100 posts
EU:n yhtenäispatentin käännösjärjestelyt
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Tarkastelemme sisämarkkinoiden (ensimmäisen) toimenpidepaktenin KOM(2011) 206 toteuttamista, johon blogimerkintä European Council and Single Market Act I tarjoaa yleissilmäyksen. Blogikirjoitukset EU:n yhtenäispatentti solmussa ja Yhtenäispat...
EU-patent med enhetlig verkan
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Inlägget Genomförandet av EU:s tillväxt och sysselsättningspakt presenterade bakgrunden. Kommissionens rapport till Europeiska rådet den 18-19 oktober 2012 om genomförandet erbjuder aningen mer detaljerad information om enskilda lagförslag och...
Yhtenäispatentti EU-maiden ”mestarinäyte”
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Miksi Eurooppa taantuu kun muu maailma kehittyy? Yhtenäisen patentin junnattua paikoillaan, Lissabonin sopimus avasi vihdoin eurooppalaisen yhdenmukaisen teollis- ja tekijänoikeuksien suojan tavalliselle lainsäädäntöjärjestykselle (määräene...
Europe's patent judges call for improvements to Draft Agreement on Unified Patent Court
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The IPJA's 1 November 2012 Resolution Following in the footsteps of the Max Planck Institute and AIPPI, the Intellectual Property Judges Association (IPJA) has today published its conclusions on the proposed Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Co...
EU:n yhtenäispatentti solmussa
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Kesäkuussa Eurooppa-neuvosto hyväksyi kasvu- ja työllisyyssopimuksen, jonka toimeenpanoon lokakuun huippukokous patisti: kirjoitus EU:n kasvu- ja työllisyyssopimuksen täytäntöönpano. Komission kertomus Eurooppa-neuvostolle 18.-19.10.2012 K...
AIPPI calls for CJEU status quo in unitary patent matters
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The ice sculpture at AIPPI's Gala Dinner glowing in Seoul last week The AmeriKat has just returned from a whirlwind trip in Asia which found her dancing Gagnam style in Seoul at this year's AIPPI (Association Internationale pour la...
International Trade and Constitutional Law in the USA: Non Article III Courts Encroaching Upon Essential Attributes of Judicial Power Contrary to U.S. Supreme Court Precedents : ITC and Patents
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There is no question that the U.S. International Trade Commission or ITC has the power to ban imports of devices to the USA that it sees as threats to domestic trade because of patent infringements established by Article III courts. It is equally cle...
The mess that is the European software patent
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Whatever happened to all those unending and vitriolic arguments over patent protection for software in Europe? The following is a special treat for those readers who yearn for those far-off days when anonymous and occasionally even named commen...
Blogs review: the patent war in IT
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Authors: Jérémie Cohen-Setton, Laurent EymardWhat’s at stake: Apple’s recent victory in its ongoing dispute over IP rights with Samsung has received a great deal of attention from regulators, academics and the media worldwide. It is, however, j...
Max Planck publishes Top 12 Reasons why the unitary patent proposals might prove "disastrous"
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The AmeriKat is a fan of Top 10 lists. Indeed every New Year's Day she hunkers down in her slipper boots in front of the television to watch the "Top Ten X of 201X" programming while she herself lists the Top 10 posts on IPKat for that year. As...
You made this mess, you clean it up: JURI pass the buck to Council to resolve the deadlock on the unitary patent
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The AmeriKat looking up at Lord Justice Kitchin in awe during his speech last Thursday While digesting her dinner at the CIPA President's Dinner on Thursday evening, the AmeriKat enjoyably listened in awe of Lord Justice Kitchin as h...
En modern innovationspolitik utan patent
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I fredags talade jag inför huvuddelen av Sveriges patentombud om vad Piratpartiet vill med patent, varumärken och upphovsrätt. Ingen ska beskylla mig för att enbart predika för kören. Även om jag inte direkt tror att jag lyckades övertyga jus...
Kan jag patentera min film?
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Den här texten skrev jag i januari 2004, under striden mot EU-direktivet som skulle ha legaliserat mjukvarupatent i Europa. Vi vann, och direktivet avslogs, men texten är lika aktuell idag, för praxis på det Europeiska Patentverket EPO har inte
Why Can’t I Patent My Movie?
