"can any of the americans explain this to us here ?"
I didn't do it. I don't approve of it. I don't know where it came from, and maybe not even what the hell it is. Yet somehow I feel responsible. We suck.
In more recent developments, Solo is granted summary judgment. BNet's cited blog post must have missed it.
http://www.williamsmullen.com/rocketdocketiplit/blog.aspx?topic=63&All=null&IsListParentTopic=true "Last week, in a case it described as one of "practically first impression," the Eastern District of Virginia granted summary judgment in favor of Solo Cup Co. that it was not liable for improper patent marking under 35 U.S.C. 292(a). Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co., No 1:07cv897-LMB/TCB (E.D. Va. July 2, 2009). The Court agreed with Solo that the advice of counsel it received to replace patent-marking molds with non-marking molds in a gradual fashion was reasonable. Solo's overall conduct was held to evidence a lack of intent to deceive the public. The Court also held that an "offense" under the statute is the overall decision to mark improperly, thereby rejecting Pequignot's argument that Solo should be penalized for each and every lid it marked."
"Solo also prevailed on summary judgment with respect to its fallback position, namely, that even if there were intent to deceive the public, the offenses punishable under the statute are the decisions to mark improperly, not each and every marking of a product. Thus, in an alternative holding, the Court decided that the maximum amount of damages for which Solo could be liable is $1500."
And in a recent article by Law Professor Thomas Field, http://www.ipfrontline.com/printtemplate.asp?id=24082 "The opinion in Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co., 646 F.Supp.2d 790 (E.D. Va. 2009) (Pequignot III), a case resolved last August, and now on appeal, signals a very different, perhaps more typical view of those who seek to recover under section 292(b). There, the court grants summary judgment for Solo because it was unable to find deceptive intent."
I especially like this side note: "For additional absurdity, imagine further that the Industry actually got judgments of $18 million in damages from roughly 30,000 teenagers, which is approximately the number of lawsuits they filed against consumers until the end of 2008. That would mean they had outstanding judgments for $540 billion dollars - or more than the total revenue the recording industry can expect to earn in about 50 years at its current size of $11 billion per year."
And yet, in view of so many incomprehensible RIAA decisions to date, it's hard to be hopeful.
I used to read the strip, and being a newly minted patent attorney, appreciated all the great b.s. that his dad in the strip would just make up. "What a great kid!" I would think while reading Calvin's adventures and inventions, "I'd love to have a kid like that!" So my second son is named "Calvin." And by cracky, he was JUST like the comic kid, in looks and temperment! How lucky could I have gotten? Then, in something like 1990, every comic strip in the paper on December 3 (my birthday) had a birthday theme! WFT? It was uncanny; obviously somebody involved in comics had a birthday conspiracy. Well, every strip except one. Calvin and Hobbes did not relate at all to birthdays, but it contained the biggest present, as it was the strip which made it clear that Calvin's dad was, in fact, a patent attorney! In the strip, his dad is reading some sort of pleading or opinion regarding patent infringement.
As it turns out, I understand Watterson's dad was and still is (?) a patent attorney, and many of the stories in the strip were based on his own childhood.
My Calvin is now 21 years, so as much as I love the comic, I at least have the certainty of knowing how Calvin turned out. He's OK!
The CAFC (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) is apparantly getting a bit fed up with the EDTX Court. In In Re Hoffman-Laroche (http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/09-M911.pdf), they slapped them around for not transferring the case to a District (EDNC) which actually had a "meaningful local interest" in the dispute. Here's a quote which hints at their annoyance (plus the fact that it's kind of a slap in the face to highlight a spelling/grammar error when quoting from a lower Court's opinion).
