Inventor Joseph Marron and his employer and patent assignee Raytheon Company, received patent no. 10,000,000 for a “Coherent LADAR Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection,” which improves laser detection and ranging (LADAR). It was not until 1911 that Francis H. Holton received U.S. patent no. 1,000,000 for an improvement in vehicle tires. It would not be another…
Supreme Court Strikes Blow Against Patent Trolls In 1990, only 1 patent lawsuit was filed in the Federal court for the Eastern District of Texas. In the first quarter of 2017 it was 311 or 1/3rd of all patent infringement suits. It was especially popular with Non-Practicing Entities, i.e., entities that hold patent assets but…
DOC Releases Digital Valedictory The Department of Commerce has released a report “Enabling Growth and Innovation in the Digital Economy,” which it describes as a chronicle of the Commerce Department’s efforts in support of the digital economy over the course of the Obama Administration in areas of a free and open internet, privacy and intellectual property. The report…
Last month, I participated in the State Bar of California’s Intellectual Property Section’s annual trip to Washington to meet with policymakers addressing IP issues. The views below are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any delegation member. Capitol Hill Meetings The delegation began the week meeting at Senator Barbara Boxer’s…
April 20, 2015 A Dozen Things in Tech You Need to Know Happy Patriot’s Day! Patriot’s Day commemorates that Battle of Lexington and Concord and the “shot heard ’round the world” that began the American Revolution. It is a holiday in Maine and Massachachusetts and celebrated by, among other things, the running of the Boston…
JOEL VOELZKE EXPLAINS LATEST SUPREME COURT PATENT RULINGS HOW MANY SUPREME COURT JUSTICES DOES IT TAKE TO STIFLE INNOVATION? AMERICAN BROADCASTING COS., INC., ET AL. v. AEREO, INC., FKA BAMBOOM LABS, INC. LISTEN Play in new window | Download (46.4MB) Aereo smells enough like a cable company to find it infringes. But don’t call it…
Spotlight Falls on Patent Trolls and Junk Patents One of Silicon Valley’s top legislative priorities has been addressing patent trolls. In the last few days there have been major developments on this front in both Washington and at the State level. States Declare Troll-Hunting Season The first shot in the battle over trolls was fired…
A patent troll generally is a business whose only asset are a portfolio of patents and who make money principally by suing or threatening lawsuits against alleged infringers. Advertising and marketing companies have been hit with patent claims over the use of QR codes in coupons, promotions distributed in text messages, podcasts and pull-down menus…
Ascentive Settles Scareware Class Action for $9.6MM Software vendor Ascentive, best known for its FinallyFast product, has agreed to pay $9.6 million to settle a class-action complaint that alleged it tricked consumers into believing that their computers were underperforming by providing them with free ‘diagnostic scans’ that were designed to artificially report an exaggerated number…
Pace Latin reports in Performance Marketing Insider that: On Wednesday, [Plaintiff] filed a suit in US District Court against several Las Vegas casinos for sending out email to customers that contained links claiming that these “email communications to past, present, and potential future customers that contain links to data comprising website pages.” Email Link Corp basically claims that…
WASHINGTON WATCH Patent Reform, Privacy and Copyright Enforcement Congress Approves Patent Reform With Bank Bailout Provision Patent Reform legislation that would change patent approvals from a first to invent to a first to file standard and create a procedure for a post grant review process to challenge bad patents has been sent from Congress to…
Passage of the America Invents Act once seemed a fait accompli (it passed the Senate 95-5) and was originally scheduled for a House vote yesterday. The bill has been stalled by growing opposition to a provision buried in the bill that would allow banks to retroactively invalidate business process patents for check processing and similar items –…
Cyber Report 