Intellectual Property Law Internet Law IT Law Computer Law

Check claims from the U.S. patent no 7,247,782 and comments about it in the article available at www.genome-technology.com website.

I know it sounds a little bit demagogic but will it be a proper statement if I write that it is a really sick patent law that allows for patenting medical methods where such patents may later be used to prohibit or prosecute those who use them to treat patients? It was the article at www.law.com website that induced me to issue such statement. There are two cases mentioned. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc. v. Michelson, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24236 (W. D. Tenn. 2003) and Young v. Lumenis, Inc., 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 15236 (Fed. Cir. 2007).

However, there is also patent misues doctrine in the US law based on a judgment in the case Morton Salt Co. v. G. S. Suppiger Co., 314 U.S. 488 (1942).

There is also the so-called Doha declaration in the International IP law i.e. Doha WTO Ministerial 2001, Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health adopted on 14 November 2001. WT/MIN(01)/DEC/2, 20 November 2001.

There is a review of a book at www.thebachelorguy.com website that corresponds with a subject of this post. Additionaly, I would like to recommend you to check www.patentlysilly.com website and the Gallery of Obscure Patents available at www.delphion.com and (Internet is form porn, what do you think the Net was born for?) the collection of sex patents presented at www.fleshbot.com website. Below, I also present a short list of so-called “Internet patents” granted for software inventions and business models by USPTO. I hope that potential readers who are against granting patents for such “inventions” as well, will surivive this reading without any heart problems.

• U.S. Patent No. 6,029,141 (issued Feb. 22, 2000).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,625,694 (issued Apr. 29, 1997).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,781,438 (issued July 14, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,987,441 (issued Nov. 16, 1999).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,191,573 (issued Mar. 2, 1993).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,675,734 (issued Oct. 7, 1997).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411 (issued Sept. 28, 1999).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,715,314 (issued Feb. 3, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,867,799 (issued Feb. 2, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,708,780 (issued Jan. 13, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,764,906 (issued June 9, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,835,896 (issued Nov. 10, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,774,870 (issued June 30, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,724,424 (issued Mar. 3, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,838,790 (issued Nov. 17, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,809,242 (issued Sept. 15, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,794,210 (issued Aug. 11, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,948,061 (issued Sept. 7, 1999).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,794,207 (issued Aug. 11, 1998).
• U.S. Patent No. 5,838,906 (issued Nov. 17, 1998).

In passing. Original work titled “The Internet is for porn” is avaliable at www.avenueq.com website in RealMedia container format but below you can watch another version done by World of Warcraft player. I can only speculate that this one was used and done without a proper permission or a license agreement from the owner of the Avenue Q show. But from the other hand, they could use fair use defence (parody) of course. Well, Internet.

This post was inspired by the lecture of many websites that devoted its space to news about Michael Meurer’s and Jim Bessen’s book titled “Do Patents Work?”, which will be published in 2008 and I await it much more then new Harry Potter’s book, that’s for sure. I recommend you to check the compillation done by Dennis Crouch on his website as regards to mentioned book.

The fifth edition of the Case Law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office has been published. Over a period of 27 years the EPO’s Boards of Appeal have settled more than 21 000 cases, while a total of 85 decisions and opinions issued by the Enlarged Board of Appeal have helped clarify legal points of fundamental importance. This comprehensive report incorporates decisions up to the end of 2005, as well as the most important decisions issued in the first half of 2006.

The book, which is available in English, French or German, can be purchased via the EPO’s website at a price of EUR 42. It can be also downloaded in the electronic form from www.epo.org website (PDF file).

There are two very interesting articles. The first one at www.informationweek.com includes Jonathan Schwartz’s comments on the recent FUD spread by Microsoft and the second one also at www.informationweek.com features Linus Torvalds’ arguments. I fully agree with Linus Torvalds and I would like to learn what patents are allegedly infringed in Microsoft’s opinion. I guess it won’t help much, though, because U.S. patent claims are formulated in such a way so as to conceal the true code of the “invention”. But then again, it is only a side remark on the U.S. patent law.

Update May 19, 2007.
Very interesting article at www.groklaw.net website about Eben Moglen’s findings.

You probably know that the World Intellectual Property Organization is the place where the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) works. The Committee is devoted to establishing legal norms against misappropriation and misuse of traditional knowledge and folklore, and the intellectual property (IP) aspects of access to and benefit-sharing in genetic resources. Personally I’ve got a number of questions and reservations about this initiative. It is not the time and place to write about that in here, though. For those of you who got interested, there are some interesting articles at www.wipo.int website.
The whole idea of writing a post about this topic came into my mind after I’ve read the article at www.iht.com. Copyright protection for yoga excercises? Patents?! Well, on the other hand, in the U.S. copyright law there is the judgement in the case Open Source Yoga Unity v. Choudhury, 74 U.S.P.Q.2D (BNA) 1434. Let me quote a short excerpt.