The Eastern District of North Carolina's interest in this matter is self-evident. Meanwhile, it is undisputed that this case has no relevant factual connection to the Eastern District of Texas. The district court ignored this significant contrast, reasoning that "where a number of private interest factors weigh heavily in one direction, that venue has a slightly greater local interest," but "[w]here, however, the factors do not weigh heavily in one direction of [sic] the other, no one venue has more or less a meaningful connection to the case than any other." By relying exclusively on how other forum non conveniens factors weigh, rather than assessing the locale's connection to the cause of action, the district court essentially rendered this factor meaningless. Therefore, because the Eastern District of North Carolina has a meaningful local interest in adjudicating the dispute and no meaningful connection exists with the Eastern District of Texas, this factor also favors transfer.
and this one
Meanwhile, there appears to be no connection between this case and the Eastern District of Texas except that in anticipation of this litigation, Novartis' counsel in California converted into electronic format 75,000 pages of documents demonstrating conception and reduction to practice and transferred them to the offices of its litigation counsel in Texas. But, if not for this litigation, it appears that the documents would have remained a source of proof in California. Thus, the assertion that these documents are "Texas" documents is a fiction which appears to be have been created to manipulate the propriety of venue. This type of tactic was clearly counseled against in Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 612 (1964). There, the Supreme Court explained that Section 1404(a) "should be construed to prevent parties who are opposed to a change of venue from defeating a transfer which, but for their own deliberate acts or omissions, would be proper, convenient and just." Id. at 625. A plaintiff's attempts to manipulate venue in anticipation of litigation or a motion to transfer falls squarely within these prohibited activities. The district court's contrary position here has no legally rational basis and prevents 1404(a) from carrying "out its design to protect litigants, witnesses and the public against unnecessary inconvenience and expense.
Add to this decision (handed down 12/2), the even more recent decision H-P v. Acceleron (12/4, Fed. Cir.) which makes it easier to file for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement (in your choice of Court) if you are -ahem- "threatened" by a patent troll, and it seems that the Fed Circuit it trying rein in what may be considered a rogue court. Note that these decisions don't really concern EDTX's disposition of the cases, but the question "WTF is this case doing in Marshall, Texas?"
"Quantification of mutation rates, examination of which regions mutate quickly and which are highly conserved, and the like are all legitimate and nonobvious."
"Really there are only two sources of energy here on earth:
-Solar -Nuclear
Even geothermal is powered by the heat of the earth's core, which is itself powered by radioactivity. (I guess one could argue that the radioactive elements were formed in a star, making them solar as well, but that's a bit too far for me.)"
U.S. patent law (35 U.S.C.) does not require, per se, "Inventive Step." "Inventive Step" (a requirement in Europe, for example) is roughly equivalent to the U.S. standard of nonobviousness.
Typical. kdawson hasn't a clue about Intellectual Property issues, yet posts constantly and inaccurately about them.
Firstly, the lawyer did not "sue" to get a patent. The application was (appropriately) rejected by the patent examiner. The applicant appealed the rejection to the PTO Board of Appeals and the rejection was upheld. The applicant then appealed that rejection to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), which applied Bilski to uphold the rejection again. Despite the fact that a court was involved, this was not a "lawsuit."
Rather than appealling to the CAFC, the applicant could have filed a civil action against the Commissioner of Patents in the DC Circuit Court. This would be considered a lawsuit.
The only story here should be that the Patent system worked.
And please, please, STOP posting articles with headlines announcing that somebody "won" a patent. Patents are issued or allowed.
"Beer is doable, but not all that easy to make at home. You have to build at least a minimal apparatus, and you have to employ some fairly stringent (for a home environment) anti-contamination protocols. It takes time, and the end result usually ends up tasting a little better than horse piss."
Horse piss?? "build"? Extract brewing is very easy, and with Star-san even the aseptic technique is a breeze. You don't have to "build" anything, and can get by with purchasing about 25 bucks worth of gear for a basic setup. And frankly, unless you do something very stupid, the worst home brew will be better than almost anything you can buy. And there are probably over a million homebrewers in the U.S.
Stop by and I'll give you a bottle or two my my "Black Hole Porter" which I'm bottling tonight.
Yes and no. Large companies generally use both in-house and outside patent counsel. The outside attorneys are retained for opinion work while the inside attorneys draft and prosecute the applications (speaking generally). IBM has something like 200 internal patent attorneys (from a quick search of the USPTO attorney/agent roster). Figure an average cost of 200k/year (salaries, benefits, overhead cost) per lawyer, and 10 patent applications per year, and the 20k/year/application might be just about right.
Then there are the costs of foreign applications. Every patent (application) is evaluated for potential importance, and a corresponding level of foreign filing is determined. Even a small breadth of foreign filing is expensive, and a large foreign filing can cost upwards of 100k or more.
