A Kinder Approach to Cease and Desist Letters In the world of intellectual property, the “Cease and Desist” letter is king. These are letters from attorneys for the owner of a work or invention, sent to an alleged infringer of the owner’s intellectual property rights. The letters cite the legal basis for the owner’s claim, […]
Litigation
David Whips Goliath in the USITC (What’s that?)
February 3, 2022
Litigation, Patent
The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) is not a Federal court – in many ways, it’s better than a Federal court where U.S. patents are concerned. The USITC is a U.S. administrative agency charged with, among other things, handling claims by a U.S. patent owner that imported products infringe a U.S. patent. To trigger USITC […]
Ask Dr. Copyright © About Arbitration Clauses
July 22, 2021
contract law, Litigation
Dear Doc: Recently, many companies are sending me long emails with their new “Terms and Conditions”. These are harder to read than hieroglyphics on a pyramid wall, but some parts seem more important because THEY ARE PRINTED IN ALL CAPS. So what is “arbitration” and why do companies want me to consent to it? Can […]
Newsweek has called it the “copyright case of the decade” and it may be right. Google and Oracle are software titans battling over whether the freely available connections between software platforms (Application Programming Interfaces, or “APIs”) can be protected by copyright law. APIs are generally free to use, and they enable developers to build programs […]
In a word, yes. Consider this situation: An entrepreneur comes up with a new invention, let’s say, a self-inflating tire. A big tire company, which has unsuccessfully tried to develop self-inflating tires for years, signs a non-disclosure agreement and comes to inspect the tire. The non-disclosure agreement is a contract by which the big tire […]
Science and the Court: Let’s Get Educated
November 9, 2017
Intellectual Property, Litigation
In the recent argument before the US Supreme Court about gerrymandering, Gill v. Whitford, a mathematical formula was presented to the judges that requires adding together two numbers (“wasted” vote totals) and dividing the sum by a third number (the total number of votes cast.) This formula is called the “Efficiency Gap” and lawyers told the justices […]
Don’t Mess with Texas
July 14, 2017
Litigation, Patent
The Eastern District of Texas is a large rural Federal judicial district. The biggest city is about the size of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Not what you would expect of a hotbed of patent litigation. Nonetheless, the Eastern District of Texas has dominated patent infringement litigation for years. In the first quarter of 2017, patent plaintiffs filed […]
Can Delay be a Defense to a Patent Infringement Lawsuit?
November 29, 2016
Litigation, Patent
In many areas of the law, excessive delay in pursuing a right can be a defense in a later lawsuit. The defense is known as ‘laches’ and is based on fairness – by delaying the litigation, the person asserting the right has acquiesced in the other party’s conduct. Historically, the fairness-based laches defense applies only […]
Supreme Court Dabbles in Patent Law, Again
April 11, 2016
Litigation, Patent
The first general rule is that whenever the Supreme Court accepts a patent case, it will reverse the lower court decision and change the law. The second general rule is that whenever the Supreme Court decides a patent case the law is left in worse shape than it was before. This time, the Supremes have […]
Ask Dr. Copyright… Is Mayo Patentable
March 21, 2016
Ask Dr. Copyright, Litigation
Dear Doc: I hear that in patent law, there’s a new worry about “Mayo”. What’s up? Did someone leave it out of the fridge? Did it spoil? Did folks get sick? Signed, The Entire Pharmaceutical Industry Dear Industry: The “Mayo” you heard about has spoiled a lot of things, and is likely to cause a […]