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Patent raid and seizure
of alleged goods at German tech fair
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A raid was conducted by police and
customs officials at Europe's largest gadget fair at CeBIT
in Hannover, Germany suspecting patent violations.
According to the report by Associated Press, the raid
conducted by the authorities was based on the rising
number of criminal complaints by the holders of patent
rights. The report further stated that the raid affected
51 exhibitors out of which 24 were from China, 15 were
from Taiwan or Hong Kong, nine were from Germany, and the
others came from Poland, the Netherlands, and Korea. The
authorities confiscated 68 boxes with the alleged patent
violation stuff which dealt with devices that have MP3,
MP4, or digital video broadcast functions; DVD players;
and blank CDs and DVDs. |
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Visto and
Microsoft settle patent dispute |
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The lawsuit between the parties began
in December 2005 in the U.S. District Court of Texas when
Mobile e-mail company Visto Corp sued software giant
Microsoft for alleged infringement of three of its
patents. The patents relate to mobile e-mail and data
synchronization. These patents were allegedly used by
Microsoft in its Windows Mobile Operating System. The
dispute continued for two years. It finally ended with
Visto entering into a settlement and a license agreement
with Microsoft involving “cash and non-cash
consideration”. Both companies agreed to dismiss all the
pending claims against each other. The specific terms and
conditions of the agreement were kept confidential. |
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Interpol announces database for
Intellectual Property crimes |
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The second Annual
Global Forum on Innovation, Creativity and Intellectual
Property was hosted by Confederation of Indian Industries in
collaboration with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce & U.S. India
Business Council & Department of Industrial Policy &
Promotion, Govt. of India in Mumbai, India, from 26-27th
February 2008. Among the various issues addressed in the
forum, Intellectual Property crimes was given a special
mention. Interpol general secretary, Ron Noble announced to
create a full-fledged database for all the member-countries
in collaboration with the US Chamber of Commerce. He
informed that the decision to launch a database for IP
crimes was taken following the success of the pilot project
for a database launched for stolen passports. He added that
for the purpose a trial database for IP crimes was created
15 months back with 18 member-countries sending information
about various crimes, which had increased to 54 members. |
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eBay and Merc Exchange settle Patent
dispute |
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In 2001, Merc Exchange
filed a suit against online auction house eBay alleging
infringement on Merc exchange patents. Lawsuit was over the
"Buy It Now" feature of eBay, which allow users to buy an
item outright at a given price without bidding, thereby
covering three patents of Merc Exchange. District Court
found eBay infringing Merc exchange’s patent intentionally
and ordered eBay to pay $30 million as damages. On appeal
the Appellate Court upheld the injunction. Later eBay took
the case to Supreme court, which overturned the appellate
court's decision in 2006 , which enabled eBay to continue
using the feature. Supreme Court also held that the District
Court had given a flawed judgment. This came as a landmark
ruling, as till then it was automatic for courts to grant
injunctions barring alleged infringers from using the
disputed patents. Finally, on February 28, 2008 eBay put an
end to this long-running patent dispute with MercExchange,
which prompted the landmark ruling of Supreme Court. It
announced that the company would pay MercExchange an
undisclosed amount to license all three patents. |
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