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Archive - May 2010
The UK announces it will fast track PCT applications
I have just received a press release from the UK IP Office. It announces that the UK is to fast-track PCT applications as part of its effort to deal with the international backlog: The new procedure will apply to applications filed under the international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The UK is one of 142 countries which have signed up to the Treaty. Under the PCT, applications undergo a preliminary assessment of their patentability before being passed to individual ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 28 May 2010 @ 4:04PM
Those Nortel patent sale stories just keep on running ....
Bloomberg carried a report yesterday on the potential sale of the Nortel patent portfolio. It quotes Peter Conley, the managing director of MDB Capital Group, as saying the final price could be as much as $1.1 billion - that's $100,000 higher than the Dow Jones report I linked to a couple of weeks back mentioned. "Patent estates of this size don’t come along that often,” says Conley. “This is the equivalent of acquiring the IP of a large technology company.
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 27 May 2010 @ 3:46PM
New UK government downgrades IP
The UK's experiment with having a designated intellectual property minister in the government has come to an end. Following the formation of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition after the country's recent general election, the post of Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property - held by David Lammy MP in the previous Labour administration - has been dropped. Instead, IP matters will be handled by the Parliamentary Secretary for Business Innovation & Skills, ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 25 May 2010 @ 5:34PM
IAM at the INTA - effective writing workshop
The INTA annual meeting is now in full swing in Boston. IAM is here as part of a large IP Media Group delegation. If you get the chance, come and visit us in the exhibition hall at booths 128 and 130 - it would be great to see you. This morning at 10.30 am I will be part of the panel at a workshop entitled Effective Legal Writing in Room 203 in the Convention Centre. This is what it is all about: This interactive session will showcase effective legal writing strategies for cease ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 24 May 2010 @ 11:46AM
German Supreme Court software patent decision "not a landmark ruling", says expert
Yesterday I reported on a blog posting from the well-known European anti-software patent campaigner Florian Mueller about a recent decision of the German Supreme Court which he said would open to the door to many more software patent grants (and litigation) in Germany. At the end of the piece I stated that if I were involved in the software industry I would be looking to get some clarificaiton on developments from a German patent attorney. Well, I am not in that line of work, of ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 23 May 2010 @ 2:26PM
Court decision means "all software ideas are now potentially patentable" in Germany
Has the door just been opened to the widespread granting of software patents in Europe's richest and most populous country? According to veteran anti-software patent campaigner Florian Mueller that is exactly what has happened. He describes a recent decision of Germany's Supreme Court (BGH) to allow a Siemens application for a German patent relating to client-server software for the automatic generation of structured documents (such as XML or HTML) in this way: ... It's not just ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 22 May 2010 @ 11:54AM
Amended USPTO funding legislation presented in Congress
Legislation that would allow the USPTO to intoduce an immediate 15% rise in its filing fees and prohibit Congress from diverting money from the office has been introduced into the House of Representatives. The Patent and Trademark Office Funding Stabilization Act of 2010 was tabled on Wednesday by John Conyers Jr, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Lamar Smith, the committee's ranking Republican. On Monday they had withdrawn proposed ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 21 May 2010 @ 2:26PM
The buyers at the Ocean Tomo auctions revealed
Back in March I wrote about the publication of a report that revealed just how important Intellectual Ventures had been to the Ocean Tomo IP auctions that took place between 2006 and 2009. Well, the lead author on that report - Tom Ewing of Avancept - has penned an article for the next issue of IAM (due out on 1st June) that looks at who was doing all the buying at those auctions, as well as some of the reasons for them doing so. It is very good stuff and will be fascinating reading ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 20 May 2010 @ 2:27PM
Patent reform flounders as House debates giving USPTO fee raising powers - UPDATED
In what must count as among the least surprising developments of recent times, it looks like patent reform has once again stalled in the US Congress. Accordng to a report on the CQ Politics website, the chairman of the House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, has been negotiating with his Senate equivalent Patrick Leahy for a number of weeks on the wider legislation. "But those talks have not yielded an overall compromise." So today (Tuesday ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 18 May 2010 @ 6:54AM
Pharma executives slam Europe's patent regime, while praising the US approach
Europe significantly lags the United States in terms of its regulatory and IP regimes for companies in the life sciences industries, according to respondents to a survey published today by Marks & Clerk. The EU's perceived hostility to the way in which patents have traditionally been used by research-based pharmaceutical companies is one of the main reasons why 62% of executives taking part in the survey believe that "the US intellectual property system has better ...
Posted by Joff Wild, IAM Magazine on 17 May 2010 @ 11:56AM
