmen. Patent disputes. Company sold in 1915.

Next story on "Pop Art" on Roy Lichtenstein. Piece in Life Magazine in 1964. "Ohhh alright," selling for $43 million. Mitchel, Roy's son, interviewed. Morgan Library. Hand tracing an outline of a foot: a practical kind of drawing. Why do we accept two lines as a nose. A mural at the 42nd St subway station: clean futuristic images to poke fun at the chaos below. The piece ended with a black and white setting sun.

Clip of Kim Darby in 1969 version of True Grit introduced story by Tracy Smith, which focussed on HAILEE STEINFELD .
Hailee was in 2009's quick as a fox, and in a K-Mart commercial. The piece included interviews with Kim Darby, as a redhead.

A clip of the State of the Unon introduced a piece on brain drain. The need for keeping students here is discussed by John Blackstone. There was a clip of UC/Berkeley. 690,000 foreign students came to the US to study last year. Half doctorates in math, science, and computer engineering go to foreigners. In past, 92% of Chinese, 81% of Indians stayed in US (after 5 years). But now, a reverse brain drain, with foreign students going back. China is working hard to get Chinese students to return to China. A lot of positions disappeared in the US, and opportunities are created in China and India. China will overtake the US in twenty years. Frank Bayliss of San Francisco State. Find more smart American students. Ignacio Lopez-Pena studying biophysical chemistry. Damon Robles is 33 years old, got a degree in physical chemistry. The story ended with a clip of an Air India flight in the air overlayed with audio of the need to develop domestic scientists. Separately, on why the "brain drain" story is a bit bogus:
A "Sputnik moment", again and again?

David Frye died in Las Vegas; Frye impersonated Richard Nixon. Charlie Callas died, also in Las Vegas. He was a cast of thousands, all by himself.

The next story was the "Sunday Profile," done on Geoffrey Rush. He has made a name for himself playing offbeat characters. Includes the text from "King's Speech" : "They're idiots. Knighted. Proves my point." The "King's Speech" got 12 Oscar nominations. Rush's country home outside of Melbourne. At one point: Series of frightening panic attacks. But a 1996 film "Shine" helped Rush. Did the trifecta: An Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony. Now playing in Gogol's A Diary of a Madman. Sharpen the knife.

The Fast Draw. People believe in a lot of things. 1 in 10 believe Elvis is still alive. Belief that Vaccines cause autism, should have ended after the advocate was shown to be a fraudster. Audio link with Daniel Simons of University of Illinois. Confront misconception with facts. Facts and logic don't always apply. Shark attacks. How ideas take root in brains. Hippocampus. Then into cerebral cortex. False beliefs face new information.

Steve Hartman on "many thanks." 1950 edition of Emily Post. Byron Pitts of 60 Minutes sends out thank you notes. John Kralick, an LA attorney started writing thank you notes. Unlike the piece previously shown on Couric's evening news, this story did not end with mention of Katie not writing thank yous. Of previous piece on January 24, 2011: Handwritten thank you notes

Next week: Bill Geist and grandson George on food for the Super Bowl.

Moment of nature. Philip Island, south of Melbourne, Australia. Silver gulls who have Red beaks, with red circles around the eyes.

A "Sputnik moment", again and again?

On January 25, in the state of the union speech, President Obama used the term "Sputnik moment" in the following context:

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we’d beat them to the moon. The science wasn’t there yet. NASA didn’t even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn’t just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.

This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.


The term "Sputnik moment" has been used in the past. The Christian Science Monitor used it in a editorial about ten years ago. Interestingly, DOE Secretary Chu, used it in Nov. 2010 [at the National Press Club on 29 Nov. 2010], in a context different from that of President Obama. Chu's speech began:

And the title of the talk is "The Energy Race: Our New Sputnik Moment." And I know the analogies to Sputnik are trite, and they've been used a lot. But let me suggest that perhaps this is something that should be taken seriously.

AND at the end

And so in this "Sputnik moment" of today, I urge that we do two things. We should formulate sensible, long-range energy policies that have bipartisan support to guide the private sector of the United States. China is doing this. It seems to be working. We should do this. Long-range policies.
And what about increasing the support of energy research and development. Why? Well, in research and development, private investments don't usually recoup the full value of the benefit. So companies are reluctant to do some of the early stage research and development. And, quite frankly, a lot of the new technologies could displace an embedded way of doing business and could be met with resistance.
Therefore, the government has to say, this is the path that we should be going in for long-term future prosperity. And we have to do that. And let me emphasize that wealth creation is driven by innovation, and it is not a conserved quantity. That if we collaborate with China and India, we both come out better for it.

IPBiz notes that in 1957 there was a single event which caused Americans to instantly recognize that, contrary to their previous beliefs, the Soviet Union was ahead in the space race. The brain drain to China and India, and the energy problem are things that have been going on for decades. The present situation is not a "Sputnik moment."

James Greenwood of BIO described in 2005 his encounter with Sputnik in 1957 and how it is DIFFERENT from the present :

MR. GREENWOOD: You know, when I was a boy, when Sputnik went over, my dad woke us up at 3:00 in the morning and we all stood out on the front porch and we watched Sputnik, and the whole country did that. And we all saw it, and we went "uh-oh," and we changed math and science teaching. The problem is what's happening in places like Korea right now is subtle, and nobody's stepping out on their front porch to see it.

The 2002 editorial in the Christian Science Monitor used the term "Sputnik moment" more in the historical sense, and is worth remembering for a prediction the Chinese made that did not come to pass. From the editorial of May 28, 2002:

IT was not a Sputnik moment. At least not yet.

But China's quiet announcement this month that it plans to put a man on the moon by 2010 and then mine the rich lunar minerals by 2015 could eventually provoke a new space race.

And the 2002 editorial had some points related to Chu's comments about collaboration with China:

Shouldn't the colonization of space be shared by all mankind? That was the idea behind the orbiting international space station (not to mention treaties on using Antarctica and the oceans). Why not in harvesting the moon? Or even in peopling Mars?

Alas, China has more earth-bound reasons for keeping its go-it-alone space program. Like the US in the 1960s, a moon base for China would be a great leap forward in national security, scientific progress, economic spin-offs, and national unity (behind the Communist Party, of course).

And recent evidence of water-ice trapped in the moon (as well as on Mars) will make it easier to sustain human life there and not share the work with other nations - or the mineral resources or the glory.

And on China sharing glory, see
Chinese academic publication requirements stir debate in US

IPBiz notes that there is a far more insidious internal brain drain: the waste of trained American minds. One recalls the letter of Alan Hale of Hale-Bopp fame, from the year 1997:

I am Alan Hale, the co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp which, as I'm sure you're aware, is getting a tremendous amount of media attention at this time. Like I'm sure is true for many of you, I was inspired by the scientific discoveries and events taking place during my childhood to pursue a career in science only to find, after completing the rigors of undergraduate and graduate school, that the opportunities for us to have a career in science are limited at best and are which I usually describe as "abysmal." Based upon my own experiences, and those of you with whom I have discussed this issue, my personal feeling is that, unless there are some pretty drastic changes in the way that our society approaches science and treats those of us who have devoted our lives to making some of our own contributions, there is no way that I can, with a clear conscience, encourage present-day students to pursue a career in science. It really pains me a great deal to say something like that, but I feel so strongly about this that I have publicly made this statement at almost every opportunity I have been given.
I am trying to use the media attention that is currently being focused upon me to raise awareness of this state of affairs, and perhaps start to effect those changes that will allow me to convey a more positive message to the next generation. So far, I'm sensing a certain reluctance among the media to discuss this issue, as they seem far more interested in items which I consider to be irrelevant and unimportant. But I intend to keep hammering away at this, and I'd like to believe that eventually some are going to sit up and take notice. I am also attempting to schedule meetings with some of our government leaders, to see if I can at least get some acknowledgement from Washington that this is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

My reason for writing to you is to ask your help. I know that I'm not alone in being frustrated about the current prospects for pursuing any kind of decent career within science, and I'm quite sure that many of you have "horror stories" about your searches for decent employment that are quite similar to my own. I'd like to hear them. I'd especially like to hear from those of you who are on your second or third or fourth post-doc, or who have left the field as a result of the employment situation, or who have experienced severe personal difficulties (e.g., break-up of a marriage, etc.). I realize that some of these might be painful to discuss, but I'd like to show that we are not a bunch of impersonal statistics, but that we're human beings trying to make an honest living and perhaps make a contribution or two to society while we're at it. Speaking of statistics, though, if you received any information about the numbers of applicants to some of the positions you applied to -- which was often a 3-digit number in my case -- I'd like to hear that, too.

