Intellectual Property Law

Intel Settles Patent Case With Chip Maker

Intel Corp. has agreed to pay a struggling chip maker $250 million for a license to its patents. The deal calls for Transmeta Corp. to license its existing patents and any obtained for the next 10 years, the Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req). The Recorder calls the patent battle…

Oct 25, 2007 12:54 PM CDT

Microsoft Bends Knee to EU Regulation

Bowing down to the authority of the European Union to regulate antitrust issues, Microsoft Corp. has agreed to end a nine-year court battle and share some of its intellectual property with competitors. The move may signal a new era of increased EU enforcement of antitrust rules against dominant companies, now…

Oct 22, 2007 8:33 PM CDT

Seyfarth Shaw Malpractice Defense Claims Catch-22 Similarities

Lawyers for Seyfarth Shaw claim in a dismissal motion that a $75 million malpractice suit is “distressingly similar to Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22.” Seyfarth’s motion does not explain how the suit is like the Heller book, the Recorder reports. But it says “the allegations against Seyfarth [are] muddled, and, when…

Oct 22, 2007 12:19 PM CDT

Industry Pact Sets Video Clip Posting Rules

A coalition of Internet and mainstream media groups have agreed to a new system of preventing copyright violations concerning video clips posted on user-generated sites such as MySpace. Participating members will use special software to detect and block video postings on Internet sites that may violate copyright laws, reports the…

Oct 19, 2007 5:58 PM CDT

Fish & Richardson Sues Ex-Partner Over Patent Inventions

Fish & Richardson has fired one of its partners and filed a lawsuit against him after he invented a new method for online page turning and sold it to a patent troll. The troll then sued Google, a firm client, for infringement. The suit filed in Chicago claims ex-partner Scott…

Oct 19, 2007 1:21 PM CDT

Damages ‘Offensive’ in Music Piracy Case, Motion Says

The lawyer for a woman assessed $222,000 in damages for illegally sharing downloaded music contends in a motion for a new trial that the amount is constitutionally excessive. The judgment against Jammie Thomas for illegally sharing two dozen songs amounts to $9,250 for each recording. Her lawyer, Brian Toder of…

Oct 16, 2007 2:15 PM CDT

Law Firm Claims Right to Partner’s Invention

An intellectual property law firm is claiming it owns the patents on inventions by one of its partners. That’s the claim in a lawsuit against Google by a company that bought the right to the patents from a lawyer who worked for Fish & Richardson, the Recorder reports. The suit…

Oct 12, 2007 11:36 AM CDT

Mary J. Blige Infringement Suit Revived

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit by a songwriter who claims hip-hop soul singer Mary J. Blige stole two of her songs. Sharice Davis claims Blige’s songs “L.O.V.E.” and “Keep it Moving” infringe on her copyrights, the New York Law Journal reports. The songs were on Blige’s triple…

Oct 8, 2007 11:52 AM CDT

Record Labels Win Anti-Piracy Verdict

In a huge win for the recording industry, a federal jury in Minnesota decided that a woman who illegally downloaded music owes a whopping $222,000 for copyright infringement. The Los Angeles Times reports that Thursday’s victory could embolden the industry to target consumers in its four-year battle against rampant Internet…

Oct 5, 2007 9:52 AM CDT

A Denial and a Low-Budget Defense in RIAA Trial

The woman accused of sharing a couple dozen copyrighted songs on the KaZaA file sharing service says she didn’t do it, but she can’t afford an expert to explain why the computer evidence suggests otherwise. Jammie Thomas testified yesterday that she has never even heard of KaZaA, the Duluth News…

Oct 4, 2007 2:51 PM CDT

Stents Help Patients’ Hearts, Lawyers’ Bottom Line

Coronary artery stents are big business—not only for the companies that make them but also for lawyers. Litigation over patent rights may be hindering development of new products and forcing small companies to sell out to bigger competitors, experts told the New York Times. “The stent business is an unusually…

Oct 4, 2007 2:07 PM CDT

Focus on Day Casebeer in Discovery Probe

New court filings put the spotlight on a Silicon Valley law firm in a judge’s effort to find out why Qualcomm Inc. failed to turn over hundreds of thousands of discovery documents. Declarations filed yesterday focused on 21 potentially damaging e-mails that were withheld from Broadcom Corp. in a patent…

Oct 4, 2007 11:08 AM CDT

In-House DuPont Lawyers Post Profit

Like many corporations, DuPont Co. spends a lot of money on its in-house law department. The department’s annual budget was about $230 million last year. However, unlike most corporations, the Wilmington, Del.-based chemical giant has been getting more than it pays for. The company’s in-house counsel brought in $290 million…

Oct 2, 2007 7:50 PM CDT

Accused File-Sharer Won’t Back Down

Jammie Thomas is among 26,000 or so people who were sued by the music industry as part of a campaign to stop the illegal sharing of online music files. But the 30-year-old single mother from Brainerd, Minn., is the only defendant whose case has made it to trial, Wired reports.…

Oct 2, 2007 2:57 PM CDT

Tracking Patents

The court still focusing on inventors’ rights

Oct 1, 2007 6:44 PM CDT