Find out what's going on in today's competitive IP marketplace.
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The San Diego law firm Solomon Ward Seidenwurm & Smith recently added Katherine Hoffman as a partner.
Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Randy Berholtz and a research team of intellectual property fellows will host a symposium for patent attorneys and students from 7:30 a.m.-7 p.m. on Friday, April 11 at TJSL.
Jeffrey T. Thomas, a partner in the Orange County office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, will be honored by the University of San Diego on April 26.
There's nothing quite like having your work reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
San Diego attorney Pedro Suarez has been invited to serve on the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Association’s software and business methods committee for the 2014-2015 term.
Members of Congress are currently considering more than 10 patent reform bills, most of which are designed to address the so-called "patent troll" problem.
Attorney Roberta A. Young has joined Ballard Spahr's intellectual property department as of counsel. She will be based in the firm's San Diego office.
The law firm Duane Morris LLP has promoted associates Courtney L. Baird and Michelle Hon Donovan to the firm partnership.
San Diego attorney Kevin Kantharia has received the 2013 American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Robert C. Watson Award for his paper, “The Shrinking and Unpredictable Law of Willful Patent Infringement: Why the Federal Circuit Should Revisit En Banc the Issues in Bard Peripheral Vascular.”
Using a unique strategy, San Diego attorney Joe Leventhal helped his client, FindTheBest.com, prevail in a patent infringement case that he said shows that reform is still needed at the patent office.
The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a Federal Circuit decision that could redefine how certain patent infringement cases are litigated.
San Diego attorney and DLA Piper partner Erin P. Gibson has been named a 2013-2014 Global Fellow by the Federal Circuit Bar Association.
The law firm Morrison & Foerster has been ranked by general counsel and in-house litigation counsel as a “powerhouse” in intellectual property litigation, according to the latest survey by the BTI Consulting Group.
The San Diego law firm Duckor Spradling Metzger & Wynne has added registered patent attorney Jonathan L. “Jay” Pettit and employment law associate Anne Wilson.
Susan Gorman announced Tuesday she is launching Gorman IP Law, an intellectual property firm that "uses a proprietary strategic assessment process to help start-up and emerging companies leverage their intellectual property as a competitive tool."
Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP has been named to the National Law Journal's 2013 Intellectual Property Hot List, which recognizes 20 top firms that have demonstrated “creative, formidable talent in litigation, patent prosecution and deal-making.”
April 11 (Bloomberg) -- More than a quarter of all jobs in the U.S. are with companies that rely on patents, copyrights and trademarks to protect products from competition and promote investment, the Commerce Department said.
Any attempts to decrease the value of patents could be extremely harmful to the U.S. economy, Qualcomm's top legal adviser cautioned this week.
Natural Alternatives International Inc. (Nasdaq: NAII), a maker of nutritional supplements, said it settled patent-infringement cases against BPI Sports LLC and Image Sports LLC.
Intellectual property attorney Laurie Axford has rejoined Gordon & Rees LLP as a partner and will be a resident in the firm's newly opened office in Carlsbad.
The biggest legislative change to the U.S. patent system in more than 50 years is about to become a reality.
Spotify, the European music-streaming service that started in the United States two weeks ago, is already getting a taste of the U.S. legal system.
TRENTON, N.J. -- Used to be, if you wanted a knockoff handbag or fake fragrance, Lower Manhattan's Canal Street was a mecca.
SEATTLE -- Competition among smart phone makers is heating up at retail, in advertising and, increasingly, in the courtroom as handset and software makers wield patent lawsuits to protect their turf and slow down their rivals.
With increased trade and closer relations between Taiwan and the China, patent applicants in Taiwan, as of Nov. 22, 2010, can now claim priority to an earlier-filed Chinese patent application and vice versa. Claiming priority enables a later-filed application to be treated as if it was filed on the same date as the earlier application.
The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives likely won’t have any affect on patent reform legislation, San Diego intellectual property attorneys say.
Despite an increase in legal remedies, cybersquatters and other online infringers continue to proliferate, according to local legal analysts.
Attorneys Martin Bader and Inge Larish have joined Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton as special counsel in the firm's intellectual property practice group in San Diego.
San Diego's Anthony Insogna has been appointed co-chair of Jones Day's global intellectual property practice, the firm announced Tuesday.
Marshall Edwards Inc. (Nasdaq: MSHL), a San Diego-based oncology company focused on the clinical development of novel anti-cancer therapeutics, has reached an agreement to acquire Novogen Limited's (Nasdaq: NVGN) isoflavone-related intellectual property portfolio in a stock-based transaction.
