TKDL access has been provided to USPTO
US Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) has now been provided access to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). USPTO and CSIR have signed a TKDL access agreement in order to enable USPTO examiners to perform searches on TKDL. The examiners at USPTO will be trained to search on TKDL, which has more than 2, 00, 000 materials from traditional knowledge in India.

Patent Agent Examination 2010. has been notified
The notification on the qualifying exam for Patent Agents has been issued by the Patent Office. The exam is scheduled to be held on 23rd and 24th January 2010 at centers located in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi.
The examination will be conducted in Educational Institutions, details of which will be communicated to the candidates. The question paper pattern suffers slight changes; Paper I, Patent Act and Rules, will have 40 marks of objective type and 60 marks of descriptive type questions. Paper II will constitute a set of 2 questions of 30 marks each, on Claims and Specification drafting, and 40 marks of descriptive /interpretative type questions. The Patent Agent Examination Board will finalize the question paper by short listing from a question bank created by taking inputs of many experts. Claims/ Specifications required will be taken from the database. The Viva-voce examination which will be based only on domain knowledge is scheduled on 24th Jan and may extend to 25th Jan, for local candidates, depending on the number of candidates. The last date for receiving complete applications by the Patent Office is on or before 31st December 2009.

India will file a complaint before the WTO settlement board
Aggrieved by the consistent seizure of drugs of Indian companies by customs authorities in European countries, India is planning to file a complaint before the WTO dispute settlement body. Mr. Frederick M. Abbott and mr. K. Venugopal are expected to file the complaint shortly. Cipla and Reddy Labs are among the pharma companies that have been affected by the seizure of drugs in transit.

Abbott's settlement with Teva will delay the launch of generic version of Tricor
Abbott Laboratories has settled a patent dispute relating to a cholesterol drug with Teva Pharmaceuticals, which started in 1999 in USA. The settlement deal is expected to delay the release of the generic version of the cholesterol drug, Tricor, for atleast two years. As per the settlement, Abbott has given rights over Tricor to Teva from March, 2011. Other terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
This settlement seems to be a Pay-per-Deal agreement, which is meant to delay release of generic drugs through making payments to generic companies for such a delay. Though it is claimed by the parties that it is not such an agreement, the fact will be known only on reviewing the terms of the agreement. As I had posted earlier, a law to prevent such agreements is in the process of being passed in USA.

Global Findability sues Summit for violation of its patent in a movie
Global Findability has filed a patent infringement suit in a District Court of Columbia against Summit Entertainment claiming that the Science Fiction movie of Summit violates its US patent relating to Integrated information processing system for geospatial media. According to Global Findability, Summit's use of its patented technology in the movie amounts to patent infringement. The case is yet to be heard by the judge.

Psystar and Apple settle
Apple and Psystar have ended a seventeen month litigation through a partial settlement agreement. As per the agreement, Apple has agreed to drop the trade mark, trade dress and other state law claims in return for payment of 2.8 million dollars by Psystar. After the settlement, Psystar will not sell computers pre-loaded with Mac OSX and the software may be installed by the user.

Kodak and LG enter into a cross-licensing agreement
Eastman Kodak Company and LG Electronics Inc. have entered into a cross-licensing agreement with respect to patents relating to OLED technology, digital camera and so on. As per the agreement, the companies will have access to each other's patent portfolios. As a part of the deal, the companies have also settled the patent infringement suits between them.