***See also
Sarah Palin Elaborates on "Sputnik" Criticism

Copying in the "State of the Union" speech?

There is some buzz about the article Obama's State of the Union Was Tantamount to Plagiarism

In an article titled Was that plagiarism in Obama's State of the Union? , the Los Angeles Times noted:

Plagiarism is much more serious in the academic world than in the free-for-all world of politics where no patent exists on such common, trite phrases as "The time for action is now!" Or, "With all due respect, my opponent is wrong." Or the ever annoying, "moving forward."

AND

However, a number of other passages coming out of the presidential mouth struck a few listeners as sounding vaguely familiar. Talking of the need for improved education, Obama in one prominent line said, "We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea." Hmm. Turns out, someone else said those same memorable words about the time Obama was editing the law review.

***Separately, of Obama's reference to Caltech in the State of the Union, the Pasadena Star News seems to indicate it was related to Nate Lewis:

"At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars," the president told the joint session of Congress.

Caltech chemistry Professor Nathan S. Lewis is one of the researchers heading up that project. He said Wednesday he was "pretty happy" to have the Energy Innovation Hub project he heads recognized but more heartened by the president's commitment.

"I haven't watched (the speech), but I saw the transcript and was able to read the paragraphs and know it was about the spirit of the clean energy agenda - and I wholeheartedly agree," Lewis said. "I've been part of panels and other communities saying that for several years now, and we're all very gratified to hear it's made its way up to the president's attention."

Although there was mention of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis in Caltech's Jorgensen Laboratory building in the article, the photograph with the story was of an experiment of hydrogen bubbling off a device using water and light at Caltech

Daimler AG to pay "patent bonus" to its employees

To mark the 125th anniversary of Carl Benz filing his patent application on the internal combustion engine on Jan. 29, 1886, Daimler AG is giving bonuses of up to 1000 euro to its employees.

Apple's US 7,874,021, High tactility glove system

Apple's US 7,874,021 [High tactility glove system], directed to a glove system for operating an electronic device, had some prior art problems with Sorells, US 5,450,626 and Eklund. Also, the initial drawings did not show reference sign 606. There was also a problem with "the inner liner covered fingertips." A key point of patentability was that the prior art did not disclose am opening "configured to enable an inner-liner covered fingertip to protrude."

The first claim of the issued patent:

A multi-fingered glove for use with an electronic multi-touch sensitive device, comprising: an inner liner configured for individually covering a plurality of fingertips; and an outer shell including an aperture formed at each of a plurality of individual fingertip locations on the outer shell, the apertures operative to allow a plurality of inner liner-covered fingertips to protrude from the outer shell and contact and operate the multi-touch sensitive device; wherein the liner comprises at least a portion of electrically conductive material.

"METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A SANDWICH"

PCT/US2005/044838, titled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A SANDWICH (applicant McDonalds) received an unfavorable written opinion. Priority was claimed to US 11/018,989.

The abstract states:

The present invention relates to a sandwich assembly tool and methods of making a sandwich, which may be a hot or cold sandwich, quickly by pre-assembly of various sandwich components and simultaneous preparation of different parts of the same sandwich. The sandwich assembly tool is composed of a member preferably having one or two cavities for containing a quantity of garnish. The cavities are used for the assembly of the sandwich. The tool may have a raised ridge adjacent one or both cavities for placement against the hinge of a bread component. Methods of making a sandwich] are disclosed. The methods may include one or more of the use of preasseribled sandwich fillings, assembly of garnishes in advance of a customer's order or while ether portions of the sandwich are being heated using the sandwich assembly tool, the simultaneous heating of a bread component and the sandwich filling, placing the bread component over the tool containing garnish, and inverting the tool and bread combination to deposit the sandwich garnish onto the bread component.


Claims 1, 3-10, 12-13 and 18-25 of PCT/US2005/044838 were found to lack novelty, and all claims were found to lack inventive step (were obvious). Of interest, claims 1, 4-5, and 8 were found anticipated over an internet site, www.taste.com.au/recipes.

Of national phase filings from the PCT:


Office Code National Entry Date National Reference Number Status
AU 19.06.2007 2005319483 Published: 12.07.2007
CA 20.06.2007 2591476
EP 23.07.2007 2005849345 Published: 17.10.2007
Withdrawn: 29.12.2009

RAND report disses military biofuel use

from a press release on January 25, 2011:

Algal Biomass Organization Questions RAND Military Biofuels Report
Today, the RAND Corporation issued a press release and published a study calling into question the effectiveness of renewable fuels such as those made from algae for military use. This report, which ABO considers inaccurate, could have a chilling effect on support for biofuels in general, and algae in particular.

Our concerns: In canvassing our members and other players in the algae-to-fuel space, it appears that researchers from RAND did not reach out to the leading companies in the industry. We believe researchers relied on outdated or incomplete information, potentially skewing their recommendations.

How you can help: If you’re in the industry (algae, aviation, biofuels, etc.) and think you should have been contacted, and weren’t, please let us know. We’re preparing a formal response to the report.

The report can be found here: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG969.pdf

A copy of the press release is here:
http://www.rand.org/news/press/2011/01/25.html

Warsaw v. Globus

In a battle between SETH P. WAXMAN of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and
Dorr, LLP for plaintiffs and CONSTANTINE L. TRELA, JR. of Sidley Austin, LLP
for defendants-appellants , the outcome was

In sum, we reverse the judgment as to claim 45 of the
’929 patent and claim 42 of the ’422 patent. We affirm the
judgment as to claims 47 and 74 of the ’929 patent and
claim 48 of the ’422 patent. We remand this case to the
district court to determine if the calculation of damages
must be reevaluated in light of the modification of the
judgment.

In terms of caselaw, there is but one citation in the
decision:

As this court has stated, “we have expressly rejected
the contention that if a patent describes only a single
embodiment, the claims of the patent must be construed
as being limited to that embodiment.” Phillips v. AWH
Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).

Footnote 2 observes:

At closing argument, counsel for Warsaw argued
that claim 45 of the ’929 patent refers “to a capability of
the instrument,” and that the “instrument itself serves as
a guide.” Counsel argued that the “referencing element”
of claim 42 of the ’422 patent “requires some sort of me-
chanical capability to get the rod . . . in the right place.”
While those remarks suggest a narrower construction of
those claims, we cannot substitute counsel’s argument for
the broader construction given by the cto the jury to guide its deliberations.

Fifth Generation Computer: another language of the claims case

Fifth Generation Computer, represented by DAVID B. TULCHIN,
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP , lost to IBM.

Within the decision:

We agree with IBM. Patent claims function to deline-
ate the precise scope of a claimed invention and to give
notice to the public, including potential competitors, of the
patentee’s right to exclude. Bicon, Inc. v. Straumann Co.,
441 F.3d 945, 950 (Fed. Cir. 2006); see also Interactive Gift
Express, Inc. v. Compuserve, Inc., 256 F.3d 1323, 1331
(Fed. Cir. 2001) (“In construing claims, the analytical
focus must begin and remain centered on the language of
the claims themselves, for it is that language that the
patentee chose to use to particularly point out and dis-
tinctly claim the subject matter which the patentee re-
gards as his invention.”) (quotation and alterations
omitted). This notice function would be undermined,
however, if courts construed claims so as to render char-
acteristics specifically described in those claims superflu-
ous. Bicon, 441 F.3d at 950. As such, we construe claims
to give effect to all of their terms.