It's a reunion of sorts for San Diego patent litigator Stephen Korniczky, who re-teams with some former colleagues at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP.
Oracle Corp. filed a patent- and copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google Inc., claiming its Android software for mobile devices uses technology Oracle obtained in its January acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc.
Once a company files a patent infringement lawsuit, it's extremely difficult to get them to withdraw their complaint for no consideration.
Townsend and Townsend and Crew partner Kenneth E. Jenkins has been elected vice president of the San Diego Intellectual Property Law Association (SDIPLA).
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is less optimistic about China than India or Indonesia because of the country’s lack of progress in stamping out software piracy, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said.
In an increasingly global and competitive market, intellectual property may be a business' most valuable asset. Today's executives must address the protection and most effective use of technology and intangible assets, patents, trademarks and copyrights. The Daily Transcript asked several attorneys specializing in IP law to answer questions about one of the fastest-growing practice areas.
Shaun White, Tony Hawk and Kelly Slater are household names. Snowboarding and freestyle skiing are Olympic events.
When he joined the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office as director last August, David Kappos brought with him an operational business philosophy culled during 25-plus years of working for IBM.
The University of San Diego School of Law is teaming up with Connect to launch a new Technology Entrepreneurship Law Clinic.
Callaway Golf Co. (NYSE: ELY), the maker of Big Bertha golf clubs, lost a bid for $246 million in patent- infringement damages from Fortune Brands' (NYSE: FO) Acushnet unit when a jury decided four Callaway golf ball patents aren’t valid.
Despite previous efforts, the piracy of U.S. movies, music and other products remains a serious problem, according to the federal government.
On Jan. 7, in Wyeth v. Kappos, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit confirmed that the U.S. Patent Office (PTO) has been improperly shortening the lives of patents by miscalculating patent term adjustment (PTA). While the court resolved the issue of PTA calculations going forward, it did not indicate whether to compensate patent owners for patent terms miscalculated over the last 10 years.
The new head of the patent office is taking steps to reduce the backlog and improve the efficiency of the government agency, according to local intellectual property attorneys.
In a small, but significant development, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office recently changed the way it measures the production of its examiners.
Many of the problems raised in the patent reform debate can be solved by improving the quality of patent examiners, according to a group of intellectual property professionals speaking at a Daily Transcript roundtable Tuesday.
When it comes to protecting intellectual property, you can't be timid, according to a pair of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps attorneys.
When developing technology for the government, companies should have a specific process for managing their intellectual property, keep good records and not be afraid to speak up, according to attorneys from Morrison & Foerster.
Thousands of foreign buyers flock to this southern city at this time of year for China's biggest trade show. They search for factory owners who will make their products cheaply and won't rip off their clever designs.
University of San Diego School of Law has launched a new Center on Intellectual Property Law and Markets. The center will train students in the fundamentals of intellectual property laws and the ways clients use IP rights to compete in real-world markets. It will also provide a forum where lawyers, clients, judges and policymakers can share ideas about IP doctrines and policies.
Just what is a copyright?
Every company should make regular assessment of the value (legal and financial) of its intellectual property and the risk of infringement of other companies' IP. The assessment should also evaluate the effectiveness of the existing program to identify assets and risks and make recommendations for improvements. Time constraints apply to all forms of IP. The assessment will identify time critical filings and the systems in place to assure that dates are met.
Many companies today have adopted the SaaS (software as a service) business model for deploying software to customers. In the SaaS model, software applications are hosted for customers who access the application across a network such as the Internet. The SaaS business model is attractive because it eliminates the need for customers to install the application on their hardware and reduces their overall IT burden by shifting software maintenance and version upgrades back to the software provider.
The Federal Circuit ended the year by handing down a decision that has commanded the attention of the patent litigation bar. It was the second high-profile writ of mandamus ordering the Eastern District of Texas to grant a motion to transfer venue within the final three months of 2008. Many patent defendants hope that this newest decision is likely to cool the hotbed of patent litigation that is the Eastern District of Texas.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina once said that "the goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight." But in the realm of so-called "business method patents," which disclose and claim new methods of doing business, what happens if data doesn't actually get transformed into anything? A key court recently held that such inventions cannot receive patent protection.
A new intellectual property law firm has opened in San Diego, but it doesn't have any office space or a centralized mailing address.
