IP Legal Services filed a trademark appeal on 10 May 2010 with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the USPTO, and successfully obtained a reversal of the examiner’s refusal to register under Section 2(d) of the Trademark Act by order dated August 19, 2010. IP Legal Services filed the mark Red Box Diversity System (Serial No.77722602) with the USPTO on 27 April 2009.
Google, Facebook and Apple among 11 companies targeted in patent lawsuit – 29 August 2010
Eleven major companies including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Apple have been accused of infringing patents belonging to a company linked to Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft. Interval Licensing says that the companies, also including eBay, AOL, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples and Google’s YouTube subsidiary are infringing the patents, which relate to e-commerce and search. Notably absent from the list of targeted companies are Amazon and Microsoft.
For more information visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/aug/29/paul-allen-interval-patent-lawsuit-google-facebook-apple
Music Downloader Appeals $67.5K Award, Calls It “Equally as Insane” as Earlier $675K Verdict – August 25, 2010
A Boston University physics graduate student has announced that he will appeal a reduced $67,500 award for downloading copyrighted music, calling the amount “equally as insane” as the $675,000 jury verdict he originally faced after a federal trial last year. Joel Tenenbaum, 26, says he will have to declare bankruptcy if the $67,500 award is upheld by the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
For more information visit:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/music_downloader_appeals_67.5k_award_calls_it_equally_as_insane_as_earlier_/
Viacom Appeals YouTube Copyright-Infringement Ruling – 12 August 2010
Viacom Inc., the owner of MTV Networks and Paramount studios, is appealing a ruling that Google Inc. YouTube video- sharing website didn’t infringe Viacom copyrights. Viacom appealed the June decision to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that YouTube hadn’t infringed Viacom’s copyrights because it’s protected by the safe-harbor provision of the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law states a service provider isn’t liable if it removes infringing material when notified by the copyright owner.
For more information visit:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-12/microsoft-interpump-pfizer-viacom-radioshack-intellectual-property.html
Oracle sues Google for patent, copyright infringement – 12 August 2010
Oracle Corp. filed a lawsuit in federal court against Google Inc. alleging the infringement by Google’s Android mobile operating system software of seven patents and copyrights, related to the Java software that Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun Microsystems Inc.
For more information visit:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oracle-sues-google-for-patent-infringement-2010-08-12?reflink=MW_news_stmp
Yahoo heartened by patent verdict – 10 August 2010
Yahoo Inc. said it is pleased with a jury verdict that found it did not infringe a patent held by Bright Response LLC. A U.S. District Court jury in Texas found that Yahoo and Google Inc. did not infringe Bright Response’s patent covering the routing of electronic messages such as e-mail or search queries, according to court documents filed Monday. The jury found that neither Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s sponsored search technology infringes on the patent because it was in public use before Bright Response filed for patent protection.
For more information visit:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/202624/salesforce_patent_settlement_a_win_for_microsoft_azure.html?tk=hp_blg
Salesforce Patent Settlement a Win for Microsoft Azure – August 05, 2010
Microsoft and Salesforce.com have agreed to settle their patent suits against each other. The two have agreed to disagree and have entered into a license sharing agreement for the competing cloud technologies. Major players like Google, Amazon, and Salesforce exist solely in the cloud and have been a leading force in demonstrating the benefits of Web-based applications and storage, and driving businesses to migrate to the cloud. Microsoft has an advantage, though, with its vision of the cloud.
For more information visit:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/202624/salesforce_patent_settlement_a_win_for_microsoft_azure.html?tk=hp_blg
Google alters AdWords policy in Europe – August 4, 2010
Google will now let advertisers in Europe bid to have their ads appear by searches for trademarked goods. In the past, companies could challenge such ads on trademark grounds. Google believes its decision gives more power to consumers searching for things to buy.
For more information visit:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0806/1224276306708.html
Uniloc USA Inc. Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit against Sony America, McAfee, Activision and Quark Aug 2, 2010
Uniloc USA Inc. a pioneer and leader in physical device recognition anti-fraud technology announced today that it filed a patent infringement action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Sony Corp. of America, Sony DADC, McAfee, Activision, Quark, Aspyr Media and Borland Software Corp over their unauthorized use of Uniloc’s patented anti-piracy product activation method and system.
