Law, Strategy, and Risk in Commercial Disputes
Ronald Mann over at SCOTUSblog just posted Commentary: Tide turns for Federal Circuit in patent cases. He looks at the three-for-three record of the lone circuit that reviews patent law issues in the Supreme Court during the 2010 Term:
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Seven justices today rejected an attempt to make patents easier for judges and juries to find invalid. The Court held that Congress's granting patents a presumption of validity saves patents unless their foes prove a basis for invalidity with "clear and convincing" evidence. Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. Partnership, No. 10-290 (U.S. June 9…
The inventor from New Jersey, Thomas Sullivan, tried to charm a Tennessee company, Radio Systems, into paying him for a license to make and sell his invention. Radio Systems at length agreed to let Mr. Sullivan drop by to show them his device, which he called "Wedgit" and on which he held a U.S. Patent. But first he had to sign a Confidential…
Stop wasting your money on antitrust lawyers. Hire patent lawyers instead.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., "The Trustbusters' Last Meal Ticket", The Wall Street Journal, Apr. 16, 2011 (fussing again about those durn antitrust laws).
Doesn't the whole world know that, if you publish info you regard as a trade secret, you lose any right to complain about others' use of the info?
The man who came up with a way to pack meat with zero oxygen in the package seems not to have gotten the memo. He — Dr. Gustav…
[W]e deem the Eastern District's previous claim construction in a case that settled more than five years before the filing of this lawsuit to be too tenuous a reason to support denial of transfer.
Jan Horbaly, In re Verizon Business Network Services Inc., Misc. No. 956, slip op. at 6 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 23…
You may have wondered why patent cases have seemed so vogue in the last decade or so for hot shot trial lawyers. Blawgletter would not presume to tell you the cause. But perhaps it stems from the fact that, as Willie Sutton said, "that's where the money is."
But that now looks so two days ago. …
Doing things out of proper sequence can require a do-over. But in law, as elsewhere, the do-over may come too late.
Just ask Abraxis, a drug maker that today lost a lawsuit because the company it bought patents from didn't own them at the time.
Abraxis signed an Asset Purchase Agreement with AstraZeneca in April 2006. …
Russian scientists come up with a way to make an ozone-friendly agent that helps prepare materials useful in making units that store hot or cold. They tell the American company that hired them about the results of their study. And the U.S. firm starts using the process that their Russian colleagues discovered.
Does the U.S. outfit qualify…
Blawgletter recalls early on hearing about "the bow tie rule". People who wear bow ties, the rule supposes, want to stand out. They regard themselves as unique. They desire others to see visible proof of their disdain for norms, wardrobe-wise and otherwise. And you don't want them on your jury. They'll tend to disagree with other…