IP Think Tank Global Week in Review – 7 December 2007

Here is IP Think Tank’s weekly
selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and
internet.

Highlights this week included: It’s getting hotter – Climate change and IP
Strategy; EPO Revokes Amazon’s
‘Electronic Ordering System’ patent (a Divisional of the ‘1 click’ patent); and
controversy over the soon to be Canadian DMCA.

Please join the discussion by adding your comments on any of these stories,
and please do let me know if you think we’ve missed something important, or if
there is a source you think should be monitored.

You can separately subscribe to the IP Thinktank Global week in Review at http://feeds.feedburner.com/DuncanBucknellsGlobalWeekInReview

Global

• Progress on Creative
  Commons license interoperability with Wikipedia: (Creative Commons),
  (more from Creative
  Commons),
• Brand audits: (Branding
  Strategy Insider),
• Top 5 IP audit mistakes: (IPThinkTank),
• WIPO Secretariat surges
  ahead on hosting round table on Economics of IP: (KEI
  Policy),
• Computerworld on world’s
  first software patent: (IPBiz),
• It’s getting hotter –
  Climate change and IP Strategy: (IP
  Think Tank),
• YouTube and IPRs: (IPEG),
• More studies showing that
  P2P downloading increases sales of physical media: (IPCentral),
• Film industry touts ISP
  partners in filtering online content: (IPWatch),
• You can (almost) always get
  a granted patent – but what’s it really worth?: (IP
  Think Tank),
• Making PTO’s more IP
  Business Savvy: (Notes
  from abroad),
• Who wants to be an ISP?: (IP
  Think Tank),
• WIPO – Idris gets paid out
  to leave early: (IAM),
  (Patent
  Prospector),
• Deutsche Grammophon
  ditches DRM: (ArsTechnica)

Pharma

• FDA revisits NCE
  exclusivity for enantiomers: (Arnall Golden
  & Gregory),

• Accupril (Quinapril) –
  Judge finds against Teva and holds Warner-Lambert patent enabled: (IPLaw360),
  (OrangeBookBlog),
• Altace / Tritace / Ramace
  (Ramipril) – King Pharmaceuticals loses CAFC rehearing bid: (IPLaw360),
  (Generic
  Pharmaceuticals & IP),
• Altace / Tritace / Ramace
  (Ramipril) – King Pharmaceuticals sues Teva: (Generic
  Pharmaceuticals & IP)
• Arimidex (Anastrozole) –
  AstraZeneca receives 6 mth pediatric exclusivity: (Competitive
  Info),
• Cardizem (Diltiazem) – Biovail
  and Andrx Pharmaceuticals settle patent litigation: (IPLaw360),
  (Generic
  Pharmaceuticals & IP), (BIO
  Smartbrief), (Patent
  Docs),
• Celebrex (Celecoxib) – Pfizer
  loses bid for attorney’s fees despite earlier win against Teva: (IPLaw360),
• Exelon (Rivastigmine) – Sun
  Pharmaceutical Industries and Watson Pharmaceuticals settle with Novartis:
  (IPLaw360),
  (Generic
  Pharmaceuticals & IP), (BIO
  Smartbrief),
• Levaquin (Levofloxacin) –
  Supreme Court of Canada
  refused to hear Novopharm (Teva)’s appeal of a ruling that upheld the
  validity of the patent to June 2009: (Generic
  Pharmaceuticals & IP)
• Seroquel (Quetiapine) – AstraZeneca scored
  a half-win in its bid to disqualify two experts proposed by Teva: (IPLaw360),
• Vasotec (Enalapril) –
  Apotex loses on appeal at CAFC over process prior used by Merck as such
  use wasn’t concealed: (IPLaw360),

Australia

• Australian patent documents come out of the dark: (Patentlens),

Canada

• More Industrial Designs now available online: (Now Why Didn’t I Think Of That?)
• New copyright rules could cost you: (Michael
  Geist),
• The Canadian DMCA (and surrounding controversy): (Michael
  Geist), (more
  from Michael Geist),
• Songwriters Association of Canada has released an important new proposal
  calling for the legalization of peer-to-peer file sharing: (Michael
  Geist), (ArsTechnica)