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I wrote this text in January 2004, during the fight against the EU directive that would have legalised software patents in Europe. We won, and the directive was rejected, but the text is just as relevant today, since practice at the European Patent O...
Breaking: Updated Draft Agreement on Unified Patent Court published
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The AmeriKat waiting for the consolidated texts of the Draft Agreement and Proposed Regulation.... After months of waiting, this morning the Cypriot Presidency published the new draft of the Unified Patent Court agreement. The draft incorporates el...
Puzzled by comments in the UK, a German lawyer speaks out on the unitary patent
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A very weary AmeriKat takinga break on her unitary patentupdate papers The AmeriKat enjoys so many things about reporting on the unitary patent - the never-ending saga of not quite knowing what is going on, the always aggressively&nbs...
New Patent Law Rules of America Invents Act Go into Effect Today at the USPTO in the USA
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Seven new rules go into effect today (actually, already on Sunday) for American patents covering: inventor's oath or declaration, preissuance submissions, supplemental examination, citation of patent owner claim scope statements, post grant review, i...
Before or after the storm, patent litigation goes on ...
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Descent into the Maelstrom? No, just EU patent reform ... A year or so ago, European patent litigators were girding themselves for a frightening descent into the eddying, giddy vortex of European patent reform. Even so, the pace at which the winter...
The Infinity One "Wall" Bounce-Back from the Year 1993: Prior Art for the Obvious Non-Original Apple Bounce-Back Patent?
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What is the prior art and how original (non-obvious) is the bounce-back rubber-band scrolling patent for which Apple is currently collecting billions of dollars and stopping the import and sale of competing products with similar functions throughout...
Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder of Apple, Questions Sense of Apple Litigation for Very Small Things that are Really Not That Innovative as German Court Reaches Another Terrible Patent Decision in the EU
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Steve Wozniak was the tech inventor behind the founding of the Apple company while his mundane partner Steve Jobs understood how to sell technology to the uncritical masses, to steal from others usable technology that Apple itself did not have and to...
Two years on, the Patents County Court is ready for change
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The AmeriKat looking fondly over the Rolls Building glowing in autumnal hues This afternoon as the gentle autumnal light began illuminating the curling corners of the legal district of London, the AmeriKat was nestling into a seat on the 11th floor o...
Apple Patents, USPTO, Federal Circuit and the Patentability of Finger Pinches, Taps and Scrolling
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Just imagine if the makers of door handles and door knobs had been able to patent the hand motion required to open and close doors by them, or if producers of pens and pencils had been able to patent the various positions and motions of the hand in u...
Software Patents? No Thank You. PONG "ball image" Bounce-Back and Apple "text list" Bounce-Back: Is There a Patentable Non-Obvious Difference Not Anticipated by Prior Art? Of Course Not.
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We are strict opponents of patents for software and a "bounce-back" patent is one example of why software patents are absurd. (See our previous postings at PONG ! About that Ridiculously Granted Bounce-Back Scrolling Patent US 7469381 Which Is Antici...
Samsung Reportedly to Sue Apple Because of Possible LTE Patent Infringement Via the iPhone 5
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CNN Money writes that an iPhone5 from the "small" Apple is coming. Who cares? Anybody who buys Apple company products is gullibly subsidizing a monopolistic operation that is infringing upon the world's commercial freedoms through its declared "ther...
Tender Patents
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This Kat is vegetarian, but she was intrigued by the thought that, in the US, you could patent a steak. National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S. recently did a great 20-minute piece on patents associated with cuts of bambi's mother, oh, I mean meat.&n...
U.S. Patents Prior Art Obviousness: KSR : USPTO : Utility and Design : Form and Function : Look and Feel and What the Invention Does : The Ordinary Course Without Real Innovation is Not Patentable
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Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Albert Einstein on Creativity linked from Brandautopsy.com "Borrowing Brilliance" Jenson: Albert Einstein Quotes - The secret to crea...
Patents and Prior Art for Obvious Developments of the State of the Art in the Digital World: Atari Apple Sigma SLAC and the First Small Computers
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I am gratified to read at Forbes an article by Tim Worstall titled Did Steve Jobs Get That List Scrolling Bounce Back Patent From Atari? in which he refers to and quotes our posting at Lawpundit in PONG ! About that Ridiculously Granted Bounce-Back S...