Of incorporation by reference:

Fifth Generation’s proposed broader construction of
the disputed terms relies heavily on its argument that the
’024 patent incorporated the ’201 and ’540 patents by
reference and that a disclosure of subtrees in those earlier
patents supports such a construction. Whether, and to
what extent, material has been incorporated by reference
into a host document, is a question of law that we review
de novo. Adv. Display Sys., Inc. v. Kent State Univ., 212
F.3d 1272, 1283 (Fed. Cir. 2000). We agree with Fifth
Generation that the ’024 patent specification does not
need to expressly recite concepts disclosed in the earlier
Stolfo patents in order to incorporate them into the later
patent specification. The clear incorporation by reference
suffices to serve that purpose here. See Zenon Envtl., Inc.
v. U.S. Filter Corp., 506 F.3d 1370, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2007)
(“Incorporation by reference provides a method for inte-
grating material from various documents into a host
document . . . by citing such material in a manner that
makes clear that the material is effectively part of the
host document as if it were explicitly contained therein.”)

BUT

However, we do not agree with Fifth Generation
that every concept of the prior inventions is necessarily
imported into every claim of the later patent. See Modine
Mfg. Co. v. U.S. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 75 F.3d 1545, 1553
(Fed. Cir. 1996) (“[I]ncorporation by reference does not
convert the invention of the incorporated patent into the
invention of the host patent.”), overruled on other grounds
by Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kabushiki Co., Ltd.,
234 F.3d 558 (Fed. Cir. 2000). Here, the ’024 patent
claims are clear in claiming a complete computer system,
including specific functionality of the single root bus
controller within that computer system. In light of such
clear claim language, it is inappropriate to look to the
incorporated references to arrive at a stretched reading of
those claim limitations. Interactive Gift Express, 256 F.3d
at 1331 (“If the claim language is clear on its face, then
our consideration of the rest of the intrinsic evidence is
restricted to determining if a deviation from the clear
language of the claims is specified.”); see also Unique
Concepts, Inc. v. Brown, 939 F.2d 1558, 1563 (Fed. Cir.
1991) (“When the language of a claim is clear, as here,
and a different interpretation would render meaningless
express claim limitations, we do not resort to spinterpretation
based on claims not granted.”).

Of "employed by the same company" matters:

There-
fore, under Fifth Generation’s own assertion, at the time
of the filing of the ’024 patent, its inventors had claimed
subtrees, at least as part of a larger binary tree computer
system, in the earlier patents, and yet the ’024 patent
inventor, employed by the same company, did not do so in
the later patent, thereby demonstrating that such sys-
tems are not within the ’024 patent claims’ scope. See
Kara Tech. Inc. v. Stamps.com Inc., 582 F.3d 1341, 1347
(Fed. Cir. 2009) (citing Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1314) (hold-
ing that the claims at issue did not require the use of a
“key” where the inventor had omitted the requirement in
those claims while explicitly reciting it in other claims,
thereby demonstrating an intent to claim a different
scope); see also Abbott Labs. v. Sandoz, Inc., 566 F.3d
1282, 1297 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (holding that a chemical
formulation that the applicants could have claimed given
that it appeared in their priority application, but chose
not to, falls outside the scope, literal or equivalent, of the claim).


**Of historical interest

Fifth generation of computers (1984-1990)

Arlington: is the name of the game the claim?

Harold Wegner discussed the 20 Jan 2011 Arlington case on IPFrontline and concluded:

Until there is a final resolution of this debate there will never be clarity in claim construction at the Federal Circuit. No matter which side is correct in this debate, the more important point is that the debate should be fully aired and settled, one way or the other, for the sake of providing the trial courts a clear scheme for patent claim construction.

Of the dissent, the majority notes in a footnote:

The concurrence-in-part and dissent-in-part char-
acterizes the specification as the “heart of the patent”
and, using “colloquial terms,” states that “you should get
what you disclose.” This devalues the importance of claim
language in delimiting the scope of legal protection.
“Claims define and circumscribe, the written description
discloses and teaches.” Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli Lilly &
Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en banc). To
use a colloquial term coined by Judge Rich, “the name of
the game is the claim.” Giles S. Rich, The Extent of the
Protection and Interpretation of Claims-American Perspec-
tives, 21 Int’l Rev. Indus. Prop. & Copyright L. 497, 499,
501 (1990). Indeed, unclaimed disclosures are dedicated
to the public. Johnson & Johnston Assocs. Inc. v. R.E.
Serv. Co., 285 F.3d 1046, 1051 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (en banc).

Controversy over Browning's invention of the M1911

Utah state legislators have gotten into a tangle over whether or not to honor the Browning M1911 as the official gun of Utah. John Moses Browning, a Utah native, invented it in 1911.

The debate is not so much about honoring Browning as about having an official gun.

The relevant patent is US 984,519 , which issued about one year after the application was filed. There are 38 claims, all explicitly combination claims. The gun was manufactured by Colt.

Wikipedia notes:

Following its success in trials, the Colt pistol was formally adopted by the Army on March 29, 1911, thus gaining its designation, M1911 (Model 1911). It was adopted by the Navy and Marine Corps in 1913. Originally manufactured only by Colt, demand for the firearm in World War I saw the expansion of manufacture to the government-owned Springfield Armory.

"No country has more successful companies, or grants more patents to inventors and entrepreneurs."

In the "state of the union" speech on January 25, President Obama used the word patents in the sentence: " No country has more successful companies, or grants more patents to inventors and entrepreneurs." He could also have said: no country has more patent applications pending for review than our country. Separately, a high patent grant rate, relative to other countries was at the heart of the "low quality patent" argument of Quillen and Webster.

The idea of innovation also showed up in the state of the union. For example:

Now it’s our turn. We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there.

The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation.
None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do – what America does better than anyone – is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It’s how we make a living.
Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation. But because it’s not always profitable for companies to invest in basic research, throughout history our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need. That’s what planted the seeds for the Internet. That’s what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS. (...)

Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we’d beat them to the moon. The science wasn’t there yet. NASA didn’t even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn’t just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.

This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.

Talking about the Allen brothers in Michigan:

Today, with the help of a government loan, that empty space is being used to manufacture solar shingles that are being sold all across the country. In Robert’s words, “We reinvented ourselves.”
That’s what Americans have done for over two hundred years: reinvented ourselves. And to spur on more success stories like the Allen Brothers, we’ve begun to reinvent our energy policy. We’re not just handing out money. We’re issuing a challenge. We’re telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo Projects of our time.
At the California Institute of Technology, they’re developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars.

Where's the money coming from?

We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s.

The topic of national debt arose:

We are living with a legacy of deficit-spending that began almost a decade ago. And in the wake of the financial crisis, some of that was necessary to keep credit flowing, save jobs, and put money in people’s pockets.
But now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable. Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same.

The word "foreclosure" does not appear in the state of the union speech.

But note from KHQ on 27 Jan 2011:

The foreclosure crisis is getting worse as high unemployment and lackluster job prospects force homeowners in an increasing number of U.S. metropolitan areas into dire financial straits.

In Seattle, Houston and Chicago, cities that were relatively insulated from foreclosures early on in the housing bust, a growing number of homeowners are falling behind on mortgage payments and finding themselves on the receiving end of foreclosure warnings. Others have already seen their homes repossessed by lenders.

All told, foreclosure activity jumped in 149 of the country's 206 largest metropolitan areas last year, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday [27 Jan 2011].
(...)
Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., registered the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, with one in every nine households receiving a foreclosure-related notice in 2010 — nearly five times the national average.



***
President Obama's airplane imagery:

“Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine.”

evoked USPTO Director Kappos' comment in 2009 about the state of the USPTO:

"the nose of this airplane is pointed down"

[See IPBiz
Kappos on the USPTO: "the nose of this airplane is pointed down" ]


***Footnote
It's not totally clear which people were referenced in the text: At the California Institute of Technology, they’re developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. Certain Caltech professors were related to the company Gevo, recently sued for patent infringement in the biobutanol area by Butamax, a joint venture of DuPont and BP.

Dennis Romero at LAWeeklyBlogs postulates a source for the Caltech reference, relating to something out of Caltech:

"Using a common metal most famously found in self-cleaning ovens, Sossina Haile hopes to change our energy future. The metal is cerium oxide--or ceria--and it is the centerpiece of a promising new technology developed by Haile and her colleagues that concentrates solar energy and uses it to efficiently convert carbon dioxide and water into fuels."

IPBiz wonders about referring to the non-metal cerium oxide as a metal in the text:
The metal is cerium oxide--or ceria. Sort of like John Kanzius telling Lesley Stahl that copper sulfate is a metal.

