Abstract ideas
Section 101 of the Patent Act allows patents on "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof". 35 U.S.C. 101. But, the Supreme Court has held, it does not make laws of nature, natural phenomena, or abstract ideas patentable. Ass'n for Molecular Pathology
Boy, the Federal Circuit's sure lowered the boom on Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner in Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., No. 12-1548 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 25, 2014).
Smartphone warfare.
The appeal dealt with Judge Posner's rulings as a trial court judge in the Northern District of Illinois phase of the titanic smartphone struggle between Apple and Motorola
The Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit erred when he booted patent infringement claims against "Street View", the Google feature that lets you look at images of houses, buildings, and other objects that line streets and highways online.
The mistake came in how Chief Judge Alex Kozinski construed a phrase — "substantially elevations" — that described the
A Seattle jury today hit Motorola with a $14 to $15 million damages award for bad faith in negotiating to license patents that Microsoft's Xbox and Windows products infringe.
The dispute involved patents that Microsoft holds on technologies relating to wireless local area networks and video coding.
Two standard-setting organizations (SSOs) incorporated the Motorola technologies into standards that they set — H.264 and 802.11
The Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management has come out with "Proposed Model Jury Instructions" on "The Use of Electronic Technology to Conduct Research on or Communicate about a Case". They follow:
Before Trial:
You, as jurors, must decide this case based solely on the evidence presented here within the four