Patent - Page 6
This is FindLaw's collection of Patent articles, part of the Intellectual Property section of the Corporate Counsel Center. Law articles in this archive are predominantly written by lawyers for a professional audience seeking business solutions to legal issues. Start your free research with FindLaw.
Intellectual Property
Patent Articles
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Last month in this column I reviewed the rationales for intellectual property (IP) laws. In essence, I explained that patents, copyrights and trade secrets provide various degrees of protection for intangible assets such as information; without these laws, the incentive to create knowledge-based products would diminish as free-riders could simply rip off the efforts of the initial developers. -
When a company receives a cease-and-desist letter, the most dreaded question that intellectual property counsel must answer is, "What is this patent suit going to cost us?" While a traditional cost-benefit analysis may be used to calculate the settlement value of a case, the evolution of unorthodox twists in traditional patent litigation may affect your answer and change the valuation of the case and the possibility of settling at an early stage. -
Companies and universities use the GeneChip ‚ array in the laboratory for research, particularly for drug discovery purposes and detecting polymorphisms. The GeneChip ‚ array is also used for diagnostic purposes; however, more diagnostic applications will likely be developed in the future. Researching drug discovery is the most common application at present. -
Ronald Schutz, Chairman of the Intellectual Property Litigation Department at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P., engaged the audience in a lively panel on Patent Litigation: Views from the Bar and Bench on Strategy, Tactics, Trends and Concerns, together with Judge Saris of the Massachusetts District Court and Matthew Lowrie, Chair of the Litigation Practice Group at Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. -
Edward J. Kelly, a partner at Ropes & Gray, led an informative discussion focusing on both patent asset management and the relationship between inside and outside counsel. Together with Marc Foodman, Chief Patent Counsel at Sun Microsystems, Inc., they focused the lively discussion on the following topics: IP Department infrastructure, patent asset management, settlement strategies and coordinating litigation. -
Records of Technological and Business Developments Can Come in Handy in A Patent Infringement Suit, Even If The Company Keeping The Records has No Intention of Filing for A Patent -
Patents for business methods and software are under attack by a variety of critics. -
The first reported effort by an American physician to enforce a medical method patent against a colleague failed last month in a federal district court in Burlington, Vermont. Judge William Sessions III ruled, in the landmark case, that an eye surgeon who used a patented procedure for stitchless cataract incisions on a patient was not liable to the physician-plaintiff for infringement. The closely-watched case had prompted Congress last fall to consider legislation that would ban or severely restrict the utility and profitability of patents on medical or surgical procedures. -
The "willful" infringement of a patent enables the plaintiff to collect treble damages, as well as attorneys' fees. On September 13, 2004, in Knorr-Bremse Systems Fuer Nutzfahrzeuge GmbH v. Dana Corp., the Federal Circuit overturned 18 years of precedent on how to establish willful infringement in patent cases. After reviewing about 24 amicus curiae briefs, the virtually unanimous en banc court held that when the attorney-client privilege and/or work-product privilege is invoked by a defendant in a patent infringement suit who had sought advice on infringement, it is inappropriate for the trier-of-fact to draw an adverse inference with respect to willful infringement when the opinion is withheld. -
Traditionally, the old adage "publish or perish" has governed a person's success in academia. Nowadays, most colleges have a new mantra when scientific inventions are involved. As universities continue to partner with businesses to commercialize their discoveries by patenting them, the new academic motto is perhaps "publish and perish." Under the Patent Act, an invention described in a "printed publication" more than one year before the filing date of a patent application will bar a patent on the invention.