Tuesday, September 4, 2012

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY UPDATE: From Charles Jerome Ware, P.A, Attorneys and Counsellors

The national general law firm of Charles Jerome Ware, P.A., Attorneys and Counsellors, is headquartered in Columbia, Howard County, Maryland.

Alan J. Kennedy, Esquire, is an experienced, high-level intellectually property attorney whose prior professional patents and copyrights background includes NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the United States Patents and Copyrights Office, as well as the Xerox Corporation General Counsel's Office, among other experiences.

Mr. Kennedy is credited for being one of the top intellectual property attorneys in the United States, and he heads the firm's Intellectual Property law specialty department.

In law, especially in common law jurisdictions, "intellectual property" is frequently referred to as "intellectual rights", which includes so-called moral rights and other personal protections that cannot be bought or sold. Intellectual property rights are enforceable either for an indefinite period of time --- in the case of trademarks and trade secrets, or they may last for a term of years after which the rights typically expire and become part of the "public domain" (essentially, absence of legal protection).

The most common forms of intellectual property include patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets.

Today's Intellectual Property Law News:

"Akamai Technologies Inc.'s (AKAM's) patent claims over online content delivery networks against LImelight Networks, Inc. (LLNW) were revived by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C."

The Federal Circuit appeals court ordered a lower court (U.S. District Court) to reconsider whether Limelight Networks, Inc. (LLNW) infringed upon the Akamai patent.

In a related decision issued Aug. 31, the court reinstated claims McKesson Corp. (MCK) made against closely held Epic Systems Corp. on a patent for a method of communication between doctors and their patients.

The issue in both cases was whether a company can be liable for infringing patents when various parties carry out parts of an innovation. The ruling will affect disputes over software, financial systems and medical diagnostic testing.

The Federal Circuit, sitting with all active judges, heard the Akamai and McKesson cases on the same day.

"Apple Sued by Alcatel-Lucent Trust Over Video-Compression Patent"

Apple Inc. (AAPL) was sued by a trust associated with France’s Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALU) over accusations it infringed a patent for video-compression technology.

“Apple’s products, including but not limited to the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the ‘new iPad’ by virtue of the manner in which they encode video, infringe one or more claims” of the patent, Multimedia Patent Trust said in a complaint filed Aug. 29 in federal court in San Diego.

The trust seeks unspecified damages and a court order stopping the alleged infringement.

Alcatel-Lucent, based in Paris, set up the patent trust on Nov. 28, 2006, two days before Alcatel’s purchase of Lucent Technologies Inc. The trust previously sued Walt Disney Co. (DIS) and DirecTV (DTV), among other companies, over video-compression patents. Apple is also a defendant in a separate infringement case brought in 2010 by Multimedia Patent Trust in San Diego.

[www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-04/ "Akamai, Apple, Disney, DuPont: Intellectual Property"; www.wipo.int/enforcement/ "Internet Sources for Intellectual Property Case Law"]

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