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the fact the Chinese can sue in American courts with a decent chance to win still says a lot about the differences between the two juggernaut nations.

The differences only exist in your brain, washed over by American propaganda.

Exactly. He chose his name as a "brand", he trademarked that name/brand, he sold that name/brand. He received large sums of money so others could exclusively use that name/brand. If he wants that name/brand he can buy it, just like the people he sold it to.

Actually, he may have a case.

Intel did rename MacAffee Security to Intel Security.

The phrase "use it or lose it," while cliché, aptly describes the underlying principles for obtaining and maintaining trademark rights in the United States.
Use, not registration, matters most in the United States.
See article.

And it's not like Intel doesn't have lawyers on staff.

The headline is misleading about the actual ruling; here it is:

"TR Labs’ concession that it is willing to grant Cisco an unqualified covenant not to sue, TR Labs’ concession that it has no basis for asserting direct or indirect infringement claims against Cisco, including the parties’ agreement that Cisco’s products have substantial non-infringing uses, and Cisco’s failure to identify any obligation to indemnify or defend its customers distinguish this action from others in which this Court has found declaratory judgment jurisdiction and support the district court’s finding that it lacked the same. We therefore affirm the district court ruling."
http://www.finnegan.com/files/Publication/810cf458-9bde-4f9b-a98f-d5293cafbaad/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/11d7000f-5c7b-47ae-ad7a-db503720b379/12-1687%208-29-13.pdf

So because Cisco has no contractual obligation to indemnify their customers, and TR Labs is willing to give an unqualified covenant not to sue Cisco for direct or indirect infringement by Cisco's customers, and it's in the outside realm of possibility that all customers are using Cisco products in a non-failover configuration (the subject of the patents is failover) because they're stupid and fail to follow best common industry practice, Cisco is not a party to the suits against the customers.

Cisco could have taken this bullet if it had been willing to indemnify their customers via an amended terms and conditions on the Cisco OS software on the devices; it chose not to do so.

But Microsoft does sue companies that make products with names similar to Windows. They sued Lindows. If Microsoft can successfully sue over the Windows trademark, why can't Apple successfully sue over the App Store trademark?

One wrinkle in that whole debacle was that the screenshots for Lindows looked like Windows. Some random dude going to Walmart and looking at the box for a Lindows equipped computer could think he's getting a machine compatible with the laptops he saw in the other aisle. Unless this other App Store is somehow making people think they're buying something they're not (I have trouble imagining that...) that could very well be a big enough distinction.

But Microsoft does sue companies that make products with names similar to Windows. They sued Lindows. If Microsoft can successfully sue over the Windows trademark, why can't Apple successfully sue over the App Store trademark?

Microsoft couldn't successfully sue over the Windows trademark. Microsoft lost that case [citation], and after 2 more years of trying to appeal the decision they eventually gave up and bought the Lindows trademark for $20 million [citation] instead.

But Microsoft does sue companies that make products with names similar to Windows. They sued Lindows. If Microsoft can successfully sue over the Windows trademark, why can't Apple successfully sue over the App Store trademark?

If I remember correctly in MS vs Lindows, the court agreed with Lindows.com, Inc that "Windows" was generic enough to be challenged as a trademark. The case was settled but it would have not been likely to have survive an actual challenge as "Windows" in computer UI has been around for decades longer than Microsoft. MS however would likely be able to defend "Microsoft Windows" as a trademark.

Why do you think that the ITC is slower than a court? It's an administrative court, and administrative courts are almost *faster* than regular courts. The ITC court is no exception.

http://www.finnegan.com/ITCSection337InvestigationsPractice/

"ITC Section 337 cases have expedited procedural schedules. Most district courts provide two or more years to prepare for patent infringement trials (at least a year in the fastest courts), but ITC cases routinely proceed to trial about 10 months after filing the complaint. Since trials trigger settlements, the average time to settlement is fast in the ITC. The administrative law judges announce their initial decisions about three months after trial, the commission issues its final decision and any remedial orders about four months later, and the entire proceeding is typically completed in about 15-18 months."

Lets pretend that person A has made the invention first and has decided not to apply a patent for it (keeping the invention secret) and B later files the paperwork and gets granted a patent. In first-to-file system A can later come and make the patent void due to prior art but he cannot claim the patent as his own.

Actually, I don't believe that to be the case, though I could be wrong, as patents are not my field, and I'm having to rely on what I learned about them in school.

Rather, what happens is that A invents first, and diligently works on his patent application, which he typically has one year to do. During that time, B independently comes up with the same thing, and being quicker to do the paperwork, gets his application mailed in sooner. The interference cannot arise until A sends in his application, and now there is a fight as to which one of them will get the patent. A isn't being rewarded for keeping a secret, he's just being rewarded as a normal inventor, albeit a slower one than B when it comes to patent filings (which are often done right up to the time limits anyway, as I understand it)

What doesn't happen is that A can keep an invention secret yet also prevent B from getting a patent. IIRC, A would have to publicize the invention to at least some extent in order for it to be the right kind of prior art to bar B.

There is a decent-looking discussion of interferences here, which you might want to review so that you get a better idea of just what it actually means. In particular there is a section about the effect of concealment or abandonment.

As for something being simple enough that two people independently come up with it, that's just stupid. The simplicity of an invention isn't relevant, and often very good inventions are quite simple. The obviousness of an invention, OTOH, is important, but there's no reason to believe that a patent is obvious merely because two people had the same idea at the same time. That can just be coincidence. Remember that obviousness is when _non-innovative_ study of the prior art would lead you to the invention. That is, if someone with no inventive imagination whatsoever could have thought of it at the time of the invention, then it is obvious. This is often not the case.

phillymjs writes
"We're probably all familiar with Uzi Nissan and his fight to keep his nissan.com domain name from the clutches of Nissan Motors. Well, more same-name idiocy came to light today..."

I'm normally 100% on the side of the small guy but Uzi Nissan initially bought it for his own, private family business but -- and this is the important part -- he "modified its website to include a 'Nissan Computer' logo that was allegedly confusingly similar to plaintiff's logo and also included numerous banner advertisements linking to various automobile-related websites."

So let's not have a knee-jerk reaction which stipulates that "small guy good, big guy bad" (four legs good, two legs better?) every time push comes to shove. When we do, we start looking like reactionaries and that is the most effective way to discredit us as a group.

Believe me, you do not want this kind of case settled sole on the basis of who-filed-first. If we took that approach, we'd all be paying half our income to the holders of submarine patents.