According to Judge Posner, writing for a Seventh Circuit panel, that law can be triggered by an employee’s use of a secure file deletion program to erase data stored on his company-issued laptop. Declan McCullagh is uneasy (“Police blotter: Ex-employee faces suit over file deletion”, CNet, Mar. 10).
Posts Tagged ‘tech through 2008’
Drug companies sue generic competitors
Ron Bailey at Reason “Hit and Run” says it’s the sort of thing that gives the pharmaceutical industry a bad name (Feb. 24).
BlackBerry dispute settles for $612M
“Although the U.S. Patent Office recently invalidated most of the patents at issue in the dispute, NTP still had the right to appeal. However, RIM was put in a tough position because [Judge] Spencer didn’t have to wait for a final decision on the validity of the patents before making his decision on the injunction. As a result, RIM was forced to pay up, said Ken Dulaney, a vice president and analyst with Gartner, while NTP was inclined to take what it could get.” (Ryan Kim, “BlackBerry users emerge from the legal briar patch”, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 4). Earlier coverage on this site: May 2, Oct. 11, Nov. 30, 2005, and Feb. 8, Feb. 25, 2006.
Fashion and IP protection
It’s common for producers of fashionable clothing to rip off each other’s popular ideas, and unless an item of apparel carries a deceptive label American law will provide little legal recourse for the original innovator against the imitator. Why is American fashion design nonetheless a highly innovative field? And does a similar analysis carry over to other areas where legal protection against copycats is weak, such as furniture design, hairstyle design and the development of food recipes? Tyler Cowen wonders at Marginal Revolution (Feb. 27).
Flash, Java? We’ve got those patented
Uh-oh: “A patent has been granted to a relatively unknown California Web-design firm for an invention its creator says covers the design and creation of most rich-media applications used over the Internet. The patent holder, Balthaser Online Inc., says it could license nearly any rich-media Internet application across a broad range of devices and networks. …The patent — issued on Valentine’s Day — covers all rich-media technology implementations, including Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed on any device over the Internet, including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and video game consoles, says inventor Neil Balthaser, CEO of Balthaser Online, which he owns with his father Ken.” (Eric Chabrow, “U.S. Grants Patent For Broad Range Of Internet Rich Applications”, Information Week, Feb. 22).
Thumbnail images held potentially infringing
Clinton appointee Judge A. Howard Matz in California has issued a questionable and potentially disastrous result in copyright litigation, holding that Google’s thumbnail indexing of images from third-party infringers of pornographer Perfect 10’s copyright is likely to infringe and can thus be preliminarily enjoined pending trial. “The court is building a standard that only a lawyer could love,” said Laurence Pulgram, a partner at Fenwick & West in San Francisco, who also questioned the court’s disregard for precedent. (Xenia P. Kobylarz (!), “Perfect 10 Racks Up Preliminary Injunction Against Google”, The Recorder, Feb. 22). Earlier coverage: Nov. 24, 2004.
Update: See also San Jose Mercury News (via Lattman).
Another update: And, via Bashman, here’s the opinion.
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Apparently Amazon is facing yet another suit over patent infringement involving its website technologies. “The complaint accuses Amazon of using technology on its own Web site and for third parties such as Target.com that infringes on two Registrar Systems patents, Amazon said.” (“Amazon named in patent infringement suit”, Puget Sound Business Journal, Feb 17).
Though I am generally sympathetic to companies sued over software patents, particularly since the US Patent Office seems to have completely lost its mind in granting many of these patents, I have little sympathy for Amazon. After all, they were the ones to patent and then sue their rivals over “one-click” ordering.
My college roommate, who was a trade lawyer for quite a while, told me a story of a company trying to get their disposable cigarette lighter to pass the US child safety tests (I promise we will get back on topic in a second). I can’t remember the exact test, but it involved giving a bunch of children the lighter and observing how many in a certain amount of time could figure out how to defeat the childproofing. Apparently a key to success was to (literally) go out and find the slowest and dullest group of kids you could. Which brings me back to the one-click patent, where surely Amazon must have gone through a similar process to find a patent examiner who would declare one-click ordering “non-obvious” and patentable.
Stitch & Bitch, trademarked
The phrase “stitch and bitch” has been in use for many years as a popular nickname for social circles that meet for knitting and conversation. Circa 1997 a company called Sew Fast, Sew Easy trademarked what it called its Stitch ‘n’ Bitch Cafe and since then has deployed lawyers to shut down use of the phrase by many local and online hobbyists’ clubs. A protest site, “Free To Stitch/Free To Bitch“, has traced earlier mentions of the phrase including by Anne Macdonald in her 1988 book No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, who describes it as having been used for such a club during World War II. (Catherine Elsworth, “It’s getting bitchy in knitting circles”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Feb. 11)(more links).
Trolls in the BlackBerry patch
Columbia lawprof Tim Wu on patents as “Weapons of Business Destruction”. How easily can patent examiners be prevailed on to grant a patent application?
On Nov. 1, 2005, the PTO issued Boris Volfson of Huntington, Ind., Patent 6,960,975 for his invention of an antigravity space vehicle (according to the application, “the spacetime curvature imbalance … provides for the space vehicle’s propulsion”).
“It’s not spam when I send it”
“Attorney general Charlie Crist was an integral player in getting an anti-spam law passed last year in the state of Florida. Under the law, offenders are subject to fines of up to $500 for every e-mail sent. Now running for governor, someone on the Crist campaign is responsible for sending e-mails to promote the candidacy and solicit campaign donations. Recipients have reportedly attempted to unsubscribe without success.” A Crist spokeswoman says the emails don’t count as spam because they’re not deceptive. (Clickz blog, Jan. 9; Adam C. Smith, “Crist e-mail draws ire”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 21; “From anti-spam stand to e-mail campaign”, AP/Miami Herald, Dec. 23; Brian McWilliams, Dec. 24; Geek.com). For more on anti-spam laws and related issues, see, e.g., Jul. 25, 2005 and Dec. 3, 2003.