Tag >> United States
The USPTO announced on April 13, 2009, the continuation of the patent prosecution high-way (PPH) with IP Australia. The PPH with IP Australia, dated April 14, 2008, allows an applicant whose patent has been granted in IP Australia, to have the corresponding application flied in the USPTO to be advanced out of line for examination. The PPH has been extended in order to allow the USPTO to adequately assess the feasibility or the PPH pilot program. The PPH between the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and the USPTO was also extended and a similar cooperation with the German patent office was declared on April 14, 2009. Other countries participating in PPH programs with one or more other national patent offices include the European Union, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Japan, and
St. Louis based cable television provider, Charter Communications INC has filed a lawsuit against the prominent phone services provider, Verizon communications INC. Charter is claiming that Verizon's VOD services infringe 4 of Charter's patents. The said patents cover VOD services, billing for VOD services and data transmission. Various sources claim that Charter, who did not file similar lawsuits against any other cable TV providers, is trying to cut back losses emanating from a direct competition with Verizon over the high-speed Internet costumers. In February 2007, Verizon sued Charter claiming that Charter's telephone services over a data network infringe 8 of Verizon patents. This case is still pending.
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
Posted by: Zeev Fisher in USPTO, US, United States, PPH on
Dec 20, 2008
Hi all! Pendency periods in the USPTO have been awful within the last few years. It is a repeating scenario for all of us to sit in front of a client who never filed a patent application and advise him that he should expect 2-4 years before the first office action. Some clients are shocked. Some merely accept that this is a fact of life. Lately, things are changing. While there is no improvement what so ever in pendency periods, the USPTO has replaced the old "petitions to make special" system and is trying various programs to improve examination. The candy is acceleration - your application steps out of the line and becomes first. Applicant's age or health Out of the old system, the only "survivors" are petitions to make special (to accelerate) based on the applicant's age (above 65) or
Posted by: Ophir Tal in USPTO, US, United States, United Kingdom, UK-IPO, UK, russia, PPH, Patent Prosecution Highway, Patent Prosecution, patent, Japan, Israel, intellectual property, Great Britain, Europe, EPO, Denemark, Canada, Austria, Australia on
Dec 08, 2008
A new decision by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences states that a business method that uses a computer to manage a process is not patentable, when the "transformation" is of legal rights. To read the full Ex parte Halligan decision, click here. In addition, BPAI states again that a general purpose computer is not a "machine" for the purposes of bilski. While it seem evident that the BPAI grows more and more anti-patent, I am not sure bilski really went so far, and it will be interesting to see what happens of this case or a similar case reaches the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. For the time being, we are expecting even more difficult prosecution of software patents in the United
PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT: Jennifer Rankin Byrne or Ruth Nyblod
Phone: (571) 272-8400 or jennifer.rankin_byrne@uspto.gov or Ruth.Nyblod@uspto.gov
| November 03, 2008
#08-39 |
USPTO and DKPTO to Pilot Patent Prosecution Highway
Trial program to improve quality and pendency at both offices
Washington, D.C. - The Commerce Department's United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO) today announced that they intend to launch a new trial cooperation initiative called the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) today. The Patent Prosecution Highway will leverage fast-track patent examination procedures already available in both offices to allow applicants to obtain corresponding patents faster and more efficiently. It also will permit each office to exploit the |
The USPTO and the European Patent Office (EPO) have agreed to launch a patent prosecution highway (PPH) pilot program similar to the PPH pilot programs between the USPTO and the patent offices of Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Korea, and Australia. An exception is that PCT international applications (including national stage applications filed under 35 U.S.C. 371) are excluded. This PPH pilot program will commence on September 29, 2008, and continue for a period of one year ending on September 29, 2009. The trial period may be extended for up to an additional year if necessary to adequately assess the feasibility of the PPH program. Details of the PPH can be found here. The Law Office of Michael E. Kondoudis, PC Washington Patent Attorney
The USPTO has developed a system to administer continuing legal education to practitioners. This system, entitled the "Continuing Education for Practitioners" or ("CEP") system, is intended to "increase efficiency, reduce pendency, and improve quality in the patent process." The USPTO states that the CEP system is "built on the recognition that a smoothly operating patent system requires well-qualified USPTO personnel working hand-in-hand with up-to-date patent practitioners." The USPTO asked for volunteers to participate in a pilot test of an on-line system to administer the CEP system. 850 registered practitioners helped evaluate the system and provide feedback concerning the system's ease of use and the usefulness of the educational materials. Importantly, participants in the pilot
Innocent infringement of Copyrights reduces damages for the Infringer: US Court reduced damages for infringement of copyrights by downloading of music over the notorious KaZaA , to a good 200$ per downloaded infringed song (the 750$-30,000$ per song normally allowed under the Copyright Act) in the case of Whitney Harper a sixteen year old of innocence. The Judge has claimed that since the infringement was "an innocent infringement" the damage per each infringed song track downloaded is significantly reduced. To read more about it you can enter this
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