UPDATE. An IPBiz reader proposed other alternatives for the Obama/Caltech reference:

I do not believe Obama's reference to CalTech was for Sossina, but most likely for Nate Lewis who heads DOE's new Solar Hub and has been working for decades on photoelectrochemistry to split water and store the H2 (so the fuel), or less likely to Harry Atwater, Director of the DOE-EFRC center at CalTech, and working onlight trapping for photovolatics and photoelectrochemistry.

The Romero piece began with the text:

Was President Obama smoking some of that good stuff they sell legally right here in L.A. when he gave his State of the Union address Tuesday night? (He did go to college in the area [IPBiz: two years at Occidental.]). Because we're sure we heard him say that they're working on making fuel out of sun rays and water at Caltech.



***
full text of state of the union

***
In passing, note Intellectual Property Daily Journal

***UPDATE. from CBS on 26 Jan 11 at 7:47 PM:

Obama's Call For Innovation Stifled by Patent Office Backlog

But according to data from the Patent Office, there is currently a backlog of 1.2 million patents, over 700,000 which have never even been opened.

(...)

According to the Department of Commerce, 76% of venture capital investors consider patents when making funding decisions, so entrepreneurs may have difficulty getting money to start a business if they are still waiting for their patent.

The Department of Commerce estimates these lost opportunities cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars every year.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Obama told the nation that, "No country has more successful companies or grants more patents to inventors and entrepreneurs."

S.23 on patent reform introduced on January 25, 2011

S. 23, was introduced 25 January 2011. Co-sponsors include Democrats Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Chris Coons of Delaware; Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Jon Kyl of Arizona; and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent (not running for re-election)..

S.23 (2011) is very similar to the "Manager's Amendment" version of S.515 (2010). For example, it still contains the opposition procedure. There were some slight changes in the "first inventor to file" provision. There is a "report to Congress on impact of first inventor to file on small business" provision.

Concerning derivation proceedings (section 135):

‘‘(a) INSTITUTIONOFPROCEEDING.—An applicant
13
for patent may file a petition to institute a derivation pro-
14
ceeding in the Office. The petition shall set forth with par-
15
ticularity the basis for finding that an inventor named in
16
an earlier application derived the claimed invention from
17
an inventor named in the petitioner’s application and,
18
without authorization, the earlier application claiming
19
such invention was filed. Any such petition may only be
20
filed within 1 year after the first publication of a claim
21
to an invention that is the same or substantially the same
22
as the earlier application’s claim to the invention, shall
23
be made under oath, and shall be supported by substantial
24
evidence.25

Concerning oppositions. Inter partes review:

‘‘(b) SCOPE.—A petitioner in an inter partes review
9
may request to cancel as unpatentable 1 or more claims
10
of a patent only on a ground that could be raised under
11
section 102 or 103 and only on the basis of prior art con-
12
sisting of patents or printed publications.
13
‘‘(c) FILINGDEADLINE.—A petition for inter partes
14
review shall be filed after the later of either—
15
‘‘(1) 9 months after the grant of a patent or
16
issuance of a reissue of a patent; or
17
‘‘(2) if a post-grant review is instituted under
18
chapter 32, the date of the termination of such post-
19
grant review.
20


As to estoppel:

‘‘(1) PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE OFFICE.—The
10
petitioner in an inter partes review under this chap-
11
ter, or his real party in interest or privy, may not
12
request or maintain a proceeding before the Office
13
with respect to a claim on any ground that the peti-
14
tioner raised or reasonably could have raised during
15
an inter partes review of the claim that resulted in
16
a final written decision under section 318(a).
17

Performance Excellence recognized by DOC secretary Gary Locke

From a memo:

The Department of Commerce has spent the last six months structuring our new Performance Excellence Program and helping our bureaus undertake a first round of projects. I am pleased to announce that two teams in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have forged ahead and already produced tangible results. Later today I will personally recognize the Patent Prosecution Highway Outreach Team and the Defective Appeal Reduction Team with the Department’s first Performance Excellence Awards for their outstanding efforts. Today’s honorees are the first in what I hope will be a long line of deserving recipients of this award.

The "good old days" weren't really so good?

IPBiz has to mention the end of Kodachrome processing. Kodachrome lived longer than a patent life, and probably survived because of trade secrets. It couldn't survive the disruptive technology of digital photography tho.

One commenter wrote:

I remember when I was a teenager in the 70's it was a nerdy badge of honor to use Kodachrome-25. Great film, but times change and I appreciate having pictures to review instantly, and being able to take half a dozen (or more) shots to capture the 'right' one, then deleting the rest without worrying about cost or the wasted chemicals. I don't miss having to carry several canisters of film, did I feed the film tongue properly, did I rewind the film before opening the camera, waiting a week to see the results, etc. etc. When you really think about it sometimes the "good old days" weren't really so good...

What does "height" of a layer mean?

Allthingspros has an interesting discussion of Ex parte Jung; Appeal 2009-008540, Appl. No. 11/019,3151. At issue were the words:

height of the tunnel oxide layer is not lower than a height of the trench isolation layer;

Before reading the case or the post, what do you think "height of the tunnel oxide layer" means?

Chinese academic publication requirements stir debate in US

Wolf Frommer has a post in The Scientist/F1000 relating to publication requirements for Chinese students doing work abroad while funded by Chinese government stipends:

As is the rule in many places, the Chinese PhD students are expected to publish a couple of scientific papers as part of their qualification for their degree. (...) The concern I have with the stipends is that, in order for work published abroad to count towards this requirement, some Chinese universities expect that the students are listed with their home institution as affiliation, in some cases even as the lead institution, in any papers published during the program.

Frommer gets into "who" is funding the students, noting that the host country is frequently picking up the tab for a lot of the expense of the Chinese student:

Indeed, the students are frequently co-funded by the host institution, as the stipends -- around US$10-16,000 -- are often not enough to cover the living and research expenses in high cost areas. While the stipend may seem very generous from the Chinese perspective, it may barely cover rent in areas with extremely high costs of living, such as the London, Zurich, New York or the Bay Area. Thus the host institution sometimes contributes to the income of the guest students, and often covers the cost for equipment and consumables. Like the Chinese institutions' contributions in form of the stipend, these items can be mentioned in the Acknowledgements.

Frommer suggests a contract approach, in which the "institution" issue is handled in advance:

At a minimum, the institutions involved should negotiate such terms prior to the students' acceptance into a host program, a practice not in place in the current system.

AND

The order of affiliations, as is the case for the authorship order, will depend on the relative contribution to the project -- the lead affiliation should be the one where most of the work was done. For example, in the case of a two-week visit, only the home institution should be listed. In the case of a two year stay, on the other hand, if the student works on topics unrelated to the interest of their home institution and there is no prior agreement regarding publications, the funding agency or institution would be most appropriately listed in the Acknowledgements.

Imagine how complicated the intellectual property issues might become.

**One commenter to the Frommer post wrote the following:

Why is the US providing any funds for these students? As a tax payer I am offended. China has a very robust economy and can afford to fully fund their students. Why should the US take funding opportunities away from US citizens to financially help Chinese students? One more case where we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Harry Korn, ex-patent attorney

In the January 17, 2011 premiere of Harry's Law we learn that Harriet “Harry” Korn (played by Kathy Bates) was a patent attorney fired from her position after losing all interest in it. In the January 24 episode, we learn that "Harry" was making $600,000 per year.

The nakedwithoutlipstick blog wrote:

Let me explain: patent law is very niche. You spend all of your time in federal court, and engrossed in 35 U.S.C., the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Federal Rules of Evidence. Nothing else matters in patent law. (It's not clear from the preview whether she was a patent litigator or a patent prosecutor, but I'm going to assume a litigator because a patent prosecutor (patent attorneys who write patents) would be even more absurd given the scenario of the show, because they never go to court unless its to testify as a witness in a patent litigation trial.) Therefore, you have absolutely no knowledge at all of criminal law, criminal procedure, or criminal law in state court. I've been to state court exactly twice in my career so far. Patent attorneys have no reason to go there. State court is very different from federal court. Now, maybe the kid is up on federal charges. That remains to be seen. My point is that the last time most patent attorneys had anything to do with anything criminally law related was in a law school class. You can't just wake up one morning and decide to be a criminal defense attorney other than in David E. Kelley's brain. Now, I can appreciate wanting a change, and lawyers do switch areas of specialty in real life, so a lot of how this goes down and the believability of it is going to be in the writing.

