Illinois computer research (ICR) is suing Oprah Winfrew's book club over an allegedly patent infringement.
The ICR patent titled Enhancing touch and feel on the Internet, was filed in 2000 and granted in 2006. The patent describes a way to provide a three-dimensional representation of an item from multiple perspectives and contemplates on how the aforementioned technology can be used to display books online.
ICR also sued Google over the same patent in 2007 claiming that Google's book service is an infringement of their patent.
Back in 2007, Google policy counsel and legislative strategist, Johanna Sheldon called for a patent reform that would free technology based companies like Google from patents
World.com. creator of technology for online 3D virtual gaming, filed a lawsuit against NCSoft Corporation a Texas based game developing company.
NCSoft's games such as 'World of Heroes', 'Dungeon Runners' and 'Guild Wars' are all said to violate a US patent owned by World. Com titled "System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space". Curiously enough, one of the MCSoft Games mentioned in the lawsuit was created in 1998, two years before the World.com's patent was filed.
The broadly worded World.Com patent was granted in 2007 and relates to computer architecture for a 3D graphical virtual world system intended for interactive multi-user gaming. The technology enables the manipulation of the player's avatar in a way that alters the character perspective and allows
A new patent ruling is likely to have a big impact on business method and software patents.
The U.S court of appeals upheld a decision of the U.S patent office that denied a patent from an applicant named Bernard L Bilsky, an owner of a small company called Weatherwise. The patent application comprises a mathematical model that enables managing bad weather risks in the commodity market.
The Bilsky patent was not tied to any form of technology and had some serious obviousness problems thus rendering it to be a perfect test case for those interested in eliminating the possibility of business method and software patents.
The court ruled that the Bilsky patent has no machine or transformation of a substance involved. In effect, their patent application didn't involve what the court called
Ranbaxy Laboratories, an India based Drug Company and Pfizer have settled a court dispute over Lipitor, cholesterol lowering drug. The dispute started in 2003 regarding a generic version of the drug that was marketed by Ranbaxy.
Pfizer also sue Ranbaxy over patents expiring in 2016 regarding the active ingredient in Lipidor.
The Settlement allows Ranbaxy to market the generic version in 2011, keeping copies of the cholesterol pill of the U.S market for an extra 20 months thus protecting 12 billion in sales to Pfizer. The aforementioned settlement also allows Ranbaxy to sell the generic drug on various dates in seven other countries including Canada, Australia and Germany.
Pfizer and Ranbaxy also agreed that Ranbaxy will stop contesting the validity of Pfizer patents in several specified
Posted by: Eyval Aldema in politics, China on
Jun 01, 2008
Many internet based companies cooperate with the Chinese government in its efforts to limit the freedoms of the Chinese citizens.
Lately, EPIC, a US based civil rights organization, published that Cisco will be questioned by a senate subcommittee about an internal document that links Cisco with the Chinese governments' internet censorship policy.
In a interview for blogger Rebecca Mackinnon, confirm Terry Alberstein, director of corporate affairs, Cisco systems, that Cisco pamphlets promoting police surveillance equipment to the Chinese public security bureau were authentic and that Cisco does make business with the Chinese government but that all the equipment that is sold is legal and is not actually prohibited under the US Foreign relation authorization ACT.
I guess making money by
Posted by: Eyval Aldema in Untagged on
Feb 25, 2008
Cleveland Clinic, an academic medical institution, has announced collaboration with Google to a pilot an online system for managing patient's medical records. The medical records of 10,000 patients enrolled in the pilot will be stored in Google profiles enabling a secure web access to medical info data such as prescription, medical conditions and allergies. The pilot is intended to enable interaction between the patients and various healthcare providers including physicians and pharmacies. Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products and User Experience, Google, says that Google choose Cleveland Clinic because they have already supplied their patients with services that help them manage their medical records online. The Google-Cleveland collaboration will help Google test features and
Posted by: Eyval Aldema in WIPO, Patents on
Feb 20, 2008
The 2007 patent report issued by WIPO revealed a growth in worldwide patent activity of an average annual rate of 4.7% since 1995 to a total number of 1.6 million patents filed in 2005. Patent granted worldwide have increased at an average annual rate of 3.6% in 2005. The growth in patent filing is correlated with a matching increase in economic activity over the same period. US, China, Japan, Korea and the European patent office are accounting for 77% of all patents filed and 74% of all patents granted, with the US and Japan as the leading countries. Increase in non-resident patent filling can also be seen in countries such as China, India, Mexico and the Russian Federation. The WIPO report also reveal a continuous increase in the number of filing by patent applicant in their country of residence
Posted by: Eyval Aldema in cyberlaw, China on
Feb 03, 2008
A Chinese court has found a man guilty of stealing online game identities and using them to gain virtual possessions in an online multiplayer historical quest game.
The growing number of virtual property disputes in china has led to a call to legislate more concrete virtual property laws. The need for proper virtual property laws has also arised because of the Chinese government intention to create a massive virtual world network in order to promote Chinese businesses in the real world and to attract foreign corporations to china.
The Chinese government's growing awareness of the need to protect virtual property rights is part of a Chinese revival in the area of protection of intellectual property rights, that has started in the legislation
The U.K intellectual property office has launched a new service that allows downloading of certified copies of patent applications on their day of publication. All patents published from 1 January will be available for downloading. The service also provides recent updates regarding late declarations of priority.
UK-IPO also launched a new web filing system that enables users to apply for patents online and to request a search and examination of their patent application. The new filing system enables to request entering of an international patent application to its UK national phase.
Further future enhancements of the aforementioned service will enable downloading of uncertified application's copies and filing of later filed forms via
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