Angiotech win boosts firms looking for patent protection in UK: related news

Angiotech win boosts firms looking for patent protection in UK

A decision by the House of Lords backing Angiotech Pharmaceuticals in a dispute with Conor MedSystems is being hailed as a groundbreaking decision that will make it easier for pharmaceutical firms to get patent protection in the UK.

Foreigners may face tighter Chinese patent laws

Foreign companies that make discoveries in China would have to file for a patent in China before anywhere else or risk losing protection of their intellectual property, according to proposed changes to the country's patent law. Another proposal calls for the introduction of an "absolute novelty" standard, which would make it more difficult to obtain a patent in China for inventions already in use overseas. Experts said the changes, which could come into effect this year, would make it easier to challenge rogue Chinese patents, the Financial Times reported. However, the experts also warned that conditions are likely to become more challenging for foreign firms conducting research in China. At present, most of these firms choose to file for patent protection in their home countries, where patent legislation is more mature and robust than in

DP6946 Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation: Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes

We study how fragmentation of patent rights (‘patent thickets’) and the formation of the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affected the duration of patent disputes, and thus the speed of technology diffusion through licensing. We develop a model of patent litigation which predicts faster settlement agreements when patent rights are fragmented and when there is less uncertainty about court outcomes, as was associated with the ‘pro-patent shift’ of CAFC. The model also predicts that the impact of fragmentation on settlement duration should be smaller under CAFC. We confirm these predictions empirically using a dataset that covers nearly all patent suits in U.S. federal district courts during the period 1975-2000. Finally, we analyze how fragmentation affects total settlement delay, taking into account both reduction in duration

Online Tool Retailer Launches New Workwear Range

Evesham, UK (PRWEB) May 1, 2008 -- www.toolbox.co.uk, the UK's leading online power tool (http://www.toolbox.co.uk/cordless-power-tools-1-0000) retailer today announced the launch of a brand new range of workwear (http://www.toolbox.co.uk/workwear-85-0000) for the UK market. Covering everything from Hi Vis clothing (http://www.toolbox.co.uk/hiviz-clothing-315-0000) through to a full range of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment such as safety goggles (http://www.toolbox.co.uk/safety-goggles-113-0000), hard hats (http://www.toolbox.co.uk/hard-hats-118-0000) and knee pads (http://www.toolbox.co.uk/knee-pads-112-0000).

Supreme Court strengthens patent exhaustion doctrine

The United States Supreme Court has unanimously held in Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc. that the patent law cannot be used to control the subsequent use or disposition of a product "that substantially embodies a patent" once the product has been sold with authority of the patent owner. "The authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder's rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking the patent law to control post-sale use of the article." Patent exhaustion applies whether the patents are directed to products or methods. "Our precedents do not differentiate transactions involving embodiments of patented methods or processes from those involving patented apparatuses or materials.

Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system

Add our medical news to digg - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to NewsVine - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to Fark - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to Furl - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to Shadows - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to YahooMyWeb - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to Reddit -Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to StumbleUpon - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unacceptable' patent system Add our medical news to Facebook - Drugs industry protecting 'morally unaccep

Silence Therapeutics Announces Successful Opposition of Glover Patent

a leading European RNA interference (RNAi) focused biotechnology company, announced today the successful opposition of a fundamental Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. European patent resulting in the patent being revoked in its entirety. The Opposition Division of the European Patent Office, following a three day hearing, announced its decision to revoke European Patent EP 1 230 375, exclusively licensed to Alnylam Pharmaceuticals from Cancer Research Technology, Ltd (UK). The Patent, commonly referred to as the "Glover" patent, broadly relates to medicaments comprising an RNA interference mediating RNA molecule. Opposition briefs to the Glover patent had been filed by Silence Therapeutics AG, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, Quark Biotech, Inc.

Cereplast secures patent protection fo...

Cereplast, Inc., manufacturer of proprietary bio-based, sustainable plastics, has secured patent protection for its Cereplast Compostable® resin family of products from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The U.S. patent (#7,393,590) was issued on July 1, 2008 and adds to the company's intellectual capital. This formulation patent strengthens the existing patent portfolio of Cereplast and protects the composition of Cereplast's Compostable resin grades designed primarily for extrusion coating resin on paper and other substrates.

Non-Disruptive Backups and Migrations Enhances European Patent Protection and Management

The European Patent Office grants European patents. The EPO carries out searches and substantive examinations on a steadily rising number of European patent applications and international applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The European Patent Office (EPO) needed to support up to 60 million patents documents and 800,000 patents within a high availability and ultra resilient DB2 environment. The European Patent Office deployed BMC DB2 solutions to more effectively support its customers and the management of its patent applications.