China

• Why did my lawyer quit? (more on the Wahaha v Danone dispute): (China
  Business Law Blog),
• What Global Players could learn from Wii v Vii [Nintendo’s global
  new product launch mistakes]: (IPDragon),
  (China
  Law Blog),
• Junk Patents: (China
  Hearsay),
• Has your distributor (representative, manufacturer) in China
  registered your mark?: (China
  Business Law Blog),
• Shedding light on China’s
  underground cybercrime economy: (ArsTechnica),

Europe

• Nordic Patent Institute will be
  operative as an International Search Authority (ISA) and International
  Preliminary Examination Authority (IPEA) from 1 January 2008: (IPKat),
• (Copyright moral rights) – Architect Santiago Calatrava’s Right of
  integrity over (Spanish Bilbao) bridge fails: (IPKat),
• New anti-trust guidance from European Commission: (OUTLAW),
• European Union has taken steps to ratify a 2005 decision by the WTO
  designed to ensure that intellectual property does not limit access to
  medicines in developing countries: (IPWatch), (Lenz Blog), (IPR-Helpdesk),

• London agreement operation by mid 2008 – and
  EU patent talks could still fail: (IAM),

• The end of the European Patent Litigation Agreement?: (IMPACT),
• European ISPs under pressure to attack IP Piracy: (Against Monopoly),
• Quality costs and applicants may have to pay more – EPO president: (IAM),

• Amazon – EPO
  Revokes Amazon’s ‘Electronic Ordering System’ patent (a Divisional of the
  ‘1 click’ patent) after Opposition: (IPJUR)
• Nokia makes
  little progress in its European Qualcomm patent fight: (IPEG),
• Rambus – EU sets
  hearings in patent ambush case: (IPLaw360),

France

• French Council of Sales is taking eBay to court, arguing failrure to
  comply with a 2000 Act on the regulation of auctions: (IPKat),
  (OUTLAW),

India

• Who is benefiting from India’s patent explosion?: (IAM),

• America, India, Agriculture and IPR: (SpicyIP),

• Novartis patent challenged in US: more light… (SpicyIP),
• Addressing IPR Dilemmas through Creative Capitalism: Advanced Market
  Commitment: (SpicyIP),
• Moral Rights under Copyright Laws: A Peep into Policy – Part 1: (SpicyIP),

Spain

• Spanish Patent and Trade Mark Office (SPTO) has
  announced that requests for Patent Technological Reports by companies in
  the ICT industry will be subsidized: (ipmenu),

Uganda

• Harvard threatens Schools in Uganda with trade mark
  infringement: (IPFactor),

United Kingdom

• Amendments to Registered Designs legislation on the way: (IPKat),
• Extra-territorial jurisdiction by the back door?: (IPKat),

United States

• Intellectual Property and Personal Injuries Law: (IPBiz),
• The myth that patent reform will benefit foreigners at the expense
  of US manufacturers: (Patent
  Troll Tracker),
• Useful list of organisations which are not government trade mark
  offices: (Trademark
  blog),
• Patent Advisory Committee tells Bush that problems are surmountable:
  (IAM),
  (More
  from IAM), (Still
  more from IAM), (e^(ip))
• Summary judgment date set for New Rules action by GSK: (Intellectual
  Property Directions), (PLI),
  (Patent
  Docs),
• Extrinsic evidence can only be used against a patent, not to support
  it: (Patent
  Baristas),
• In Re Garner – Even with Deference, USPTO
  misinterprets its own rules: (Patently’O),
  (Patent
  Prospector),
• Congresses copyright reform: seize computers, boost penalties, spend
  money: (ArsTechnica),
• Patent reform faces uphill battle in Senate – in the new year: (PLI),
  (Patent
  Docs), (more
  from PLI),
• Specific Dates Not Required for Dilution Complaint: (Chicago
  IP Litigation Blog),
• Patent litigation should be flat for 2007 – but are the number of
  defendants rising?: (Peter
  Zura),
• Patent Tax: (Patent
  Prospector), (IP
  Spotlight),
• Patent litigation trends – survey results: (Patently’O),
• Admitting evidence of commercial success after KSR: (Delaware IP Law Blog),

