First Publication Date: 1st November 2009
The government in the guise of the patent office is guided by the Patent Act and rules of the respective country to confer the necessary rights to the inventor(s) for his/her invention. The extent of the rights is determined by the scope of the claims in a patent application which the inventor(s) files with the patent office.
The two broad factors that largely tend to affect the scope of the claims are:
1) The prosecution history of…
First Publication Date: 5th November 2009.
In US, it is possible to block publication until grant of a patent application provided certain conditions are met. According to § 1.213 of MPEP, if the invention disclosed in an application has not been and will not be the subject of an application filed in another country, or under a multilateral international agreement, that requires publication of applications eighteen months after filing, the application will not be published, provided:
(1) A request (non-publication…
First Publication Date: 1st November 2009
According to Section 10(4)(d) of The Indian Patent Act, every complete specification shall include an abstract section to provide technical information on the invention.
According to Rule 13(7) of The Patent Rules, the abstract section shall begin with the title of the invention. The abstract shall also indicate the technical field of the invention, the technical problem the invention solved by the invention, how the invention solves the mentioned problem and the use(s) of…
First Publication Date: 3rd April 2009
The Common Public License (CPL) is an open source license agreement released by IBM. The company holds copyright over the license. It permits the distribution of the license but limits the right to modify it. Softwares such as Windows Installer XML developer tool, Windows Template Library and so on have been released under the Common Public License.
Rights
The agreement grants a license over the following rights under the copyright law to every person…
First Publication Date: 21st December 2008.
Issue
Whether a live, human-made micro-organism is patentable subject matter under section 101 of the Patent Act.
Holding
Yes, a human made microorganism is patentable under section 101.
Case Facts
Chakrabarty discovered a process by which four different plasmids, capable of degrading four different oil compounds, could be transferred and maintained stably in a single Psuedomonas bacterium, which itself has no capacity for degrading oil. Chakrabarty's patent claims were of three types: first, process claims for the method of producing…
First Publication Date: 30th August 2008
Case Facts
A mechanical device was patented and a first reissue was filed within four months of the patent on April 9, 1872. The reissue was granted. Then after four years The second reissue was filed a little more than a month after the first was granted. In this reissue the specification was largely refrained, drawings changed in form not in substance and the claim was changed by adding a necessary phrase.
Issue
Whether a second…
First Publication Date: 24th July 2008
Case Facts
Inamed Corporation was a licensee of Dr. Kuzmak as Dr. Kuzmak had four patents covering devices and methods for surgical treatment of obesity. The patent in question was directed to a method for performing gastric banding surgery using a calibration tube and electronic sensor apparatus. In 1998, Inamed tried to re negotiate the terms of the license and when the renegotiation failed Inamed terminated the contract on December 6, 1998. Dr Kuzmak sent a…
First Publication Date: 4th February 2008
The GNU General Public License ("GPL") is one of the most popular open source licenses. All software released by the Free Software Foundation and many other authors, are governed by this license. GPL provides the freedom to share and modify software under certain conditions.
Copy, Run and Distribute
GPL allows a person to copy, run and distribute the software governed by it. A person is allowed to distribute verbatim copies of the software, commercially…
“Indian patent statistics, Interesting inventions, Patent infringement disputes, Nestlé’s Skin Health accused of patent infringement, Teva and Eagle Pharma file patent infringement suit against Mylan and Fresenius, Qualcomm versus Apple – setback for Qualcomm and other Weekly Patent News updates,” presented by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Patent Firm.
Design Quote of the Week
“Design helps shape our everyday interactions through products, furniture, objects, or experiences.” - Co-founder and chief product officer of Airbnb…
First Publication Date: 7th January 2008
The Copyright law protects ideas expressed on a tangible form. Ideas by themselves do not get any protection; only the expression of the idea is protected under the copyright law. To get protection an idea should be expressed as literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, cinematographic or photographic work or a sound recording. Such an expression should be on a tangible form such as a paper, canvas, tape and so on. Expression in an electronic form is…