On April 15, 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument over the question of whether human genes may be patented in the case of Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.  The case is the result of a group of researchers, medical groups and patients suing Myriad Genetics, a Utah biotechnology company, in [...]

After years of patent pending actions for the mainstream social media networking company, Twitter finally gets a patent for… Twitter. Unbelievable to many, the company and its broad patent can finally take full ownership over tweeting, and perhaps much more, in the future.

In 2011, the European Council authorized enhanced cooperation between member states in a view of creating a single European Patent. Spain and Italy refused to participate and requested the Court of Justice to annul the Council’s decision. The ECJ has dismissed their request noting, that the EU is authorized to create European-wide intellectual property rights [...]

Apple recently filed a patent for a “personal items network” which relies on movement-monitoring devices (MMDs) and event monitoring devices (EMDs).  This device will allow you to track all personal items–from the keys you’re always misplacing to yourself.  According to the patent, the “invention specifically relates to sensing and reporting events associated with movement, environmental [...]

Three cases are currently pending in the U.S. District Courts that will have a significant impact on the patent industry and the practice of patent law: Am. Inst. of Physics v. Schwegman, Lundbert & Wessner, P.A.;  John Wiley & Sons Ltd. v. McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP; and Am. Inst. of Physics v. Winstead PC.  The [...]

Now that we’ve lost count of the many lawsuits Facebook has faced in its 10 years of existence, the newest suit filed against the social media giant, a patent infringement claim filed in Virginia earlier this month, might catch our attention.  Patent infringement, you might say? Facebook laughs in the face of patent infringement!  This [...]

To Richard Posner, patent protection is less important in some industries than in others. Last June, Judge Posner dismissed a case in which Apple and Motorola sued each other for alleged infringement of patents for smartphone components.  The problem, according to Posner, was that neither party had properly calculated damages.  “[G]uesswork,” he wrote, referring to [...]

Facebook, Inc., the world’s largest social networking site with nearly 1 billion users worldwide, has been slammed with a lawsuit claiming the site’s “Like” feature infringes on patents owned by a Dutch computer programmer. The “Like” feature allows users to link their Facebook accounts with third-party content.  Needless to say, you won’t see Joannes Jozef [...]

The granting of exclusionary rights to the inventor/author lies at the heart of intellectual property law. Since the development of antitrust law and the ever-increasing grants of patents and copyright protection, tensions exist between the interfaces of these two areas of law.  Society has addressed these tensions in a variety of ways and one of [...]

After more than 30 years of negotiation, the European Parliament recently approved three proposals aimed to establish a unitary patent system for member states of the European Union.  These proposals involve a unitary patent that would be valid across 25 EU member states (the only countries not included are Spain and Italy).  Such unitary patents [...]