Last year, Axios’s managing partner, Adam Philipp, cautioned that Bilski hardly spelled the demise of software patents. And now I’m predicting that the Supreme Court is about to overturn Bilski and emphasize that software is still patentable in the process. Allow me to explain . . .
Author Archives: Michael Rice
Prediction: Supreme Court to embrace software patents
Posted in Legal Update, Litigation, Patent Prosecution, Recent Cases Tagged Bilski, federal circuit, In re Bilski, Supreme Court 1 Comment
One of the hidden (literally!) values of method claims
Yesterday, the Federal Circuit reminded us of another reason why method claims are so valuable. In Crown Packaging Technology, Inc. v. Rexam Beverage Can Co., No. 08-1284 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 17. 2009), the court held, among other things, that a method claim does not require markings to enforce the patent in litigation.
What it looks like to win a patent infringement case
This is a Portland case, but I thought you’d find it interesting anyway. The plaintiffs, a Portland chain maker called Blount, Inc., sued a handful of defendants for patent infringement. The jury returned a $2m verdict a few days ago, so I thought I’d show you what $2m looks like on a special verdict form.
Posted in Litigation 1 Comment
The geeks were right…
Yesterday, I was looking at an old InterTrust patent application. It was a continuation of an application filed back in Silicon Valley’s dot-com boom times. InterTrust had then, like a lot of our clients do today, very ambitious goals. In this case, those goals didn’t materialize, and InterTrust morphed in to (what I call) a pure innovation company. And it still became very successful because of the value of its intellectual property.
Posted in Portfolio Management Leave a comment
Initial observations on the Microsoft v. TomTom patent litigation
The recent complaint filed by Microsoft against TomTom has generated significant discussion and debate in the Seattle software community. In this post, I’ll briefly describe a few initial observations about the case.
EPO fees continue to rise on April 1, 2009
Starting April 1st of this year, the European Patent Office (“EPO”) phases in the second of its fee increases. This increase threatens to have serious financial impacts for patent applicants, especially for startups needing to conserve cash. If you are considering applying for the benefits of patent protection in Europe, or already have an application in progress, there are some things you can do now.
Save the date: Seattle Lunch 2.0 Happy Hour
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