Google to Become Offensively-Minded

In an attempt to deter frivolous lawsuits, Google Inc. had decided to change its legal strategy.  Instead of taking a defensive approach to any litigation brought against the company, Google is now going on the offensive to fight patent claims.  As reported by Bloomberg.com, the number of patent challenges against Google increased to 14 last year, after 11 in 2007 and three in 2006.

Google currently has 24 cases pending and didn’t settle any patent challenges last year, although Google has settled cases in each of the last four years.  Hilary Ware, Google’s managing litigation counsel, said that Google still isn’t opposed to settling when its warranted.  Still, Google does not want to be seen as an easy target.

Some have criticized Google’s new approach, as it will lead to more litigation.  Alan Fisch, a patent lawyer at Kate Scholer, agreed that how this hard-line approach can actually be quite risky.  “If you’re going to take a hard-line approach, you’d better back it up with victories,” he said.

King to Cut 760 Jobs After Losing Patent Battle

King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced that they will restructure their workforce to decrease their company’s operating expenses.  The announcement comes on the heels of a federal court decision that invalidated key patents on King’s muscle relaxant, Skelaxin.

Brian A. Markison, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated the following on their website:

Following the recent court decision relating to our SKELAXIN® (metaxalone) patents and the uncertainty that it creates with respect to the continued exclusivity of the product, we thoroughly assessed our cost structure.  We concluded the restructuring measures announced today will better position us to support the near-term priorities of our strategic plan.

King expects to cut roughly 760 jobs, including 240 corporate positions associated with the Alpharma acquisition, which King acquired in November for $1.6 billion.  Another 380 positions to be cut will be field sales positions, and approximately 140 more are also corporate positions.

Due to the restructuring and layoffs, King estimates that it will incur special charges between $50 and $55 million.  Yet, the company still plans to appeal the court’s decision that invalidated the patents.

New Bill Seeks to Improve Patent Litigation

Whether you’re an inventor, a lawyer, or a technology buff, one thing is for sure – patent law is complicated.  While there are efforts and calls to fix the poor quality of patents being granted, a current bill seeks to make the subject less confusing for judges by educating them on the matter.

According to Cnet News, Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Darrell Issa reintroduced a bill that would start a 10-year pilot program to educate district judges on patent issues.  The legislation was passed in the House of Representatives in both 2006 and 2007, but both Congressmen are confident it will become law this year since Sen. Arlen Specter introduced matching legislation in the senate.

The bill would authorize $5 million a year to carry out the program, which would be implemented in at least six district courts.  The courts would be chosen out of the 15 that saw the most patent protection cases in the previous year.  The courts must also have at least 10 judges, so that the courts are not perceived as specialized patent courts.  Patent cases would still be randomly assigned, but judges who receive a patent case would have the option of handing it off to a judge who was involved in the program.

Those in Congress hope this bill will help trials move along more quickly, reducing the costs of litigation.  Thus, the legislation could become important for small companies who cannot afford especially lengthy trials.  The bill could also encourage technology since less money for trials and lawyers means more money for innovating.

USPTO Overturns Virtual Subdomains Patent

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected 20 patent claims on an Internet subdomain patent.  According to Ars Technica, the patent in question was originally submitted to the USPTO in 1999 by a company named Ideaflood, and it was approved in 2004.  However, the recent ruling by the USPTO concluded that the concepts in question were obvious and were not patentable material.

The patent became questionable after the Electronic Frontier Foundation called it a “bogus software patent” that stifled both creativity and innovation.  In fact, the Ideaflood patent made the EFF’s top ten in their “Patent Busting Project.”

To explain that patent a little more, it basically describes virtual subdomains with the idea that it would be impractical for companies with a large number of domains to create news DNS records for each subdomain.  The solution would be to use virtual subdomains that put a wildcard in the DNS record, and it would resolve to a single IP address.  The webserver at that IP address would then read the host request and parse it so that it pointed to the specific public HTTP folder residing somewhere on the server.

In EFF’s patent reexamination request, it states that this capability was already being used early in 1998 – before the patent application was filed by Ideaflood.  Additionally, EFF argued that the techniques in the patent were already integral features of the Apache web server at the time of filing. 

To EFF’s delight, the USPTO noted that the patent stated previous knowledge of a way to supply a wildcard character for a subdomain in order to implement virtual subdomains, and the concepts were not patentable.  Thus, the USPTO rejected all 20 claims in the Ideaflood patent.

Samsung, RIM Investigated by ITC

The U.S. International Trade Commission is looking into allegations of patent infringement against Samsung and Research in Motion (RIM).  As reported by the Boston Business Journal, both companies are alleged of infringing on patents through importing different, patented technologies.

Samsung Telecommunications America LLC is a respondent in a November 17 patent infringement complaint filed by Eastman Kodak Co.  The complaint seeks to exclude certain wireless phones, and other wireless devices containing digital cameras, from entering the United States.

On that same day, Samsung Telecommunications and RIM were the subject of a complaint sent to the ITC by Spansion.  The complaint also included Apple Inc. as a respondent, and linked the companies to the importation of products that included “flash” memory chips which infringed on Spansion patents.  In addition to the complaint, Spansion also filed a lawsuit against Samsung in which they are seeking an injunction as well as monetary damages.