Patents and Damages in the USA: Jury Award in Apple v. Samsung Vastly Overstates Real Worth of Patents Involved According to Professor Love
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Almost all Europeans in the legal profession raise their eyebrows in disbelief when they read about the ridiculously high damage awards issued in American courts. The Apple v. Samsung case in Cupertino is no exception. Professor Brian J. Love of the...
Patents County Court small claims track
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Following the IPKat's Friday Fantasies post enquiring about the status of the promised small claims track for the Patents County Court, Katpat to Philip Harris of Walker Morris who, after a not inconsiderable amount of digging has discovered that The...
Jury in Apple v. Samsung "Skipped" Prior Art Because It Was Bogging Them Down
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The court decision in the Apple v. Samsung case recently decided is a bizarre combination of errors, misjudgments and apparent incompetence at all levels. The jury foreman in a recent interview confessed that he had a "light bulb moment" after the...
Samsung vs. Apple trial aftermath and a cyberculture roundup.
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Google distances itself from Apple-Samsung ruling: Most claims don’t relate to core of Android from The Next Web by Jon Russell Apple vs. Samsung Head Juror: ‘Evidence Was Overwhelming’ from Mashable! by Emily Price These Apple Products Have Sa...
How to Reform the Patent System by Enforcing a Strict Concept of Obviousness as the Normal Development of the State of the Art
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What is "non-obvious" about a normal development of the state of the art? Here is an interesting question. Please name TEN "non-obvious" inventions in the last 10 years that were NOT anticipated by the state of the art. Only 10. You know, things ou...
PONG ! About that Ridiculously Granted Bounce-Back Scrolling Patent US 7469381 Which Is Anticipated by the Prior Art and Obviousness of the Old Atari Game of PONG
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You can read about the ridiculously granted Apple patent 7469381 at ycombinator.com via Hacker News at Can someone explain to me (like I'm 5) exactly what, besides the general concept of list scrolling with bounce-back to indicate end of list reached...
Apple Samsung Jury Foreman Video Interview: A Legal and Patent System in Chaos
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At the Washington Post video the Jury foreman discusses Apple-Samsung trial, verdict. "Look and feel" and "feel and function" are now the legal standards for patents? So now laymen jurors like this determine international handset markets, what can...
"Quick Justice" Jury Verdict in Apple v. Samsung Cupertino Case Is Very Unlikely to Withstand Judicial Challenge on Appeal Due to Errors by the Judge and Jury
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The jury verdict in this case was issued so quickly that it is virtually impossible that the jury read their instructions completely and carefully, which they must do, and they must obey those instructions. All the evidence points to the jury NOT rea...
Patent War Litigation by Apple vs. Samsung and Other Competitors Bound to be a Long Legal Battle With Patent Trolls as the Likely Winners
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Apple v. Samsung: The legal aftershocks is the title of an article at ZDNet by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Linux and Open Source with the summary: "What do lawyers make of Apple's victory? They think among other things that, besides showing a br...
Can this really be true? Patents for TV programme formats ...
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The IPKat's German friend Dr Harald Springorum (Kiani & Springorum, Düsseldorf) keeps him informed from time to time about matters of an interesting nature. On this occasion he has sent the Kats some fascinating news about a patent infringement...
EU Patents: Prior Art Finder for European Patent Office EPO is a New Patentability Assessment Tool from Google Continuing Patent Search Tradition Started for USPTO Patents
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The newest patentability assessment tool from Google is referenced at Out-Law.com, which refers to Google's new EPO Prior Art Finder for the European Union, as described by Jon Orwant, Google engineering manager. The new tool continues a patent find...
Taking it personally: patents, medicines and genetic markers
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Purr-sonalised medicine The IPKat is all in favour of medicine which, he thinks, can come in really handy -- even when you're unwell. He was therefore fascinated to learn of a recent discussion in Europe of a topic which has already exercised s...
Improving Google Patents with the European Patent Office
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Cross-posted from the Google Research Blog At Google, we're constantly trying to make important collections of information more useful to the world. Since 2006, we’ve let people discover, search, and read United States patents online. Starting thi...
The Patent Box: a Kat's perspective
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Boxing cats ... On Wednesday of last week Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) published a Guidance Note on how the United Kingdom's Patent Box scheme works in practice. The Patent Box enables companies to apply a lower rate of corporation...
