Newsletter (IP Convergence)

Seminar on "Intellectual Property and Business Advantage" on 26th June 2009 at Bangalore

Issue: Jun 2009

PRESS ROOM

US Supreme Court to hear Bilski
In October, 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a process is patentable only if it is tied to a machine or transforms an article from one form to another. By holding so, the Court negated patentability of business methods. The US Supreme Court has now granted a certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The US Supreme Court decision may re-define the scope of patentable subject matter relating to business methods.

Court grants 192.7 million dollars damages to Tivo
TiVo Inc. filed an infringement suit against Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. for infringement of its patents relating to video recording. The Court held that Dish Network and EchoStar were liable for patent infringement and granted damages to the tune of 192.7 million dollars. The ruling requires Dish Network to stop its video recording services without acquiring a license from Tivo.

Microsoft and Paltalk settle
Paltalk filed a patent infringement suit against Microsoft alleging violation of patents relating to deployment of interactive applications over hosted networks and group messaging servers. The patents may be applied to video games, video conferences and so on. The parties have settled the infringement suit through a license agreement. Under the license agreement, Microsoft has agreed to take a license over the patents for a royalty.