Pick up any newspaper or trade journal and you will see the news of mergers and acquisitions, particularly in biotechnology and high-technology industries where venture capital is tight and the IPO window has been closed for some time. Cash is king, and those who have it are looking to acquire companies with strong pipelines, intellectual property portfolios and/or strategic positioning. But just because a company can be acquired for less than it was worth a short time ago doesn't mean that thorough IP due diligence isn't necessary to avoid costly mistakes down the road.
Imagine it: Your in-house intellectual property counsel instructs your senior engineering staff to design a product in a way that avoids infringing other companies' patents. The senior developers transmit those instructions, second-hand, to junior engineers carrying out the actual design. And those engineers exchange e-mails among themselves about how the design steers clear of the patents.
When giving a new product a name, you need to think about whether it is available and is not already being used by someone else (unless you like the idea of being named as a defendant in a trademark infringement lawsuit). You also need to select a name that is distinctive enough for you to register and protect, so that competitors won't be able to take a free ride on the goodwill you have built up by coming out with a product that has a confusingly similar name.
Businesspeople often put intellectual property issues on the back burner. They know that these are important matters that need to be attended to someday, but someday never quite seems to come. This article provides a primer for the busy businessperson on trademarks and service marks, along with brief discussions of the other types of intellectual property and how they may affect businesses.
On Jan. 22, the Senate began its 2008 session by renewing its ongoing consideration of the Patent Reform Act, a bipartisan effort that may result in the most significant overhaul of the U.S. patent system, which has remained largely unchanged since 1952.
Corporate officers and directors take note -- you may be held personally liable for inducing patent infringement, even when you are acting solely through a corporation. Although most patent infringement lawsuits do not name an individual officer or director as a defendant, the ability to pressure an officer or director with the threat of personal liability is a potential arrow in the patent owner's quiver (or a mosquito in the accused infringer's tent, depending upon your perspective).
As global warming becomes an increasingly popular topic, environmental considerations are playing a greater role in consumer purchasing decisions. Not surprisingly, it is becoming more common for businesses to highlight their eco-friendly practices to attract environmentally conscious consumers. As with any type of branding, intellectual property has an important role to play in protecting "green" brands.
GUANGZHOU, China -- Ron Rust and Beve Kozub were poking around the toy booths at China's biggest trade fair two years ago when something caught their eye: pouty-faced baby dolls snuggling in light blue and pink fleece blankets, their eyes tightly shut or gazing with a newborn's woozy stare.
TOKYO -- Sony BMG will start selling music downloads in the copy-protection-free MP3 format later this month in North America, as even the last holdout among the major record labels crumbled to the growing trend.
San Diego's economy is driven in large part by technology, with the high-tech and biotech industries being the primary engine. The telecom industry alone is San Diego County's fourth largest industry sector when ranked by number of employees. The telecom industry contributed more than $11 billion to the local economy in 2004, and surely even more today.
Few firms can boast a client list like Fish & Richardson. For the last 130 years, Fish & Richardson has represented some of the greatest innovators in the world. From the great minds of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers to today's companies such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and 3M Innovative Properties, Fish has been in the forefront of protecting cutting-edge technologies.
Your company and a dozen others were just sued for patent infringement. Having already received pitch packages from law firms throughout the country, you're ready to decide which firm to retain and whether to join a joint defense group.
Can you really patent a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Or, more practically, can you really patent a tax strategy or method of arbitration?
Intellectual property is often the most valuable asset of a technology startup. While limiting the upfront costs can be very important for small companies, choice of the proper strategy for preparing patent applications can significantly impact both the bottom line and the ultimate value of the company's IP portfolio.
Her name is Joya Williams. She was a secretary at The Coca-Cola Co. (Nasdaq: COKE). A jury of her peers recently found her guilty of conspiring to steal the 100-year-old but still super-secret formula for Coke and sell it to Pepsi. How was the would-be theft of the century averted? None other than a lawyer for Pepsi got wind of the deal and did the right thing. He told Coke.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rewrote the law of willful patent infringement with its In re Seagate Technology LLC ruling. The court raised the bar on proving willful patent infringement, replacing the older "duty of due care" standard with a new required showing of "objective recklessness." This change in the law makes it more difficult for patent owners to obtain enhanced damages, and lowers the costs of defending against such claims. The court also ruled that the assertion of an advice-of-counsel defense to willful infringement does not waive attorney-client and work product privileges relating to trial counsel. Thus, a patent defendant is no longer faced with the threat of disclosing all privileged communications with its trial lawyers as the price for reliance on an opinion of non-infringement or patent invalidity by separate opinion counsel.
A federal appeals court in Pasadena recently issued an important ruling on how similar trademarks need to be to prove trademark dilution, in a win for eBay Inc. against Orange County online perfume seller PerfumeBay.com Inc.