Howrey's Lords patent win for Angiotech sets new IP precedent

HowreyÂ’s burgeoning UK intellectual property (IP) practice has scored a valuable patent win for biotechnology client Angiotech against Conor Medsystems in the House of Lords.

JPEG Patent's Single Claim Rejected (And Smacked Down For Good Measure)

We've been covering the ongoing saga of an old patent we've referred to as the "JPEG Patent." This actually isn't the first patent we've called the JPEG Patent, because multiple people claimed to hold patents over the technology that goes into a JPEG image. But, this one was rather special. The patent had been used, repeatedly, by lawyer Ray Niro, against a wide range of opponents, including a patent system critic. The end result was a drawn out review process where all of the original claims were rejected, but a single new claim was added to the patent, which Niro insisted covered JPEGs on a website.

UK Government: UK-IPO response to the European Commission's proposal to extend the term of copyright protection

UK Government: UK-IPO response to the European Commission's proposal to extend the term of copyright protection

Tech Companies Team Up To Buy Up Patents To Keep Them Away From Others

Google, Verizon, HP, Cisco and some others are apparently teaming up to put money towards buying patents to keep them out of the hands of patent hoarders who would turn around and sue them. This isn't a new concept, and has been tried before -- and it didn't help much. The problem is that many of the worst patent suits aren't from "known" patents, but someone claiming a patent on some minor feature that everyone thought was obvious. Also, this type of action only encourages more bad patent activities by adding another buyer to the market. Now, questionable patent holders will recognize that they can also just sell to this patent pool, rather than selling to some patent hoarding firm. This is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but will have little to no effect on slowing down or stopping bad patent lawsuits, and may actually enc

PATENT REFORM IS NOT NECESSARY

Virtually all of the problems of the U.S. Patent system, including the high cost of obtaining a patent can be attributed to examiners issuing improper "bogus" rejections. While I know this is tue from my experience as a patent examiner, I performed a survey {using the PTO's Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system} of the 50 most recently issued patents classified in Class 435, Chemistry: Molecular Biology and Microbiology. In 76% of these patents, the examiner indicated in the first Office action that there was no allowable subject matter, i.e. none of the claims are patentable. Are the abilities of patent attorneys so low that over 75% of patent applications as filed do not contain at least one allowable claim? Or are the examiners writing "bogus" rejections? The answer is the latter.

Admitted Patent Troll Finds The Phrase 'Shell Entity' Offensive

You may recall last year that we wrote about a patent lawsuit where the judge banned the use of the word "patent troll." That seemed reasonable enough, since it's clearly a negatively loaded phrase. However, it looks like some patent attorneys are trying to go even further with that concept. Ray Niro, in defending Scott Harris (who, you may recall, licensed his own patents to be used in lawsuits against his own firms' clients), is demanding that the phrase "shell entities" not be used either, claiming that they, too, are used negatively. That's because, like so many patent holders these days, Harris used shell companies to hold the patents and to sue companies. Of course, "shell entities" is a descriptive term, not one that is clearly designed as an insult like "patent troll.

German Court Rules Qualcomm GSM Patent Claim Against Nokia Invalid

The German Federal Patent Court ruled today that Qualcomm’s GSM patent case against Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is invalid, Reuters reports. This is the third court to conclude that the American chipmaker’s patent claims against Nokia are “without merit,� said the Finnish handset maker. The United Kingdom High Court, and the U.S. International Trade Commission have also ruled that Qualcomm’s GSM patent claims against Nokia to be invalid. The two will meet again in German court in October, when a second Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) patent case will be heard. The news comes on the same day that Qualcomm and Nokia are to meet in a Deleware Court over its ongoing patent dispute.

Indevus Pharmaceuticals Announces Issuance of U.S. Patent for SANCTURA XR(TM)

announced today the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 7,410,978 (the "'978 patent"), entitled "Once Daily Dosage Forms of Trospium," which is licensed exclusively to the Company by the patent's assignee, Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The '978 patent covers the Company's approved product, SANCTURA XR(TM), a once-a-day formulation of trospium chloride which is indicated for the treatment of symptoms of an overactive bladder. Based on calculations made by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the term of the '978 patent is twenty years plus 89 days from its filing date of November 4, 2004, or February 1, 2025. In September 2007, the Company entered into an agreement with Allergan, Inc. by which the Company granted Allergan an exclusive sublicense to market SANCTURA XR in the United States.

