The presentation herein, on patent infringement analysis, is delivered by Dr. Kalyan Kankanala at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, for Senior officials of the Ministry of MSME, Government of India.
International Business Machine Corp. (IBM) has filed a lawsuit against online travel leader, Priceline and its associated websites for infringing on 5 of IBM’s patents to build its own business model. IBM has made allegations that Priceline has constantly refused to discuss a license to the patented inventions of IBM and should pay royalties on the billions of dollars of revenue it generated using them. Priceline declined to comment on the issue.
Two of the patents Priceline allegedly infringed on are…
The CGPDTM (Controller General of Patents Designs and Trade Marks) has been instrumental in stepping up the efforts of the IPO in making more patent information available online, with the introduction of a new search tool named InPASS (In dian P atent A dvanced S earch S ystem ), in February, 2015.
The Indian Patent Office is showing its commitment to providing transparency to the public about patents. In 2010, the CGPDTM office launched IPAIRS, Indian Patent Information Retrieval…
Whenever an organization acquires any patent there is a whole lot of speculation that hits the market along with the product. Let us now see some of these acquisitions that made highlights in February, 2015.
(1) Google acquires Odysee.
Google has purchased Odysee, an iOS and Android app concerned with the backing up and sharing of photos.
Why would Google need this? It has Google+ photos!
Odysee’s capabilities are slightly different. It allows for full quality photos to be automatically…
Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi, suffered a major setback in India toward the end of 2014, as the Delhi High Court asked it to temporarily discontinue the sale of its smartphones in India. Subsequently, the Court decided that Xiaomi could go on with the sale of models that use Qualcomm chips until February 5, when the next hearing for the patent case is scheduled.
Xiaomi is facing legal troubles in India since it was sued by Swedish technology company, Ericsson, some…
In the late 1860s, Margaret Knight was working in a paper bag plant in Massachusetts, USA. The paper bags of the time were conical in shape, with the bag tapering towards the bottom. She felt that a bag with a rectangular shape and a flat bottom could fit more items. So, she designed a model of a machine for automatically cutting, folding and gluing paper bags with a rectangular shape and a flat bottom. She approached a machine shop to…
Chinese security software developer, Kingsoft, together in the partnership with the mobile phone maker, Xiaomi, Beijing Zhigu Technology Consulting Services (an entity controlled by Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun) and a few others, has launched a USD 35 Mn fund to support Intellectual Property related investments. Kingsoft announced that the investment vehicle managed by Beijing Zhigu Technology Consulting Services will have a 10-year term, without disclosing other specific details.
It is widely speculated that the fund has been formed as an…
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has proposed a change to it’s IP (Intellectual Property) policy. The revised policy can be viewed here. The new policy comprises revisions to the provisions related to commitments from holders of Standards Essential Patents. The revised policy states that the patent holders have to make licenses for Standards Essential Patents available to other parties under Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms.
The biggest change with respect to the updated policy…
Deceased inventors can also get Patents granted, if the approval process gets drawn out, or when attorneys seek “continuations” - new versions of old patents. And the more lawyers and money an inventor has, the more likely his ghost will rattle on. The estate of Jerome Lemelson, the sometimes-controversial independent inventor who came up with the bar code reader, received 96 patents following his death in 1997 at the age of 74!
And that’s how, since Steve Jobs' death in 2011…
The Courts have often engaged in discussion of the legal non-obvious inquiry, only with respect to evaluating whether it was obvious to combine certain elements and not with respect to the ultimate question of evaluating the level of advance over prior art or identifying the quantum of advance necessary to achieve non-obviousness.
In the context of combining prior art, the Court explained the need to consider market demand, design incentives, and other market forces that might lead to combinations or variations…