But, why couldn't he do a legal show about a patent attorney? Why are we always stuck with family law and criminal law on television shows? Why does the patent attorney have to switch over to the apparently much more exciting field of criminal law? Why does she have to leave patent law because it's "boring"? Why does a "successful patent attorney" have to work as a lawyer anymore anyway? Why is an attorney with 32 years of experience getting fired? Shouldn't she be a partner by now?

Alcohol Monitoring Systems gets another chance from CAFC

The case involved an appeal by the patentee:

Alcohol Monitoring Systems, Inc. (AMS) appeals the
district court’s grant of summary judgment that defen-
dants Actsoft, Inc. (Actsoft), Ohio House Monitoring
Systems Inc. (Ohio House), and U.S. Home Detention
Systems and Equipment, Inc. (U.S. Home) (collectively,
Defendants) do not infringe the asserted claims of U.S.
Patent No. 5,220,919 (’919 patent).


From "Alcohol Monitoring" as to text from a preamble:

AMS argues that step (c) does not require the “calcu-
lation of a percentage of blood alcohol content.” We agree.
AMS asserts that the district court improperly treated the
preamble language “monitoring the percentage of blood
alcohol content” as a limitation by requiring a calculation
of BAC in step (c). Generally, a preamble does not limit
the scope of claims unless “it recites essential structure or
steps, or if it is necessary to give life, meaning, and vital-
ity to the claim.” See, e.g., Am. Med. Sys., Inc. v. Biolitec,
Inc., 618 F.3d 1354, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (internal cita-
tions omitted). We previously held that a preamble is not
limiting where it “merely gives a descriptive name to the
set of limitations in the body of the claim that completely
set forth the invention.” IMS Tech., Inc., 206 F.3d at
1434-35 (Fed. Cir. 2000). Here, “monitoring the percent-
age of blood alcohol” is such a descriptive namnot additionally
limit the scope of the claims.

But, as to calculations:

Under AMS’s proposed construction, the “percentage”
is not a quantifiable measurement. A person of skill in
the art would be unable to calculate what “percentage” of
alcohol went into the measurement device, compared to
the total alcohol expelled through the body in its entirety.
Even if the device could conceivably quantify the amount
of alcohol entering into the device, the device could not
determine the total quantity of alcohol expelled through
the body.

Because AMS’s proposed construction is not quantifi-
able, it conflicts with claims 19 and 21, which depend
from claim 14. Claims 19 and 21 require storing an
interferant indication “if a change in said percentage of
alcohol exceeds a predetermined . . . rate.” It logically
follows that the claimed percentage must itself be a
numerical value or one could not compare “a change in
said percentage” to “a predetermined rate” as required by
the dependent claims. Therefore, claim 14 requires the
actual calculation of a percentage and AMS’s proposed
construction cannot be correct.

Thus, properly construed, step (c) requires the meas-
urement of an amount of alcohol being emitted from an
individual’s skin and the calculation of a percentage that
approximates blood alcohol content (e.g., transdermal
alcohol content). This construction is consistent with both
the intrinsic record and the extrinsic testimony from
AMS’s inventor and expert witness.

As to the doctrine of equivalents:

Under the facts before us, a reasonable jury could
conclude that the HAS device’s voltage measurements
perform substantially the same function, in substantially
the same way, to achieve substantially the same result as
the calculation of a percentage TAC. Therefore, the
district court erred in granting summary judgment of
noninfringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

Conclusion:

For the reasons discussed above, we affirm the dis-
trict court’s grant of summary judgment of no literal
infringement, reverse the district court’s grant of sum-
mary judgment of no infringement under the doctrine of
equivalents and remand.

Kodak's patent: valid on USPTO re-exam but invalid at the ITC

Concerning a patent with a claim relating to previewing low-resolution versions of a moving image while recording still images at a high resolution, the USPTO said Dec. 23 it intended to issue a notice confirming the validity of the patent, according to a Jan. 3 court filing by Kodak.

BUT ALJ Paul Luckern at the ITC said Kodak's patent is invalid because it’s an obvious variation of an earlier invention, and that the Apple and RIM products don’t infringe.

Teva and AstraZeneca's EP patent on Seroquel

Reuters reports: Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has launched a High Court action in London to revoke the European patent for Seroquel, an anti-depressant [used in cases of schizophrenia and bipolar] developed by AstraZeneca

The US Hatch-Waxman case over Seroquel (quetiapine) began in DNJ in 2005. See IPBiz post Teva makes paragraph IV filing against AstraZeneca over Seroquel

"How will this play in the polls?"

Bob Schieffer concluded "Face the Nation" on January 23, 2011 with some remarks on Obama's Tucson speech. "How will this play in polls?" is the usual question, but the better one is how it impacts people. We need to dial back on the rhetoric. We can be better, as the President reminded us. I wonder if some of us have forgotten.

Schieffer gave a livelier response to Ben Stein's suggestion on "CBS Sunday Morning" that Republicans run Barack Obama in the 2012 election, making him the first president elected by both parties. Recall that in 1864, Abraham Lincoln ran as a candidate of the Union party, with a Democrat, Andrew Johnson, as the vice-presidential nominee. Contemplate the various things Andrew Johnson tried to do in the 1868 presidential campaign.

Kappos on patent application backlog in talk before Innovation Alliance on 21 Jan 2011

David Kappos before Innovation Alliance on January 21: "As our country seeks to regain the 8 million jobs lost during the recent recession, the USPTO is a great place to start. Countless inventions that can spark new businesses are right there, sitting in the backlog. And reducing that backlog is one of (our) highest priorities."

"We have invented inspiring and enhancing technologies, yet we have allowed them to diminish us"

MIT professor Sherry Turkle: "We have invented inspiring and enhancing technologies, yet we have allowed them to diminish us."

CBS Sunday Morning on January 23, 2011

Charles Osgood introduced the stories for January 23, 2011. School children studied the 3Rs. Tracey Smith : singing off. on penmanship. Second was "Jan's Story," on early onset Alzeimher's (recycled: see IP themes on "CBS Sunday Morning" on June 20, 2010). Third, was Mo Rocca on Natalie Portman, most likelly to be on Jeoprary. Martha Teichner on "one track mind." Keith Olbermann. Schools of thought.
Headlines. Gabby Gifferts in Houston. Protests in Aden, Yemen. Chinese stealth fighter from wreckage of F-117. Mass of Sargent Schriver. Apple's App Store 10 billion. Chicago v Green Bay at 3pm, Jets v Steelers at 6:30pm.
Weather. Cold. Snow and rain across middle of country.

Signing Off. Generations of Americans learned penmanship from blackboards. Christa Walthers kindgarten class in Ohio. In the world beyond school, we're losing our grip on pensmanship. Handwriting reduced to shopping lists and credit card signatures.
Book: History of Handwriting in America. In the 1700's there were were professional penman. Spencer created a book on penmanship. The invention of the typewriter changed things. A. N. Palmer: penmanship for the 20th century. Graphology, the rage in the early 1900s. Abraham Lincoln only learned cursive. Kathleen Wright on modern day writing instruction. Steve Graham, a literacy expert at Vanderbilt. Judgments about credibility of ideas based on good handwriting. Legibility peaks around 4th grade. Handwritten note by Gordon Brown: penmanship scandal. Only 18% of people call their handwriing excellent.
Margaret Shephard on calligraphy. Handwriting has a place somewhere: on a desert island or on a job application.

Almanac. John Hancock's John Hancock. January 23, 1737: date of birth. Movie 1776, with David Ford as Hancock. Later, governor of Massachusetts. Died in 1793. From 1979 to 2000, a US destroyer.

Gold Standard. Simone Dinnerstein and the Goldberg Variation. Didn't get lessons until she was seven. While music can isolate, it can also inspire. Bach. Glenn Gould. Johann Goldberg. Studied at Julliard but dropped out. It's almost like a meditation. Scraped together $15K to record . David Patrick Sterne. Capitalize on buzz. Rented space at Carnegie to play the concert of her life. Another record from a live concert in Berlin.

