What if someone from the future told you that 20 or 30 years from now Apple or Google would be unable to find a buyer, would have stock valued at less than $0.50 per share, would be looking to sell almost all of its patents, and would be on the verge of filing for Chapter [...]

IPLJ BLOG FEATURE: From the Desk of the Editor Each month, Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline McMahon weighs in on topics and legal issues covered in the IPLJ. This month Jacqueline looks back on the key stories the IPLJ focused on this past year. “In keeping with the situation”… what better time to recap the exhaustive year of [...]

Just in time for Christmas, some news about America’s favorite holiday beverage. Coca-Cola’s super secret patented formula has been moved for the first time since 1925. Read all about it here, here, and here.   Thank you to staffer Heather Crawford for the links!

…because Microsoft has filed for a patent on software that monitors employee work habits. But there’s a bright side to this Big Brother-esque software. From LiveScience: “[T]he Microsoft patent idea doesn’t automatically grant power to the boss or the HR department. It also envisions how workers might benefit from such monitoring software by getting feedback [...]

Broad Patent Could Have Large Impact on Groupon, Foursquare, & Future Developers This past week, Hothand, an Orange County firm, filed a lawsuit against Groupon and Yelp, alleging that these companies’ mobile shopping apps infringe its location technology. The patent abstract describes it as: “A subscription-based system for providing commerce information for one or more mobile [...]

Bookstore Barnes & Noble has asked the Department of Justice to investigate Microsoft’s patents related to tablets and smartphones, claiming that the software giant is stifling competition in the mobile device market by “raising rivals’ costs in order to drive out competition and to deter innovation in mobile devices.”  The plea for an investigation comes [...]

A new ten-year pilot program that directs patent cases to a select group of judges within each participating federal district is finally underway in the Southern District of New York.  The bills establishing the program took a few years to make their way through Congress, and the Southern District was selected back in June to [...]

IPLJ’s Business Editor, Amit R. Parikh, co-authored an article with Charles R. Macedo, a partner at Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein, and Jessica Capasso, an associate at Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein.  This article addresses a Supreme Court opinion that decides employees’ rights to inventions under the Bayh-Doyle Act.  The article examines the opinion in detail and notes [...]

The European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday, October 18, that stem cell research cannot be patented. This may have far-reaching effects on the future of stem cell research. Read more here and listen to an audio recording of the discussion here to learn more.

            Last month, President Obama signed into law the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, an overhaul of the U.S. patent system which is purported to be the most significant reform in decades.  The Act aims to create jobs and foster economic growth by speeding up the filing process and reducing filing fees for certain defined small [...]