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The Deputy Director of the USPTO met with representatives from U.S. automakers on May 6, 2008 as part of a tour to seek input from various parties regarding design patent protection for automobile components. Currently, components of automotive vehicles, such as...
Continue reading "USPTO seeks input from parties concerned with design patents on auto parts" »
The Chinese State Intellectual Property Office has recently introduced a machine-translation tool for Chinese patents. The new service allows for searching abstracts and bibliographic data in English, as well as machine translation of full-text patent documents, including claims and specifications....
Continue reading "Chinese SIPO introduces machine translation of patents" »
The CAFC has requested oral arguments from two amici for its hearing of Ex parte Bilski: Regulatory Datacorp and the Financial Services Industry group. The RDC argues for a broad interpretation of patentable subject matter, interpreting the term "process" in 35...
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Fu disclosed an imaging member for use in electrophotography containing a surfactant composed of a poly(fluoroacrylate)-graft-poly(methyl methacrylate). The USPTO rejected this application as obvious under 35 USC §103(a) in light of several patents, including a patent to Yamamoto, which disclosed...
Continue reading "Board of Patent Appeals: Species is not patentable when prior art discloses a genus encompassing the claimed species" »
The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia recently granted summary judgment to Tafas and GlaxoSmithKline, finding that the USPTO's proposed Final Rules were an improper extension of the Office's authority. According to the Court, the authority granted to the...
Continue reading "USPTO's proposed Final Rules held invalid" »
Agrizap v. Woodstream involved a patent (5,949,636) held by Agrizap, Inc. covering a method and apparatus for electrocuting pests such as rodents. Woodstream Corp., first licensed and then begain producing its own version of the product, prompting a suit by...
Continue reading "CAFC holds that strong prima facie case of obviousness not overcome by secondary indicia of non-obviousness" »
According to the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office, the SIPO received 694,153 patent applications in 2007, an increase of 21.1% from 2006. Chinese applicants made up 84.5% of the yearly total, with the rest being filed from abroad. Additionally, the...
Continue reading "Chinese Patent applications on the rise" »
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ordered a rehearing of In re Bilski, a case involving a patent for a method for managing risk in commodities trading. The claimed method is not tied to any particular technology,...
Continue reading "CAFC to examine in re Bilski en banc" »
China's Patent Law entered into force in 1984 and has since then been revised twice, in 1992 and 2000. In 2008, the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office is expected to finalize the draft of a third revision, which will affect...
Continue reading "China's third amendment to its patent law contains several controversial articles." »
The summary judgment hearing in Tafas v. Dudas took place on February 8, 2008. During the two-hour-long oral arguments, the parties argued that the validity of the new USPTO rules may depend on whether the rules are substantive or procedural....
Continue reading "Summary judgment hearing held in Tafas v. Dudas" »
Monsanto Corporation is the manufacturer of RoundUp pesticides, which function by inhibiting the function of the enzyme EPSP synthase, which is necessary for a step in the synthesis of amino acids by the plant. The company also distributes seeds that...
Continue reading "CAFC upholds soybean gene patent" »
The Patent Prosecution Highway is a program by the USPTO that enables an applicant, who received a ruling from a foreign patent office that at least one claim in an application is patentable, to request that the foreign office fast-track...
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While worldwide, the number of patent applications has been growing at a rate of about 4.7%, the rate of growth in China and South Korea has been several times higher, according to WIPO's 2007 report. Since 1995, South Korea the...
Continue reading "Increase in East Asian patent filings outpaces rest of world" »
Under Chinese Trademark Law, a trademark owner with products belonging to different classes under the Nice Classification must register its trademarks separately in each class. Wang Jun, an apparel dealer in Wuhan, had discovered that while Louis Vuitton had registered...
Continue reading "Louis Vuitton may be banned from sale in China" »
In Baldwin Graphic Systems, Inc. v. Siebert, Inc., the Federal Circuit confirmed that the use of the indefinite articles "a" or "an", in an open-ended claim containing the transitional phrase "comprising", carries the meaning of "one or more". Baldwin sued Siebert...
Continue reading "Federal Circuit confirms meaning of indefinite articles in patent claims" »
On January 16, 2008, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the Quanta v. LG Electronics case. The case involves the patent exhaustion doctrine, which states that a patent holder may not restrict the manner in which a...
Continue reading "Supreme Court to Hear Patent Exhaustion Case" »
On December 11th, 2007, the PTO's proposed changes to the Information Disclosure Statement rules have been approved by the US Office of Management and Budget and thus passed the last regulatory review prior to implementation of the rules. An Information...
Continue reading "New IDS rules to limit number of references in an application" »
On November 26, 2007, the Federal Circuit granted en banc review of the decision in Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc. The case involved a design patent for an "ornamental nail buffer," which EGI claimed to be infringed by Swisa....
Continue reading "CAFC to examine "point of novelty" requirement in upcoming case" »
Earlier this month, attorneys for Dr. Tafas in the ongoing battle regarding the new USPTO claims and continuations rules had filed notices of deposition for several USPTO officials. John Dudas, Undersecretary of Commerce, John Doll, Commissioner of Patents, John Love, Deputy Commissioner...
Continue reading "GSK & Tafas v. USPTO Update" »
Adidas-Salamon AG recently won a suit for unfair competition in China against two Chinese footwear manufacturing companies. The two companies sold shoes under license from "American Adidas International Group Co. Ltd." American Adidas, however, was not the famous German sports...
Continue reading "Chinese Companies to Compensate Adidas for Unfair Competition" »
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