UK-IPO launches a Consultation on the Patent Research Exception

As part of its work in taking forward the recommendations of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, the UK-IPO is seeking views on the effect of the patent research exception as allowed under Section 60(5) of the Patent Act 1977. This consultation has been launched with the aim of gathering evidence and to identify stakeholder concerns on this aspect of patent law. We are also keen to hear from those who are actively engaged in research activities.

Advanced Biological Laboratories Patent Licensing Technologies SARL Enters U.S. Patent License Agreement With Viralliance Inc.

ABL Patent Licensing Technologies, SARL, a subsidiary of Advanced Biological Laboratories SA (ABL) entered into a patent licensing agreement with Viralliance Inc. (VI). As per the scope of the patent license agreement, ABL has granted a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to VI to use the ABL patent portfolio for guiding and ranking the selection of a therapeutic regimen for a given patient. The other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Maybe Patent Trolls Wouldn't Be So Hated If We Called Them Patent Elves

I'm not a huge fan of the term "patent troll" which I agree can be unfairly negative, and without a clear definition often leads to problems. Recently, it seems that the term is most often applied to "non-practicing entities" making some people think that the patent system is mainly abused by those operations. That's a bit of misdirection. There's just as much, if not more, abuse of the patent system done by large companies. If there were actual proof (still waiting!) that the patent system actually did lead to more innovation, then I can easily understand why a non-practicing entity that just licensed its works could make sense. Unfortunately, most of the evidence suggests that patents don't actually lead to more innovation. In those cases, the only thing that non-practicing entities end up doing is hindering innovation.

Advanced Biological Laboratories Patent Licensing Technologies SARL Enters U.S. Patent License Agreement With Viralliance Inc.

LUXEMBOURG & KALAMAZOO, Mich., BUSINESS WIRE -- ABL Patent Licensing Technologies, SARL, a subsidiary of Advanced Biological Laboratories SA (ABL) entered into a patent licensing agreement with Viralliance Inc. (VI). As per the scope of the patent license agreement, ABL has granted a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to VI to use the ABL patent portfolio for guiding and ranking the selection of a therapeutic regimen for a given patient. The other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Advanced Biological Laboratories Patent Licensing Technologies SARL Enters U.S. Patent License Agreement With Viralliance Inc.

LUXEMBOURG & KALAMAZOO, Mich., BUSINESS WIRE -- ABL Patent Licensing Technologies, SARL, a subsidiary of Advanced Biological Laboratories SA (ABL) entered into a patent licensing agreement with Viralliance Inc. (VI). As per the scope of the patent license agreement, ABL has granted a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to VI to use the ABL patent portfolio for guiding and ranking the selection of a therapeutic regimen for a given patient. The other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Advanced Biological Laboratories Patent Licensing Technologies SARL Enters U.S. Patent License Agreement With Viralliance Inc.

LUXEMBOURG & KALAMAZOO, Mich., BUSINESS WIRE -- ABL Patent Licensing Technologies, SARL, a subsidiary of Advanced Biological Laboratories SA (ABL) entered into a patent licensing agreement with Viralliance Inc. (VI). As per the scope of the patent license agreement, ABL has granted a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to VI to use the ABL patent portfolio for guiding and ranking the selection of a therapeutic regimen for a given patient. The other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Advanced Biological Laboratories Patent Licensing Technologies SARL Enters U.S. Patent License Agreement With Viralliance Inc.

LUXEMBOURG & KALAMAZOO, Mich., BUSINESS WIRE -- ABL Patent Licensing Technologies, SARL, a subsidiary of Advanced Biological Laboratories SA (ABL) entered into a patent licensing agreement with Viralliance Inc. (VI). As per the scope of the patent license agreement, ABL has granted a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to VI to use the ABL patent portfolio for guiding and ranking the selection of a therapeutic regimen for a given patient. The other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Advanced Biological Laboratories Patent Licensing Technologies SARL Enters U.S. Patent License Agreement With Viralliance Inc.

LUXEMBOURG & KALAMAZOO, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 4, 2008 - ABL Patent Licensing Technologies, SARL, a subsidiary of Advanced Biological Laboratories SA (ABL) entered into a patent licensing agreement with Viralliance Inc. (VI). As per the scope of the patent license agreement, ABL has granted a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to VI to use the ABL patent portfolio for guiding and ranking the selection of a therapeutic regimen for a given patient. The other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Search took 0.38 seconds.