And once again, the headline is moronic. How does IBM "win" patents? In a poker game?
This should be old news, but seems to be arcane knowledge for most people.
I coach runners and have worked at a camp for HS XC runners about 20 years. Back in the day, we had a lot of overuse injuries over the course of a week of 2-3 daily runs, with lots of hills. About 16 years ago, Jim Wharton (aistretch.com) introduced us to his active-isolated stretching methods. The injury rate went down 95% that first year and has remained at the same level ever since. It is truly miraculous in helping prevent and rehabilitate injuries. I've been running for almost 40 years, and no longer suffer from the chronic injuries I would always incur as a youth.
1) Never hold a stretch near the limit of your range of motion for more than a second or two. 2) Manipulate the exercising limb with the muscle which is antagonistic to the one you're trying to stretch - if you contract a muscle, its antagonist will automatically relax, allowing a fuller stretch. You can assist slightly at the end of the stretch for a greater range of motion (we use ropes). This also strengthens the contracting muscle and helps the stretch be part of your active warmup. 3) Try to relax all other muscles so they don't interfere.
Proper stretching does indeed warm up your muscles, lubricates your joints, and keeps you healthy so you can train more and kick butt.
Thanks Jim, for teaching me the fountain of youth and helping thousands of athletes succeed.
In a followup story, MTV recently announced that all adjectives and proper nouns will be redacted from songs. As said by an MTV spokesman, "In our -bleeeep- society, we must protect ourselves from -bleeeep- lawsuits. This is a -bleeeep- concept which will, no doubt, -bleeep- -bleeeep- and -bleeep-."
Slashdot Mirror
"can any of the americans explain this to us here ?"
I didn't do it. I don't approve of it. I don't know where it came from, and maybe not even what the hell it is.
Yet somehow I feel responsible.
We suck.
"I swear, Thick as a Brick should be a Jethro Tull song, not a description of record company executives...."
An album which makes the case for the superiority of vinyl (packaging).
In more recent developments, Solo is granted summary judgment. BNet's cited blog post must have missed it.
http://www.williamsmullen.com/rocketdocketiplit/blog.aspx?topic=63&All=null&IsListParentTopic=true
"Last week, in a case it described as one of "practically first impression," the Eastern District of Virginia granted summary judgment in favor of Solo Cup Co. that it was not liable for improper patent marking under 35 U.S.C. 292(a). Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co., No 1:07cv897-LMB/TCB (E.D. Va. July 2, 2009). The Court agreed with Solo that the advice of counsel it received to replace patent-marking molds with non-marking molds in a gradual fashion was reasonable. Solo's overall conduct was held to evidence a lack of intent to deceive the public. The Court also held that an "offense" under the statute is the overall decision to mark improperly, thereby rejecting Pequignot's argument that Solo should be penalized for each and every lid it marked."
"Solo also prevailed on summary judgment with respect to its fallback position, namely, that even if there were intent to deceive the public, the offenses punishable under the statute are the decisions to mark improperly, not each and every marking of a product. Thus, in an alternative holding, the Court decided that the maximum amount of damages for which Solo could be liable is $1500."
And in a recent article by Law Professor Thomas Field, http://www.ipfrontline.com/printtemplate.asp?id=24082
"The opinion in Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co., 646 F.Supp.2d 790 (E.D. Va. 2009) (Pequignot III), a case resolved last August, and now on appeal, signals a very different, perhaps more typical view of those who seek to recover under section 292(b). There, the court grants summary judgment for Solo because it was unable to find deceptive intent."
I especially like this side note:
"For additional absurdity, imagine further that the Industry actually got
judgments of $18 million in damages from roughly 30,000 teenagers, which is
approximately the number of lawsuits they filed against consumers until the end of 2008.
That would mean they had outstanding judgments for $540 billion dollars - or more than
the total revenue the recording industry can expect to earn in about 50 years at its current
size of $11 billion per year."
And yet, in view of so many incomprehensible RIAA decisions to date, it's hard to be hopeful.
They don't throw the money into the bowl. Major corporations are people. The kind that eat souls and crap money.