The court readily acknowledges that this is a very unusual case. All the parties agree that yoga is an ancient physical practice, and that the individual asanas that comprise the Bikram yoga sequence have been in the public domain for centuries. On first impression, it thus seems inappropriate, and almost unbelievable, that a sequence of yoga positions could be any one person’s intellectual property.

However, what is at issue are two competing principles of copyright law. On the one hand, copyright law does not protect factual or functional information, or information that is already in the public domain. On the other hand, copyright law does extend protection to an arrangement of information in the public domain assembled in a sufficiently creative fashion. The question at hand is how to reconcile these two principles.

The judge didn’t explicitly state whether yoga excercises can be copyrighted. He didn’t rule out the possibility to give copyright protection to yoga excercises as well, though. If you would like to learn more, I invite you to read professor Pamela Samuelson’s draft article titled “Why Copyright Law Excludes Systems and Processes From the Scope of Its Protection”, (PDF file), forthcoming in 85 Texas Law Review, (2007).

If you were ever wondering about the origin of this misleading term of intellectual property you probably did some Internet search. Well-known www.wikipedia.org gives you a little help in this matter. You may read that this term was first used in 1845 roku by Judge Charles L. Woodbury’s in the judgement Davoll v. Brown, 1 Woodb. & M. 53, 3 West.L.J. 151, 7 F.Cas. 197, No. 3662, 2 Robb.Pat.Cas. 303, Merw.Pat.Inv. 414, (PDF file).

Only thus can ingenuity and perseverance be encouraged to exert themselves in this way usefully to the community; and only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man’s own, and as much the fruit of his honest industry, as the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears.

For all of you who are interested I post a link to the whole case. It concerned patent law issues. I edited also this Wiki post. If some of you have a copy of A. Nion’s book titled “Droit civils des auteurs, artistes et inventeurs” I would appreciate if you contact me about publishing it here.

Open Hardware License is designed to provide a framework for hardware projects that is similar to the one used for Open Source software. The OHL deals with Documentation, which describes a project using elements such as schematic diagrams, CAD/CAM files, and Gerber files, and Products, which result from using the Documentation. There is an important and unique component in the OHL. It is so-called a patent immunity provision. The OHL requires each person who uses the Documentation to promise that they will not sue others who make Products based on that Documentation for infringement of any patent they control. This ensures that the community is protected from patent claims by those who benefit from the community’s contribution. More details at www.tapr.org website. It is not the first licence of its kind of course. We saw some spectacular actions of “opening” the hardware. One of such was the one done by SUN for its UltraSPARC T1 processor. You can read about that in the official press release available at www.sun.com website.

What to do if you are a declared opponent of RIAA/MPAA and you also issue very negative oppinions about so-caled “DRM” systems and patents for “software invnentions”? Wouldn’t be a solution to prepare some “inventions” on “DRMs” to use them to sabotage the problem? I know that for some of you it may sound funny but please check for what patents is applying Alan Cox. More details at www.freshpatents.com website.

Check the article at www.ironicsans.com website. Among famous inventors are Walt Disney, George Lucas (he has a right to a design patent D265754, which is master Yoda figure) or Michael Jackson.

Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel prize winner, shares very negative opinions about pharmaceutical patents in the article published in the British Medical Journal titled Scrooge and intellectual property rights. As usually I also recommend you very interesting comments about this issue at www.slashdot.org website.

Below, I present a short movie in which Leo Laporte criticizes ideas behind the Zune player. He does it in a real American way. Good parts concern “DRM” issues and the iPod navigation patent.

I remembered myself about Bill Gates last statement at once

DRM is not where it should be, but you won’t get me to say that there should be usage models and different payment models for usage. At the end of the day, incentive systems do make a difference, but we don’t have it right with incentives or interoperability.

More about Bill Gates statements in the article at www.techcrunch.com website. Some issues about iPod’s patent (there are some) were described in an interesting way in articles at www.channelregister.co.uk and www.appleinsider.com websites. Some speculations about Apple’s last patent fillings are also mentioned in the article at www.appleinsider.com website. I wish you good reading.

There is a post about top 10 sex toys patents at www.homemade-sex-toys.com website. I’d like to aviod any misunderstandings about this issue like I had with the new Firefox browser’s logo, so I must tell you that I have found this information at www.boingboing.net website! Other sex patents were described earlier at www.fleshbot.com website.

It became a reality, the official website - www.google.com/patents, on which you may search for patents applications issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. All patents available through Google Patent Search come from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Patents issued in the United States are public domain government information, and images of the entire database of U.S. patents are readily available online via the USPTO website. Speaking about other interesting news here is a design patent no D533,561, issued for Google, covering “Graphical user interface”.

The DG Internal Market is between nominees for manipulating a consultation on EU patent policies. More details at www.worstlobby.eu website. Very impressive initiative.