Why would a company bring their case to the ITC rather than following traditional litigation?  The ITC process takes about 14 to 15 months in total, which is significantly less time than going to court.  The ITC also has national jurisdiction, whereas plaintiffs in litigation must worry about having their cases transferred to unfavorable venues.  The last favorable aspect of complaining to the ITC, is that it generally is viewed as having strong patent expertise, compared to the 1% of federal courts dockets relating to patent disputes.

But, there are downsides to bringing a case to the ITC.  First, companies that bring complaints before the ITC cannot get monetary damages.  The next negative aspect is that ITC does not have a remedy for past infringements on patents that are about expire.

Over 20 Companies Sued over OS Patent

Microsoft, Symantec, and 20 other companies have been named in a patent infringement lawsuit by a small Texas firm.  Information Protection and Authentication of Texas (IPAT) was granted two patents in the mid-90’s over systems for governing application and data permissions, and ensuring application integrity.  IPAT is looking for an injunction against the named companies as well as damages, reports Ars Technica.

The patent in question was granted in May 1995, and was a continuation of a previous patent filed in May 1994.  The former patent is titled “Computer system security method and apparatus having program authorization information data structures,” and it describes a system of authorization and permissions when executing applications and processing user data.  As the patent describes:

[A system monitor] limits the ability of a program about to be executed to the use of predefined resources.  The system monitor builds a data structure including a set of authorities defining that which a program is permitted to do and/or that which the program is precluded from doing.

IPAT purchased these patents from their listed inventor, Addison M. Fischer.  The complaint was originally filed on December 30, 2008, and a response from the defendants is still forthcoming.

Verizon Sued for Patent Infringement

Charter Communications has sued Verizon Communications, alleging that the phone company’s FiOS fiber-optic network infringes on four Charter patents.  In the complaint filed on Dec. 31st, Charter takes issue with Verizon’s use of certain technologies such as on-demand, which are allegedly being used without Charter’s permission.

The Star-Telegram reports that Charter’s complaint continues by saying, “Verizon operates FiOS in territories throughout the U.S., including in markets where FiOS competes head-to-head with Charter’s cable television and other services.”

Charter is currently working to reduce its $21 billion in debt, while Verizon is spending $23 billion over 7 years to expand the FiOS network, which offers phone, TV and Internet services.  But, Charter does hold the edge in new customers as they had recruited 5.5 million TV subscribers, compared with 1.6 million recruited by Verizon FiOS.

Verizon originally sued Charter in February 2007, claiming that Charter infringed on eight patents for providing telephone services on a data network.  That case is still pending.

Tessera and Motorola to Extend Licensing Deal

Tessera Technologies and Motorola have decided to extend their licensing deal into the new year.  Both companies agreed in November that Motorola would license Tessera’s chip scale packaging technology, reports Forbes.com.  Motorola now has until February 2009 to decide to take the agreed permit, which includes paying royalties to Tessera.

The licensing agreement would settle all pre-existing litigation between the two companies.  However, neither company revealed the terms of the deal, such as the length of the agreement or any financial terms.

Tessera develops and licenses technology that allows buyers to make quicker and smaller chips by shrinking the semiconductor package.  These technologies are used in cell phones, digital cameras, and personal computers.  Yet, these technology have resulted in numerous lawsuits.

Tessera is currently seeking damages from Acer and Centon Electronics, for allegedly infringing on four patents.  On May 23rd, Micro Electronics became the first of 13 companies implicated in an International Trade Commission infringement investigation to negotiate a settlement with Tessera.

Oprah’s Book Club Sued

Illinois Computer Research (ICR) is suing Oprah Winfrey’s production company for allegedly infringing on software linked with the Oprah Book Club.  The company, Harpo Productions Inc., is named in the suit, along with Sony Corporation of America, and Sony Electrionics Inc., reports CBS 2 Chicago.  Oprah Winfrey is not personally named in the suit.

ICR claims that it currently owns rights to a U.S. patent that allows the reviewing of excerpts from a digital book prior to purchase.  But, the patent also prevents the reader from obtaining and reviewing the entire book prior to purchase.  The suit states that Harpo Productions infringed on this patent by encouraging customers to buy and use products. 

ICR claims that Sony also infringed on the patent through its Sony Bookreader product.  More particularly, Sony used the software through its website to reach potential customers.

While Oprah’s company is being sued, some critics believe this is hardly a matter Oprah should be worried about.  Since the patent covers posting a book online, it would make more sense to name Amazon as the defendant in the case, as ICR’s patent seems to cover Amazon’s “look inside” feature.  Others contend that displaying a book online may not really be patentable material.

AstraZeneca Settles Lawsuit

AstraZeneca has announced that it has settled patent infringement litigation against Ivax Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceuticals USA.  The lawsuit stems from Teva’s new drug application, submitted to the USFDA, for a generic version of AstraZeneca’s Pulmicort Respules.

Under the terms of the agreement, Teva concedes that the patents asserted by AstraZeneca are both valid and enforceable.  Therefore, Teva also had to concede that its generic version of Pulmicort Respules infringed upon AstraZeneca’s patents.  The agreement releases Teva from the suspension of its generic drug sales, and any product already shipped by Teva will remain in the market to be further distributed and dispensed.

However, the settlement does allow Teva to commence sales of their own drug beginning on December 15th, 2009.  AstraZeneca will receive an undisclosed royalty from the sales of Teva’s products. 

Pulmicort is an inhaled anti-inflammatory glucocorticosteroid for treatment of bronchial asthma in infants, children, and adults.  AstraZeneca’s patents that protect Pulmicort have expiration dates that extend through 2018, with pediatric exclusivity through 2019.

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