I used to read the strip, and being a newly minted patent attorney, appreciated all the great b.s. that his dad in the strip would just make up. "What a great kid!" I would think while reading Calvin's adventures and inventions, "I'd love to have a kid like that!" So my second son is named "Calvin." And by cracky, he was JUST like the comic kid, in looks and temperment! How lucky could I have gotten? Then, in something like 1990, every comic strip in the paper on December 3 (my birthday) had a birthday theme! WFT? It was uncanny; obviously somebody involved in comics had a birthday conspiracy. Well, every strip except one. Calvin and Hobbes did not relate at all to birthdays, but it contained the biggest present, as it was the strip which made it clear that Calvin's dad was, in fact, a patent attorney! In the strip, his dad is reading some sort of pleading or opinion regarding patent infringement.
As it turns out, I understand Watterson's dad was and still is (?) a patent attorney, and many of the stories in the strip were based on his own childhood.
My Calvin is now 21 years, so as much as I love the comic, I at least have the certainty of knowing how Calvin turned out. He's OK!
it having only one mouse button.
The CAFC (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) is apparantly getting a bit fed up with the EDTX Court. In In Re Hoffman-Laroche (http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/09-M911.pdf), they slapped them around for not transferring the case to a District (EDNC) which actually had a "meaningful local interest" in the dispute. Here's a quote which hints at their annoyance (plus the fact that it's kind of a slap in the face to highlight a spelling/grammar error when quoting from a lower Court's opinion).
The Eastern District of North Carolina's interest in this matter is self-evident. Meanwhile, it is undisputed that this case has no relevant factual connection to the Eastern District of Texas. The district court ignored this significant contrast, reasoning that "where a number of private interest factors weigh heavily in one direction, that venue has a slightly greater local interest," but "[w]here, however, the factors do not weigh heavily in one direction of [sic] the other, no one venue has more or less a meaningful connection to the case than any other." By relying exclusively on how other forum non conveniens factors weigh, rather than assessing the locale's connection to the cause of action, the district court essentially rendered this factor meaningless. Therefore, because the Eastern District of North Carolina has a meaningful local interest in adjudicating the dispute and no meaningful connection exists with the Eastern District of Texas, this factor also favors transfer.
and this one
Meanwhile, there appears to be no connection between this case and the Eastern District of Texas except that in anticipation of this litigation, Novartis' counsel in California converted into electronic format 75,000 pages of documents demonstrating conception and reduction to practice and transferred them to the offices of its litigation counsel in Texas. But, if not for this litigation, it appears that the documents would have remained a source of proof in California. Thus, the assertion that these documents are "Texas" documents is a fiction which appears to be have been created to manipulate the propriety of venue.
This type of tactic was clearly counseled against in Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 612 (1964). There, the Supreme Court explained that Section 1404(a) "should be construed to prevent parties who are opposed to a change of venue from defeating a transfer which, but for their own deliberate acts or omissions, would be proper, convenient and just." Id. at 625. A plaintiff's attempts to manipulate venue in anticipation of litigation or a motion to transfer falls squarely within these prohibited activities. The district court's contrary position here has no legally rational basis and prevents 1404(a) from carrying "out its design to protect litigants, witnesses and the public against unnecessary inconvenience and expense.
Add to this decision (handed down 12/2), the even more recent decision H-P v. Acceleron (12/4, Fed. Cir.) which makes it easier to file for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement (in your choice of Court) if you are -ahem- "threatened" by a patent troll, and it seems that the Fed Circuit it trying rein in what may be considered a rogue court. Note that these decisions don't really concern EDTX's disposition of the cases, but the question "WTF is this case doing in Marshall, Texas?"
So they're patentable?
"Quantification of mutation rates, examination of which regions mutate quickly and which are highly conserved, and the like are all legitimate and nonobvious."
Solar = Nuclear
"Really there are only two sources of energy here on earth:
-Solar
-Nuclear
Even geothermal is powered by the heat of the earth's core, which is itself powered by radioactivity. (I guess one could argue that the radioactive elements were formed in a star, making them solar as well, but that's a bit too far for me.)"
They will find flaws
U.S. patent law (35 U.S.C.) does not require, per se, "Inventive Step." "Inventive Step" (a requirement in Europe, for example) is roughly equivalent to the U.S. standard of nonobviousness.