• Abbott – A
  federal judge has stopped Abbott’s attempt to add allegations to its
  claims against Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Cordis Corp in the ongoing
  drug eluting stent litigation: (IPLaw360),
• Abbott – Troll Busters Files Reexamination of US5,582,989 (multiplex
  PCR method) Exclusively Licensed
  to Abbott: (BIO
  Smartbrief),
• Acacia reaches
  settlement with Sharper Image: (IPLaw360),
• Amazon & Wal-Mart
  unwittingly team up against DRM: (ArsTechnica)
• AUTM – The Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM)
  releases survey results as critics get louder: (IAM),
• American Red Cross
  is seeking to exclude a Johnson & Johnson expert’s testimony in a
  trademark battle over its red cross symbol: (IPLaw360),
• Apple and AT&T
  hit with another iPhone patent suit – this time Klausner Technologies sues
  over visual voicemail: (ArsTechnica),
  (Patent
  Troll Tracker), (IPBiz),
  (PLI),
• Capital One Financial.
  and Netflix. settled patent infringement suit by Constellation
  covering a system used to display information on Web sites: (IPLaw360),
• Dell has filed
  suit against a group of domain registrars, alleging that the companies
  colluded in infringing Dell’s trademarks and counterfeited the Dell brand:
  (ArsTechnica)
• Dell pulled into
  PC tablet patent fight: (IPLaw360),
• DirectTv held to
  have willfully infringed FinStar’s patent, but obtains compulsory licence:
  (Patently’O)
• DuPont – Pureflex
  Inc. claims ‘Teflon’ mark now generic as defence to infringement claim by
  DuPont: (IPLaw360),
• GE faces suit
  over satellite tracking technology: (IPLaw360),
• Google – 2 months
  after dismissal of it’s first suit against Google in Florida, F&G
  Research Inc. has filed again in North
  Carolina over the same patent, alleging that
  Google Earth’s controls infringe its intellectual property:(IPLaw360),
• Klausner
  Technologies Inc. filed an infringement suit against five new companies
  over its visual voice mail patents: (IPLaw360),
• Micron Technology Inc.
  expanded counterclaims against Mosaid Technologies Inc. in a patent
  infringement suit over dynamic random access memory (DRAM): (IPLaw360),
• Microsoft – Z4
  wages new attacj on MicroSoft: (IPLaw360),
  (Washington
  State Patent Law Blog),
• Microsoft – Anascape
  Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Inc – Markman claim construction handed
  down: (IPLaw360),
• Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) – content filtering is in ISP’s
  best interests: (ArsTechnica)
• Perfect10 – Supreme
  Court won’t hear Perfect Ten Credit Card Processors case: (ArsTechnica),
  (OUTLAW),
• RIAA – Judge
  finds Judge finds copyright misuse defense unconvincing in RIAA lawsuit: (ArsTechnica)
• Samsung and Matsushita
  settled two patent infringement suits filed in 2005 over plasma screen
  technology: (IPLaw360),
  (Patent
  Prospector),
• Samsung Electronics
  Co. Ltd. to pay InterDigital Communication Corp. $134m in royalties,
  confirming a 2006 arbitration award: (IPLaw360),
• Samsung and Nokia
  sued over four cell phone patents: (IPLaw360),
• Sandisk asks ITC
  to investigate flashdrives: (IPLaw360),
• Sears – Jury
  awards $21m against Sears in trade secret suit: (IPLaw360),
• Seoul Semiconductor Co.
  Ltd. Files US ITC suit alleging patent infringement by Nichia Corp over
  laser diode products: (IPLaw360),
• Sony – MicroUnity,
  Sony Playstation patent case closed: (IPLaw360),
• Tesco sued by
  Weatherford over oil drilling patents: (IPLaw360),
• YouTube & Google – fight back at the Football Association Premier League Ltd’s
  copyright class action: (IPLaw360),
• WebTech Wireless
  Inc announces USPTO Re-exam of patent asserted by LunarEye Inc against it:
  (IPLaw360),

Venezuela

• Proposed reform of the Venezuelan constitution – culture and
  intellectual property: (IPWatch), (Further
  IPWatch comment),