Snow by the numbers. NYC: 36 inches of snow so far. Boston: 50 inches. Atlanta: 6 inches. Georgia went through 10 million dollars clearing snow. NYC spent 40 million. Winter does not end until March 20, two months away.

Sargent Shriver's funeral. Daughter Maria Shriver set the tone. Showing us how to show up in other people's lives. Suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Thus, the Shriver story served as a lead in for story on Jan Charlton of CNN and ABC and even on CBS Sunday Morning. Subtle changes in memory began at age 40.

Note that "Jan's Story" is a repeat from June 20, 2010.

Keith Olbermann departure. The world of cable tv news is still trying to figure out what happened. "This is the last edition of Countdown" on Friday, 21 Jan 2011. Many newsclips reproduced/recyled from CBS Nightly News on 22 Jan 11. Robert Thompson from Syracuse: brand that Olbermann represented. Comcast: no operational control of any properties. Not clear if there is a noncompete clause that would keep Olbermann from showing up elsewhere soon.

Natalie Portman. "No strings attached." Mo Rocca does the story, beginning with "Black Swan." "V for Vendetta." "Closer."
The best actress of her generation. Dad was a doctor. Discovered in a pizza parlor by an agent for Revlon. "The Professional." Used her grandmother's maiden name. "Beautiful Girls." Precocious. Harder to act as you get older. Earned a bachelors degree from Harvard. My job is to make people believe I'm someone else. {as a person] I appear to be bland. "No strings attached" opened this weekend. Of genetics: "mixing is the best." How much of your success is due to sheer focus and will?
Sunday profile.

School of thought on child rearing. Yale Law prof. Memoir about a lot of my mistakes. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Amy Chua. Asian students-->Harvard: 13%; Berkeley: 34%. "Joy Luck Club". Best way to feel better is find "the bad mother."
The "Sunday Morning" piece had a report from Beijing. Most Chinese families are allowed only one child. Just a fraction of children will obtain a spot in a top college.

A fellow outside of Philadelphia has a ticket to ride. A collecting gene. Jerry Green has been accumulating model train sets for 50 years. Sotherby's was engaged to auction the collection. 5400 square foot basement. Oldies.com. Collection worth more than 10 million. For Jerry Green, it's been there, done that.

Ben Stein on the election of 2012. What Republicans don't have is a viable candidate for President. But how about Barack Obama? He is highly teachable.

Next week on Sunday Morning: a closer look at stuttering.

Moment of nature (sponsored by Dulcolax): mesquite country in Texas, home of white tailed deer and collared peccary.

The chimera of originality?

Within the Edmonton Journal:

By insisting on the chimera of originality, we seek to enscribe in pedagogy what we despair of in our own scholarship and creativity. We do so with the best intentions, hoping perhaps to keep our students in a garden of innocence designed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where true genius can still flourish.

But we're doing our students (even any budding Shakespeares among them) no favours. Instead, we risk locking them into some invidious choices.

Imagine the plight of the student grappling with that term paper on Moby Dick. The deadline looming, she feels she has to choose between saying something clever (but plagiarized) or something original (but stupid).

Google/Android has copyright problems?

On Jan. 21, 2011, zdnet reported:

Today, in a bombshell post on his FOSS Patents blog, Florian Mueller, an expert on intellectual property law and open source code, reports that “evidence is mounting that different components of the Android mobile operating system may indeed violate copyrights of Sun Microsystems, a company Oracle acquired a year ago.”

Of Mueller, wikipedia notes: Florian Müller (born January 21, 1970 in Augsburg, Germany) is an author, entrepreneur, consultant, and the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign. No mention of Mueller being a lawyer.

Roger Martin of Qualcomm disses new patent reform bill

Grant Gross at PCWorld notes that Roger Martin of Qualcomm criticized the new patent reform bill, and focused on a provision in the bill that would limit damage awards in patent infringement cases. "Limitations on remedies from where they are now can only logically destroy value in patents, essentially wipe it out," he said. "It focuses too much on the benefits to the infringer, and not enough on the harm to the patent holder."

RPX files for IPO

The WSJ notes that RPX Corp. filed to sell up to $100 million shares in an initial public offering.

Gevo's response to Butamax infringement assertion re: US 7,851,188

From ethanolproducer, concerning the infringement complaint of Butamax (DuPont/BP) filed in D. Delaware over US 7851188 :

Gevo issued a rebuttal statement regarding Butamax’s patent infringement complaint. “Gevo believes it does not infringe on the Butamax patent and will vigorously defend against the claims asserted in the complaint,” said Brett Lund, executive vice president and general counsel for Gevo. “Gevo’s Integrated Fermentation Technology is a fundamentally different approach than the one described in the Butamax patent.”

Gevo has developed a proprietary integrated fermentation technology—coined GIFT. The key behind Gevo’s GIFT technology pathway is the utilization of a yeast biocatalyst developed by Cargill Inc., with support from the U.S. DOE, and a separation technology unit that’s designed to bolt onto existing ethanol plants to produce isobutanol from grain crops such as wheat, corn, sorghum, barley or sugarcane, including nonfood-based cellulosic feedstock.

The first two claims of US 7,851,188 (issued on Dec. 14, 2010 based on appl. 11/586,315 ):

1. A recombinant microbial host cell comprising heterologous DNA molecules encoding polypeptides that catalyze substrate to product conversions for each step below: i) pyruvate to acetolactate; ii) acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate; iii) 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate to .alpha.-ketoisovalerate; and iv) .alpha.-ketoisovalerate to isobutyraldehyde; wherein said microbial host cell produces isobutanol; and wherein a) the polypeptide that catalyzes a substrate to product conversion of pyruvate to acetolactate is acetolactate synthase having the EC number 2.2.1.6; b) the polypeptide that catalyzes a substrate to product conversion of acetolactate to 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate is acetohydroxy acid isomeroreductase having the EC number 1.1.1.86; c) the polypeptide that catalyzes a substrate to product conversion of 2,3-dihydroxyisovalerate to .alpha.-ketoisovalerate is acetohydroxy acid dehydratase having the EC number 4.2.1.9; d) the polypeptide that catalyzes a substrate to product conversion of .alpha.-ketoisovalerate to isobutyraldehyde is branched-chain .alpha.-keto acid decarboxylase having the EC number 4.1.1.72.

2. A host cell according to claim 1 wherein the cell is selected from the group consisting of: a bacterium, a cyanobacterium, a filamentous fungus and a yeast.

One notes there are FOUR (4) pending applications claiming priority to the '315 application:

12/939,315 filed on 11-04-2010 which is Pending claims the benefit of 11/586,315
12/939,284 filed on 11-04-2010 which is Pending claims the benefit of 11/586,315
12/966,333 filed on 12-13-2010 which is Pending claims the benefit of 11/586,315
12/018,216 filed on 01-23-2008 which is Pending claims the benefit of 11/586,315


One might contemplate the possibility of pregrant damages [as to a (hypothetical) child patent] if one of these applications issues with unamended claims that encompass the activities of Gevo. Claim 1 of the issued '188 patent was narrowed from the base claim of the as-filed application.

On pregrant damages, from Baker & Botts:

The publication of a U.S. application under Section 122 provides an applicant, for the first time, with the ability to pursue damages corresponding to a reasonable royalty for infringement occurring subsequent to publication and prior to issuance of a patent from the application. These rights are commonly referred to as provisional rights. Provisional rights only tangibly accrue, and can only be recouped, once the application issues as a patent. Further limitations on obtaining such pre-grant damages are that actual notice of the published application must have been provided to the infringer and that the infringed claims must be contained in the issued patent and be substantially identical to corresponding claims in the published application.

On pregrant damages, from ecampus:

Historically, U.S. patent applications have never been published until issuance of the patent. Any damages calculation necessarily began no sooner than the date of issuance (grant) of the patent. As such, the United States was somewhat out of step with most other industrialized nations, whose patent systems published applications at 18 months and provided for infringement damages from the date of publication. One effect of Subtitle E was to harmonize U.S. practice with that of other industrialized countries, providing for 18-month publication and for pregrant damages.

The language of Subtitle E imposes conditions that must be satisfied before a patent owner can collect pregrant damages. One of the conditions is that the claim said to be infringed must be substantially identical in the published application and in the granted patent. Therefore, it becomes important to draft and file in the application a range of claims of varying scope and with various combinations of limitations, so as to maximize the chances that a claim in the issued patent that turns out to be infringed will be substantially identical to the corresponding claim from the publication.