Employee Compensation Incentives for Patents (Only): Does It Make Sense?
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This Kat had occasion this week to revisit the issue of employee compensation for inventions. There may no subject in IP that has yielded as many different national schemes—statutory, judicial, or other—as has this topic. Indeed, for those reade...
Brief from the AdvoKat: UK Disclosure - It’s not chickenfeed (EPO Decision T1839/11)
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The AdvoKat At the end of June, the Technical Board of Appeal (TBA) of the European Patent Office (EPO) issued its reasons for the decision revoking Novozymes's European Patent 18034592 which concerned the protection of enzymes added to animal feed...
Grizzled grandpas and tests for inventive step: the shifting sands of patents in Europe
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Rarely has this Kat come away from a conversation with his patent attorney friend Gwilym Roberts (Kilburn & Strode) without feeling that he is fortunate indeed to be an academic and a commentator, since Gwilym can be pretty well relied on to come...
Patent Wars, Apple, Samsung, Koh's Court & Jury, Poker and the Sucker: Guess Who?
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Patent trial of the century upcoming in the USA? "LAW at its worst" would be a better title. And there are ramifications for Europe, too. We are repeating below a previous posting because it shows that the current patent wars have a sucker, true to...
European Parliament blames EU Council's "horse trading" as they delay unitary patent proposals until September
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What the AmeriKat wished she could have been doing on her couch on Tuesday...and indeed as she types (zzzzz) Yesterday afternoon the AmeriKat was nestled in her couch (the joys of working from home) with papers, bundles and pens strewn everywhere.
HTC slides free of Apple's multi-touched embrace
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Old habits must indeed be hard to break. Guest Kat Darren Smyth retired from this blog mere days ago but already the IPKat is indebted to him for pointing out a fairly mammoth decision of Mr Justice Floyd in the Patents Court. The case is HTC Europe...
Observations on the PCT
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WIPO's electronic interface for the international patent application system, which is imaginatively named ePCT, is coming on in leaps and bounds. The IPKat (or at least one of his incarnations) has been pleasantly surprised by the ease with which doc...
Unified Patents in the EU, nearly: Unified Patent Court to be located in Paris, London and Munich for 25 EU Member States as Italy and Spain Opt Out
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Owen Bowcott, the legal affairs correspondent at the Guardian, reports that a new European Union EU Unified Patent Court will be split between Paris, London and Munich as the European Council Summit OKd the new unified court -- except for Spain and...
EU Customs proposals bring more woe for patents
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Even with the assistance ofEurope's finest, the EU hasfound it hard to keep fakesout of the single market ... Today, breathlessly reports an excited IPKat, the European Parliament will discuss a report by German Liberal Jürgen Creutzmann on how to...
Farewell, and a final review of EPO Board of Appeal Decisions
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An advantage of being a Kat is the ability to wave and wash ears simultaneously This Guest Kat is coming to the end of his time as a member of the IPKat blogging team. He would like to thank the other Kats, especially but not limited to the in...
On-off-on: it's European patent deal day ...
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Every blogger's nightmare is the sudden occurrence of a really big news item which everyone else seems to get to before he can. This scenario is not unique to bloggers, though. It is shared by all members of the media whose contributions, though of...
"Not fit for purpose": Parliamentarians excoriate British patent negotiation strategy
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The latest news from the United Kingdom may come too late to affect the outcome of the European Summit on the Fate of the the Unitary Patent, which opened today, but it's at least of interest to those people who think that Parliamentary scrutiny, che...
Will the Fourth of July bring fireworks and the unitary patent?
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One e-mail about the EP's vote read,12 more to go.... Good morning from the AmeriKat! The AmeriKat has been dealing with a flurry (or is that "furry"?) of e-mails over the past several days from readers alerting her to the resche...
Friday fantasies
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EPO Complaints. The IPKat's sidebar poll on the European Patent Office's Complaints Procedure has now attracted over 150 respondents. The poll closes on Sunday night, so please don't leave it till too late to make your contribution felt. If you'd...
LIVE UPDATE: No agreement on seat of Unified Patent Court
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Danish Minister Ole Sohn Moments ago (at least it was had it not been for the continued Blogger issues), a press conference was held following today's session of the Competitiveness Council - the last under the Danish Presidency (watch video her...