For more information visit:
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/borl_sne_uniloc-usa-files-patent-infringement-lawsuit-against-sony-america-mcafee-activision-quark-aspyr–1089914.html
Discovery sues Amazon again for patent infringement over Kindle – July 15, 2010
Discovery Communications intellectual property subsidiary Discovery Patent Holdings filed a suit against Amazon, claiming Amazon’s line of Kindle e-book readers infringe on two patents held by the company. The suit is the second between the two companies over such technologies. Amazon was originally sued by Discovery Communications in March of last year, accusing the company of violation of a comprehensive patent on e-book readers titled “Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System” (#7,298,851). This covered the Kindle and Kindle 2 models.
For more information visit:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Discovery-sues-Amazon-again-for-patent-infringement-over-Kindle/1279224874
Patent Holding Company XPRT Hits eBay With $3.2 Billion Infringement and Trade Secrets Suit – July 15, 2010
XPRT owns six patents related to systems and methods for processing online payments for e-commerce transactions, for which it began filing patent applications back in 2001. At which time eBay was processing payments through a cumbersome system called Billpoint. According to XPRT’s complaint, an XPRT inventor named George Likourezos contacted eBay to point out Billpoint’s deficiencies and suggest improvements based on his patent applications. an eBay patent lawyer asked to see the patent applications, which Likourezos sent, along with a description of how to incorporate his concepts into eBay’s systems–at great benefit, he said, to eBay. Several months later, without getting much of a response to his overtures, Likourezos was distressed to learn that eBay was acquiring PayPal. He alleges in the XPRT complaint that eBay made the acquisition to effect precisely the concepts he outlined in the correspondence and patent materials he sent to eBay’s lawyers.
For more information visit:
http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202463558368&Patent_Holding_Company_XPRT_Hits_eBay_With__Billion_Infringement_and_Trade_Secrets_Suit
A copyright ruling no one can like – July 13, 2010
A year ago, a jury found college student Joel Tenenbaum liable for willful copyright infringement for sharing 30 songs, and later set a damages award of $675,000. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner dramatically reduced the award to $67,500. Gertner wrote in her decision that the original amount was too high and “unconstitutional.” Her decision is believed by some legal experts to be unprecedented with regard to statutory damages in a copyright case. Not only are copyright owners attacking Gertner’s reasoning, but so are some well-known lawyers from the pro-technology side.
For more information visit:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010428-261.html?tag=mncol;title
Taiwan flat-panel maker sues Sony for patent infringement – July 8, 2010
Taiwan’s leading supplier of flat-panel TV screens, Chimei Innolux Corp, filed a lawsuit at an Arkansas district court against Sony, accusing the Japanese company of patent infringement. The lawsuit seeks to “halt the sale and demand compensatory damages over a wide range of Sony products that infringe CMI’s patented inventions,” the company said. Among the products are Sony’s Bravia LCD televisions, Cybershot digital cameras and digital photo frames. The company has also filed a similar lawsuit against Sony in China, with the Beijing Intermediate People’s Court.
For more information visit:
http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-technology/taiwan-flatpanel-maker-sues-sony-for-patent-infringement-20100708-100vk.html
Pirate Bay offline briefly after security breach – July 8, 2010
An Argentinian hacker called Ch Russo penetrated The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s leading BitTorrent search engines, and snatched user names, e-mail and Internet addresses of more than 4 million of the site’s users. Russo acknowledged that he and an associate who helped get into The Pirate Bay considered selling the data to the big music labels or Hollywood studios, but instead went public about the site’s vulnerabilities.
For more information visit:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20009955-261.html?tag=mncol;title
Smartphone Patent Suits Challenge Big Makers – July 8, 2010
NTP, a patent-holding company best known for prying a settlement of more than $600 million from the maker of the BlackBerry, is now suing the other big names in the smartphone industry: Apple, Google, Microsoft, HTC, LG and Motorola. The suits, filed late Thursday afternoon in federal district court in Richmond, Va., charge that the cellphone e-mail systems of those companies are illegally using NTP’s patented technology.
For more information visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/technology/09patent.html?src=busln