Yes. Yes they can.
and
No. No they can't.
I would, as number (0) understanding what is and what isn't science.
insert "add" after --would--
I would, as number (0) understanding what is and what isn't science.
Obvious example: "intelligent design"
flamebait???
Typical. kdawson hasn't a clue about Intellectual Property issues, yet posts constantly and inaccurately about them.
Firstly, the lawyer did not "sue" to get a patent. The application was (appropriately) rejected by the patent examiner. The applicant appealed the rejection to the PTO Board of Appeals and the rejection was upheld. The applicant then appealed that rejection to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), which applied Bilski to uphold the rejection again. Despite the fact that a court was involved, this was not a "lawsuit."
Rather than appealling to the CAFC, the applicant could have filed a civil action against the Commissioner of Patents in the DC Circuit Court. This would be considered a lawsuit.
The only story here should be that the Patent system worked.
And please, please, STOP posting articles with headlines announcing that somebody "won" a patent. Patents are issued or allowed.
In a poker game?
"Beer is doable, but not all that easy to make at home. You have to build at least a minimal apparatus, and you have to employ some fairly stringent (for a home environment) anti-contamination protocols. It takes time, and the end result usually ends up tasting a little better than horse piss."
Horse piss?? "build"? Extract brewing is very easy, and with Star-san even the aseptic technique is a breeze. You don't have to "build" anything, and can get by with purchasing about 25 bucks worth of gear for a basic setup. And frankly, unless you do something very stupid, the worst home brew will be better than almost anything you can buy. And there are probably over a million homebrewers in the U.S.
Stop by and I'll give you a bottle or two my my "Black Hole Porter" which I'm bottling tonight.
mmm...beer
Yes and no. Large companies generally use both in-house and outside patent counsel. The outside attorneys are retained for opinion work while the inside attorneys draft and prosecute the applications (speaking generally). IBM has something like 200 internal patent attorneys (from a quick search of the USPTO attorney/agent roster). Figure an average cost of 200k/year (salaries, benefits, overhead cost) per lawyer, and 10 patent applications per year, and the 20k/year/application might be just about right.
Then there are the costs of foreign applications. Every patent (application) is evaluated for potential importance, and a corresponding level of foreign filing is determined. Even a small breadth of foreign filing is expensive, and a large foreign filing can cost upwards of 100k or more.
And once again, the headline is moronic. How does IBM "win" patents? In a poker game?
IAAPA
And it's got only only one mouse button!
This should be old news, but seems to be arcane knowledge for most people.
I coach runners and have worked at a camp for HS XC runners about 20 years. Back in the day, we had a lot of overuse injuries over the course of a week of 2-3 daily runs, with lots of hills. About 16 years ago, Jim Wharton (aistretch.com) introduced us to his active-isolated stretching methods. The injury rate went down 95% that first year and has remained at the same level ever since. It is truly miraculous in helping prevent and rehabilitate injuries. I've been running for almost 40 years, and no longer suffer from the chronic injuries I would always incur as a youth.
1) Never hold a stretch near the limit of your range of motion for more than a second or two.
2) Manipulate the exercising limb with the muscle which is antagonistic to the one you're trying to stretch - if you contract a muscle, its antagonist will automatically relax, allowing a fuller stretch. You can assist slightly at the end of the stretch for a greater range of motion (we use ropes). This also strengthens the contracting muscle and helps the stretch be part of your active warmup.
3) Try to relax all other muscles so they don't interfere.
Proper stretching does indeed warm up your muscles, lubricates your joints, and keeps you healthy so you can train more and kick butt.
Thanks Jim, for teaching me the fountain of youth and helping thousands of athletes succeed.
In a followup story, MTV recently announced that all adjectives and proper nouns will be redacted from songs. As said by an MTV spokesman, "In our -bleeeep- society, we must protect ourselves from -bleeeep- lawsuits. This is a -bleeeep- concept which will, no doubt, -bleeep- -bleeeep- and -bleeep-."
A local radio station (northern NH) bleeps out the the words "white boy" after "Play that funky music...."
That's when I turn the dial to NPR.
the Republican party generally favors far less government than the Democrats.
So they keep yelling. Their actions, however, indicate quite the opposite.