(via Patently-O) Halliburton (yes, THAT Halliburton) has made a patent application for patent trolling. Enjoy USPTO application 20080270152, which protects a method for “Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party”. The abstract reads: “Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent Read more…
I finally got around to reading In Re Bilski (via Groklaw), the latest landmark case in the United States with regards to patentability issues. While abstract ideas are not patentable, ever since the case State Street, the U.S. has allowed mere abstractions as patentable subject matter if they produce a Read more…
(via Ray Corrigan) I have been following the saga of U.S. Patent 6,988,138 protecting “Internet-based education support system and methods”. After winning an injunction in a Texas court, Blackboard has seen 44 of its claims knocked out in a preliminary injunction by the USPTO. Ray has a comprehensive report, so Read more…
Since 2006 I have been following with interest the patent infringement case of Blackboard v Desire2Learn. Blackboard is a provider of educational software and virtual learning environments, which owns U.S. Patent 6,988,138 protecting “Internet-based education support system and methods”. In 2006 they sued VLE provider Desire2Learn for infringement of aforementioned Read more…
Since 2006 I have been following with interest the patent infringement case of Blackboard v Desire2Learn. Blackboard is a provider of educational software and virtual learning environments, which owns U.S. Patent 6,988,138 protecting “Internet-based education support system and methods”. In 2006 they sued VLE provider Desire2Learn for infringement of aforementioned Read more…
(via Oscar Monezuma) Peru and Chile have been involved in all sorts of disputes over te years, including war, territorial claims, football, and most importantly, pisco. Now a Peruvian woman has added to the often friendly animosity between the two countries by obtaining IP rights in Chile over “la marinera”, Read more…
Times Online has a report on new office surveillance software being designed by Microsoft. The software will monitor worker’s performance by wireless sensors that measure “heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure.” Even more interesting is the fact that the technology is the subject of a patent Read more…
Last week I was reading New Scientist (as you do), and I came across an extremely interesting article on the race to produce synthetic life. The article claims that scientists are on the verge of producing an entirely new type of life from scratch, a prospect that scares the bejeebus Read more…
The peer-to-patent project is almost ready to go live, reports the Washington Post. For those unfamiliar with this initiative, the peer-to-patent system was proposed by New York Law School Professor Beth Simone Noveck in this paper. If we agree that the American patent system is broken, and reading some of Read more…
(via Patentingart list) It is true that to many of us IP is a source of income, but is it a matter of life and death? One man in Chicago thought so. Truck driver and sometimes inventor Joe Jackson murdered patent lawyer Michael McKenna and two other people at the Read more…