As to licensees, see Licensing Best Practices

**
See crowdIPR

***Update on 25 Feb 2011.

The commenter below asks "why" Butamax has not sued Cobalt Technologies. The snswer to that question resides with Butamax, not with IPBiz. It could be that Cobalt does not infringe. Rule 11 issues are discussed elsewhere on IPBiz. The R-Squared Energy Blog has a post titled Butanol Q&A With Cobalt Technologies CEO Rick Wilson which includes the text:

BP Butamax and Gevo make i-butanol for fuels from sugar and corn, and BP has done extensive engine testing and its a great story. However we do not see the economics of using sugar or corn ever supporting using any kind of butanol as a gasoline or diesel fuel additive without subsidies, although it is a great molecule for that purpose.

On the patent front, there was the following text:

RR: Can you point me to some granted patents or any peer-reviewed literature that covers the process?

RW: Please see attached, one of our key patent filings.

RR: The attached patent was an international patent application, WO 2009/126795 A2: Immobilized Product Tolerant Microorganisms.

IPBiz notes that a PCT application is neither a granted patent nor a peer-reviewd publication. The PCT application is PCT/US2009/040050, which does correspond to publication number WO/2009/126795. There is a priority claim to US provisional application 61/043,710. There has been a national phase filing in Europe: EP 2009730267.

The first claim in PCT '050 is:

A method for making a product in a bioreactor comprising: i) culturing microorganisms, wherein the microorganisms are adapted or mutagenized so as to exhibit at least a 150% product tolerance for the product compared to the product tolerance of a corresponding non- adapted or non-mutagenized microorganisms; and ii) harvesting said product.

Claim 86 states:

A method of making a biological product comprising: a) culturing microorganisms in a bioreactor comprising: i) a packed bed zone, comprising solid support therein, said solid support comprising microorganisms thereon for fermenting said biological product; ii) a bed expansion zone coupled to said packed bed zone adapted for containing said solid support when said bioreactor is operated in an expanded bed mode; and iii) a particle disengagement zone coupled to said bed expansion zone, said particle disengagement zone adapted to prevent egress of said solid support from said bioreactor; and b) harvesting the product.

Separately, note US published application 20080293086 , titled REAL TIME MONITORING OF MICROBIAL ENZYMATIC PATHWAYS, first inventor Pamela Reilly Contag and first claim:

A recombinant nucleic acid molecule comprising a transcription regulatory nucleotide sequence operatively linked with a nucleotide sequence encoding a self-contained light-emitting reporter, wherein the transcription regulatory nucleotide sequence regulates expression of a gene that signals production of a target product of a fermentative or synthetic pathway in a cell.

The applicant made a response to a non-final Office Action in December 2010.

**As to investors not paying attention to the Butamax lawsuit against Gevo, recall the
previous post on IPBiz,
IP issues for small businesses The majority of all respondents (80%) believe that the most common consequence of insufficient due diligence is the failure to properly identify IP risks.

“We want an economy fueled by what we invent and what we build."

President Obama speaking at GE in Schenectady :

“We want an economy fueled by what we invent and what we build. We’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles. We’re going to build stuff and invent stuff.”

Fountain female faces felony flap

Cathy Cruz Marrero, now famous for failing into a fountain in a mall in Reading, PA, apparently has had a status hearing on five felony charges -- including theft by deception and receiving stolen property from a store in that mall.

Marrero was apparently looking into suing the mall, on the (postulated) basis that the mall was involved in facilitating circulation of the video, which made Marrero look bad.

One wonders whether there is an IP issue here? Is there a right of negative publicity?

upi.com noted:

Marrero's attorney, James Polyak, said he wants to know the identities of the security personnel at the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing responsible for making the video public, as nearly 2 million people have watched his client stumble obliviously into the fountain.

"I was like, 'I'm hoping nobody saw me. So let me just walk away,'" Marrero said, adding a word of advice to the digitally obsessed: "Do not text and walk. … The fountain could have been empty. ... I could have walked into a bus, you know. ... I could have got hit by a car. It can happen anywhere ... anywhere."

Marrero has her own legal problems, having been charged with theft by deception and receiving stolen property in October 2009. Her next court date is April 21, where she likely will be sentenced to six months of house arrest and electronic monitoring for allegedly using a co-worker's credit cards to purchase jewelry worth thousands of dollars without authorization, ABC said.

Daily Mail copying from the New York Times?

See Plagiarism alert! Mail story reads uncannily like one in the New York Times

Does anyone remember INS v. AP?

Apple's US 20110012838: COMPUTER INPUT DEVICE INCLUDING A DISPLAY DEVICE

The first claim of Apple's application titled COMPUTER INPUT DEVICE INCLUDING A DISPLAY DEVICE is

A processing system input device, comprising:a first mechanism configured to receive a user input to the processing system; an interface to communicate the user input to the processing system; anda collimated glass component having a visible display surface.

In this case, Apple received a notice to file corrected application papers in July 2009 because the submitted figures were not up to snuff according to 37 CFR 1.84 and 1.121(d). One can't have portions of figures which are missing and/or blurry.

dvice wrote the following:


A patent filed by Apple shows what could be the next evolution of the company's line of mice: a touchscreen device with its own built-in processor. Of course, you could already be rocking a touch surface using Apple's Magic Mouse (essentially just an external trackpad, which is a little redundant for laptop users), but this patent still makes you wonder.

There's no telling how large the display would be if incorporated into a form factor like the Magic Mouse. Knowing Apple, though, it'd be the entirety of the work surface rather than just a little LED ticker. The patent indicates that the touchscreen mouse would also have integrated app support, so, say, you could see the Angry Bird you're getting ready to fling or the numbers for a calculator right there on the mouse.

That makes you wonder how you'd use it, though. It sounds more like something you'd pick up rather than leaning forward and looking down on. Or would the display be angled toward the user? Since it'd have it's own processor, it almost sounds like it'd be a watered down iPod Touch. Say, why can't I just use my iPod like a mouse already, anyway?

Glycol a killer in Mentalist Bloodhound episode

After bodies of two young women are found in a junkyard, the FBI sends in a profiling specialist (Dr. Montague a specialist in pattern analysis and decision science) to evaluate the possible return of a serial killer, The Caveman. In this one episode, The Mentalist mocks two other CBS shows, Criminal Minds and Numbers, with the intuitive Patrick Jane prevailing over the statistical Montague.

Patrick even uses the word "patent" in the Bloodhound episode, suggesting The Caveman did not have a patent on using a 2 by 4 to kill people.

In the end, one learns that one of the victims (Fernanda) had discovered her cousins were using glycol as a preservative for their "natural" soft drinks. Some of the drinks worked their way to a homeless shelter, with the glycol doing in one of the inhabitants. (even the homeless are going green?). Fernanda had to go. So did a woman at the homeless shelter who figured out what had happened. The two cousins were tricked into thinking that the actual serial killer (The Caveman) was after them for copying his style (a theme used with Red John, who did kill the copyists). In the world of crime, copyists seem to have something to fear from originators, who have their own ways of dealing with infringers.

Dialogue in the last few minutes is a rather direct swipe at the premise of Numbers, while the failure of Montague's theory of The Caveman spoofs Criminal Minds.

The director of the homeless shelter was portrayed as unsavory, and a local bus driver was a dope dealer. Was this filmed in Camden?

***
In "A Kiss Before Frying," also on Jan. 20, CSI featured Dita Von Teese as a stripper named "Dita Von Squeeze." In a previous show, as in this one, CSI used early Vegas history for a plotline. In the earlier CSI episode, one dealt with old people (black trumpet player; white widow of casino owner) whose secret was finally unveiled. In the Von Teese episode, Dita is the granddaughter of a victim [Agnes La Plouffe] of Bugsy Siegal and friends, getting revenge on the grandchildren of the evil doers. Sounds like a horror show curse theme. Yes, Dita performed her strip tease in an oversized cocktail glass.

***
In passing, Letterman has run jokes on Starbucks "trenta" 3 nights in a row. On Jan. 19, a trenta was placed next to an undersized Tom Cruise, and on Jan. 20, next to Kim Jong-Il. Letterman fans seem to like copying, again and again... Miss Arkansas (and dummies) made the Jan. 20 show.

"Companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours."

On January 18, 2011, Apple sued Nokia in England [ Apple Inc. v. Nokia Corp., HC11C00093, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division (London) ].

Of an included challenge to one of Nokia's patents, Mark Durrant of Nokia said: “Nokia is confident that all of the 37 patents it has asserted against Apple” are valid,

In the context of an earlier filing, Bruce Sewall of Apple had said

"companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours."

See previous IPBiz post:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2009/10/nokia-goes-after-apples-iphone.html

Also:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20029047-37.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-20/canadian-council-apple-sherwin-williams-intellectual-property.html

Novo Nordisk's US 6,677,358 found invalid, unenforceable in ED Mich

Judge Avern Cohn of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan found claims of Novo Nordisk's US Patent No. 6,677,358, relating to Prandin (repaglinide ), invalid and unenforceable.

"Gesture recognition" to break out

An article in EE Times titled 3-D gesture control breaks out of the game box begins

This could be the year 3-D gesture recognition proves it’s not just child’s play. Several years after its first consumer market appearance in the wireless gaming interface for Nintendo’s Wii, MEMS sensor-based gesture recognition is extending its reach to smartphones and is set to take hold of that most iconic of consumer interfaces: the TV remote.

Hope these guys do better than the facial gesture recognition jury consultant on "The Good Wife" on January 18, 2011.

IBM's published US patent application 20100332285

The first claim of this case (12/490595 ) states:

A computerized system for an intellectual property (IP) framework,

including:a strategic planning computer module for formulating business strategies for creating and managing inventions and IP rights, said strategic planning module including at least one electronic database having data for formulating said business strategies;an invent computer module for managing creation of said inventions based on said business strategies;an IP creation computer module for determining value of said inventions and creating an IP portfolio, said creating of said IP portfolio including creating said IP rights based on said determining of said value and said business strategies;an IP administration computer module for managing said IP rights based on said business strategies including extension, maintenance and retirement of said IP rights, measuring performance of said business strategies, creating and modifying budgets, and setting guidelines for IP counsel;a defend computer module for defending against infringements and invalidations of said IP rights based on said business strategies and monitoring market and competitor actions to develop risk management plans;an influence computer module including a standards influencing unit, a legal and regulatory influencing unit, and a policy influencing unit; anda capitalize computer module for identifying potential licensees and potential assignees of said IP rights, and managing licensing negotiations, cross-licensing negotiations, and assignment negotiations based on said business strategies,said business strategies provided by said strategic planning computer module being input into at least one of said invent computer module, said IP creation computer module, said IP administration computer module, said defend computer module, said influence computer module, and said capitalize computer module,said inventions provided by said invent computer module being input into said IP creation computer module, andsaid IP rights provided by said IP creation computer module being input into at least one of said IP administration computer module, said defend computer module, said influence computer module, and said capitalize computer module.

An IDS includes US 20090313207.

[IPBiz post 6637]

Data slurping from iPads

Bloomberg reports on an iPad slurping incident:


Investigators accused Daniel Spitler and Andrew Auernheimer of using an "account slurper" to conduct a "brute force" attack over five days last June, to extract data about iPad users who accessed the Internet through AT&T Inc's 3G network.

Among the possible victims were celebrities, businesses executives and government officials such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and perhaps then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, prosecutors said.

Spitler, 26, and Auernheimer, 25, were taken into custody by FBI agents on Tuesday morning, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey said in a statement.
(...)
"It is more an issue if you can pair addresses with places of employment, such as government agencies," he added. "Then it becomes possible to collect further information, and perhaps get a toehold into Google, Bing or other information sources."

AT&T was Apple's partner in the United States to provide wireless service on the iPad. After the hacking, it shut off the feature that allowed email addresses to be obtained.

The case "has hopefully awakened users to the value of a simple email address," said Jamz Yaneza, a threat research manager at Internet security company Trend Micro Inc.

The case is U.S. v. Spitler et al, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 11-mag-04022.

LG, Vizio settle patent litigation over flat screen tvs

Bloomberg reports that LG Electronics Inc. and Vizio Inc. have settled patent-infringement disputes in the U.S. and Taiwan over flat-panel televisions

Henry C. Bunsow to Dewey & LeBoeuf

blogs.wsj noted on 18 Jan 11:

Noted intellectual-property lawyer Henry Bunsow is leaving Howrey for Dewey & LeBoeuf, according to a release by Dewey. Joining him are partners Denise De Mory and Brian Smith. Click here for a piece on the move from the BLT blog.

Bunsow's undergrad and law degrees are University of Nevada, B.S.E.E., 1971 and University of Santa Clara Law School, J.D., cum laude, 1974. He has had a number of patent cases in ED Texas; from Martindale:

Many of his recent trials have been in Texas including nine in the Eastern District of Texas. His successes include: winning two jury trials in Dallas before Judge Barbara Linn; winning a defense case jury verdict before Judge Paul Brown in Sherman; winning seven plaintiff jury verdicts before Judge T. John Ward in Marshall; and winning a favorable settlement during a jury trial before Magistrate Judge Chad Everingham in Marshall. Henry has appeared at numerous Markman hearings, motions and court conferences. He is presently lead counsel in cases pending in Marshall, Tyler and Texarkana, Texas, in addition to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, California, the Eastern District of Virginia and other jurisdictions.

Number one CBS news story on 18 Jan 2011: slip and fall cases!

The lead story on Katie Couric on 18 January 2011 was on insurance fraud costing customers $30 billion/year. 2010 may be a record year for slip and fall cases. NICB [National Insurance Crime Bureau] says there are more cases, with Florida a hot spot. In-store videos do deter some of the false claims. One case involved a slip and fall on a hot dog.

The Chinese state visit only ranked number three on featured CBS stories. Chinese furniture makers can sell for 25% less, but currency manipulation ranked only number three on the US priority list. Intellectual property theft is number one on the US list, but the US is not expected to put much pressure on China. The White House says exports to China support hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US. A video clip from Taiwan gets to the heart of the situation.

Camden, NJ's cutback on police and firemen got some exposure. Laid-off firemen were shown stuffing their gear into trashcans.
26.5 million shortfall in the Camden budget. Life's about to get more dangerous, and it already was the second most dangerous city. Tee-shirts have materialized among drug dealers in Camden with the text: 1-18-2011 It's our time.


***
NICB Leadership

Stay of injunction denied in Streck case

The CAFC denied a motion for a stay of a permanent injunction entered by the District Court in Nebraska.

The CAFC cited Standard Havens, 897 F.2d 511, and du Pont, 835 F.2d 277.

EU does not have problems with CPTN getting Novell patents

PCWorld includes text from a 17 Jan 2011 posting:

"The Commission is aware of the proposed acquisition by CPTN Holdings," states the message from European Commission Vice President Joaquin Almunia. "On the basis of the information currently available at this stage, it appears unlikely that the proposed transaction requires a notification to the Commission under the Merger Regulation."

"Furthermore, in addition to the consideration under the Merger Regulation, the Commission has currently no indication that the mere acquisition of the patents in question by CPTN Holdings would lead to an infringement of EU competition rules,"

"Trial-by-Internet"

The Scientist discusses the Silvia Bulfone-Paus matter. In July, 2010, around the time a formal investigation of possible science fraud began, accusatory emails distributing information about Bulfone-Paus and details about suspect papers, such as evidence of manipulated figures, were sent by one "Marco Berns" to involved personnel and the press. Similar information was then posted online to a Web site hosted in Panama and operated by a Martin Frost, possibly a pseudonym for the same person or people behind the original emails.

the martinfrost website includes

The sorry episode of the Paus/Bulfone-Paus fabrications has yet again shown that journal editors and reviewers of scientific articles were unable to spot quite blatant examples of data manipulation.

Some of the editors, such as the editor-in-chiefs of the European Molecular Biology Organization Journal (EMBO Journal in short) and the editor of the mother of scientific journals, Nature, reacted quite negatively when their inability to do so was uncovered. If this expensive system, which seems to be more concerned with hierarchy and punctuation (in that order) rather than science and truth is not up to the job then where might the solution lie?