Patent reform legislation working its way through Congress could adversely affect San Diego because the proposed changes will lower the value of individual patents, which will be particularly troublesome to biotech companies, according to attorneys specializing in patent prosecution and litigation.
The American patent system is being slowly, dramatically reshaped by a three-pronged
If you're looking for a detailed account of San Diego's biotech history, John Benassi is the person to ask.
Intellectual property law not only requires attorneys to hold their own during a trial court, but also that they understand the products and clients they represent.
It is increasingly understood that the seal of the U.S. government on a patent tells you only that a patent was issued after a process of review. Whether the patent has value requires a studied assessment of the patent's history, the field of art and relevant commercial embodiments and implementations.
San Diego stands to benefit from the efforts of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Congress and the courts to improve the quality of patents, according to a recent roundtable hosted by The Daily Transcript.
The Lanham Act defines the term "counterfeit" as a "spurious mark which is identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from, a registered mark." A "counterfeit mark" is defined as a counterfeit of a registered mark or a spurious designation that is identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from, a protected designation.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal regulators rejected a valuable Genentech Inc. (NYSE: DNA) patent that protects how it makes some biotechnology drugs, the company said last week.
WASHINGTON -- With the new Democratic Congress promising to lower health care costs, makers of inexpensive generic drugs sense a unique opportunity to level the playing field with their brand-name rivals.
Everyone of a certain -- how shall we shall this? -- "mature" age should remember the lines of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant." In that classic Vietnam-era anti-war song, Guthrie describes his surprise when he discovers a prior conviction for mere littering relegates him to a rejected draft classification of "Group W" alongside "Mother-rapers" and "Father-stabbers." (For those who are age- or memory-deficient, you can find the lyrics at www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml).
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government withheld a World Trade Organization complaint against China over video and music piracy last October because Beijing said it wanted more time to resolve the matter bilaterally, a U.S. trade official said last Thursday.
U.S. patent laws require applicants and those involved with the filing and prosecution of a patent application disclose any information which may be material to patentability (i.e., whether a patent should be granted). Failure to disclose material information can result in a determination that the patent is invalid due to inequitable conduct.
An old Spanish proverb goes: "A secret between two is God's secret; between three is all mankind's."
Many transactional lawyers who represent clients in entertainment, media or publishing deals have some working knowledge of copyright law. However, as they say, "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing." Copyright law is full of exceptions and qualifiers, and many clients and lawyers have only broad understandings of the way copyright law works to protect the original expression of ideas. Copyright litigators see many deals go sideways because of client or attorney misunderstandings about copyright law. Here is our top 10 list.
Picture this: A 20-something employee at a digital media company uses his "free" time to log onto the popular Web communities MySpace.com or YouTube.com and proceeds to download or watch a streaming video posted by one of his friends.
Recently proposed legislation designed to add another layer of protection for U.S. patent holders could become a question of the government's ability -- or right -- to control information.
San Diego is a tough place to secure funding, but is a great place to find high-tech employees.
For years, lawmakers have been trying to pass a comprehensive patent reform bill with little success.
Intellectual property experts discussed the effect patent reform proposals could have on area businesses during a recent Daily Transcript roundtable sponsored by Townsend and Townsend and Crew.
The U.S. patent system doesn't need a major overhaul, according to a panel of industry officials who are skeptical of Congress' recent attempts at reform.
Upon entering Andrew Skale's office, a visitor is just as likely to be treated to a magic trick as to receive legal advice.
The recently convened 112th U.S. Congress is expected to address a topic this year that has concerned business leaders for some time: patent reform legislation.
As intellectual property rights become increasingly important around the globe, Ned Israelsen, IP attorney and managing partner of Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear's San Diego office, is poised to provide expert guidance to emerging companies in the San Diego region and beyond.
Juanita Brooks has been called brilliant, engaging and highly valued.
San Diego patent attorney Dan Chambers said he basically works for entrepreneurs.
For someone who originally did not intend to be a practicing lawyer, John Gartman of Fish & Richardson exudes a passion for the messy and stressful business of trial law.
Aug. 11, 2010 -- Michael Fuller, a partner with Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear, talks about the latest issues in intellectual property law.
Read about the latest patent law news in this Intellectual Property special report.
Read about the latest patent law news in this Intellectual Property special report.
Find out what's going on in today's competitive IP marketplace in this special report.
Find out how patent changes could affect local industries, and what leading companies are doing to protect and capitalize on their innovations and ideas.
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