Pagenberg: Unitary patent package tainted by lack of transparency
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The AmeriKat tentatively testingthe quality of the sun this morning... Good morning from the AmeriKat! Today the Competitiveness Council meets to determine the fate of the unitary patent package (see previous posts here and her...
When unity creates division: A Kat patent recap
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The unitary patent's countdown clockhas the same face as Big Ben....coincidence? The AmeriKat cannot say whether the hands on the unitary patent clock that are ticking away as she types are counting down to an expected implementation of the patent p...
Big, black and beautiful: the new CIPA Guide
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It's big, it's black and it's hugely serious. No, the IPKat isn't talking about the cloud hovering ominously over the Eurozone; he means the Black Book, a.k.a. the CIPA Guide to the Patents Acts [Explanatory note for newcomers to this weblog and...
"Why has America stopped inventing?" or "It's not just Kats that rant"
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A very busy little book buzzed into this Kat's life a few days ago. It's called Why Has America Stopped Inventing? and its author is an energetic, indeed frenetic patent attorney by the name of Darin Gibby (his own website is here; his web page...
Tea and Sympathy? Baroness Wilcox's appearance before the Scrutiny Committee on the unitary patent proposals (Part II)
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Mr. Kelvin Hopkins MP Mr. Kelvin Hopkins MP turned to the question of the impact assessment and referred to the issue that the Committee had heard the previous week that the impact assessment was out of date given that the EU was no longer going to...
Tea and Sympathy? Baroness Wilcox's appearance before the Scrutiny Committee on the unitary patent proposals (Part I)
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At 4:20 PM when the Committee adjourned, thisis probably what the Houses of Parliament looked like... Last Wednesday, a week after the first hearing of evidence by the House of Commons Scrutiny Committee given by the IP Bar Association, CIPA and EPL...
So, confidentially, what DO you think of WIPO?
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A rare first: the IPKat keeps his comments on WIPO to himself You may have been waiting for years to tell the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) what you think of it. If so, your chance has come. WIPO informs...
Is overlooking a fact an error of principle?
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MMI Research Ltd v Cellxion Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 7 is a rare appeal that turned entirely on the facts, and yet it is not necessary to understand the invention to understand the appeal, except to say that it is embodied in a machine. There were two i...
The patent system: some thoughts on stakeholders and users
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Lest anyone accuse this Kat of getting into an awful argument and then trying to change the subject, he states at the outset that he writes with both urgency and frequency on more or less all aspects of intellectual property law, so the switch in the...
Apple's legal action against HTC part of "proxy war" with Google
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The computer technology giant Apple has won the latest round in a long patent war with competitors who use the rival Android Operating system developed by Google. The latest battle forces Asia's second biggest mobile phone maker HTC to strip off some...
EU Patent Is Dead! Long Live "European Patent With Unitary Effect."
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Recently the European Commission has published Document COM(2011) 215/3 titled Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection. Counci...
The Court Of Justice Of The EU Kills Patent Court Proposal.
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In an earlier posting I had reported on the Opinion 01/09 - Statement by the Advocates General of the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning the European Patent and the Community Patent Court as planned by the EU Council; see my earlier...
Europe ducks ‘EU patent’ debate
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They bottled it: EU leaders were due to talk about ways to improve Europe’s hotpotch intellectual property regime on Friday but thought better of it. The item was put on the afternoon agenda because industry ministers had decided before Christm...
EPO Publishing Something Like A "White Paper" In Exchange For Personal Data
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Today, the European Patent Office (EPO) has made available (@EPOorg on Twitter) a second edition of An overview of the national patent litigation systems in Europe available for download on-line. The text provides an overview of the national patent l...
EU Enhanced Co-Operation In Unitary Patent Matters To Be Voted In EU-Parliament
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The General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union has published Document 5635/11 conveying a Summary of the meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament, held in Strasbourg on January 20, 2011. The meeting wa...
Long Live The EU Patent - But A New EU Patent Court System Is Dead?
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Today I was able to gain access to EU Commission Document COM(210) 790 final - kudos to @EUpexian on Twitter. The paper is titled Proposal for a Council Decision authorising enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protectio...
