http://www.haynesboone.com/ Haynes and Boone alerts for the Intellectual Property Practice en-us Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:15:03 GMT Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:15:03 GMT On June 28, 2010, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision on Bilski v. Kappos regarding what inventions are eligible for patent protection. The decision affirms that business methods are patentable, although the specific business methods at the center of the case are not. http://www.haynesboone.com/The_Supreme_Court_Rules_on_Bilski Publication 26d908f4-12d9-432c-9e78-833ce32adf09 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT Most patent applicants can now accelerate the examination of a select number of patent applications in exchange for abandoning an equal number of unexamined, pending applications, according to an announcement issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) on June 24, 2010. The PTO’s official notice, titled “Expansion and Extension of the Patent Application Backlog Reduction Stimulus Plan” (the “Plan”), eliminates the requirement whereby only small entity applicants could participate in the Plan. http://www.haynesboone.com/Accelerated_Patent_Examination_Plan_Extended Publication 64079395-dc0b-406c-b2eb-b17ec5b9ed74 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) is seeking public comment on a proposed three-track patent examination initiative that would provide applicants with greater control over the speed at which their applications are examined. http://www.haynesboone.com/US_Patent_Office_Proposes Publication a7633d72-5fa0-456e-91c6-4b57534b2a7a Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all U.S. patent infringement appeals, issued an order on April 26, 2010 requesting briefs from the parties in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson, and Co. (appeal no. 2008-1511) to consider en banc the standards by which courts should find “inequitable conduct.” http://www.haynesboone.com/Inequitable_Conduct_Therasense Publication f688b14c-46a4-45a8-8eb6-0e625dcc9e4f Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT Just one day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit indicated that it would consider the current state of the inequitable conduct doctrine en banc in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton Dickinson and Co., a split panel of the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the case of Avid Identification Systems, Inc. v. Crystal Import Corp. affirming a lower court’s finding of inequitable conduct. http://www.haynesboone.com/Management_Torched_Our_Patent Publication d68b72fe-7914-42ca-99bf-063d110c0b1d Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT A recent ruling should provide some comfort for non-U.S. companies involved in U.S. trademark oppositions or cancellations. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has clarified that companies with no U.S. operations cannot easily be forced to travel to the U.S. for oral depositions. http://www.haynesboone.com/USPTO_Rules_on_Deposing Publication 4e2189a1-f18c-4433-b217-86f14df80648 Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT The European Court of Justice ruled this week that Google did not infringe trademark rights by letting advertisers purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trademarks in Google’s AdWords program. http://www.haynesboone.com/Google_Adwords_Decision Publication ca5aac26-6296-496f-8448-4243624ba165 Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) announced that, as part of President Obama’s recently proposed budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, the PTO’s budget would be $2.322 billion, a 23 percent increase over FY 2010. http://www.haynesboone.com/Innovation_Fee Publication 3be75d6c-6904-4cee-8e75-3d6f41ac0274 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is modifying the computer program it uses to calculate Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) in light of the recent decision in Wyeth v. Kappos, No. 2009-1120 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 7, 2010). http://www.haynesboone.com/USPTOs_Interim_Procedures Publication a4d9da66-0d2f-428e-8daa-e1760e175124 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT In what may be a new opportunity for cybersquatters, the Colombian .CO registry will soon allow for registration of domain names ending in simply .CO. Such domain names may be a prime platform for social networking sites and brand owners. As the registry explains, the acronym .CO can be associated with terms that include company, corporation, commerce, communities, content, connect, communication, collaborate, and consumers. http://www.haynesboone.com/Steer_Internet_Traffic Publication a1afc523-82f9-45ea-b776-0266a52808c7 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT In a case arising from the Southern District of Texas, the Federal Circuit recently issued an opinion that highlights the risks associated with marking products with patent numbers. See Forest Group, Inc. v. Bon Tool Co., No. 2009-1044 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 28, 2009) (slip opinion).  http://www.haynesboone.com/Litigation_Risk_and_Liability_Danger Publication 6f217d7d-c7ca-439d-a4f3-dcc7de627c72 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.haynesboone.com/The_IP_Beacon_January_2010 Publication 0b198fd0-c1d3-4d8e-b28c-a09b7f3b3981 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT The Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) published an official notice titled “Patent Application Backlog Reduction Stimulus Plan” on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 that it will now advance applications out of turn for small entity patent applicants on a temporary basis (74 Fed. Reg. 62,285). http://www.haynesboone.com/Jumpstart_Your_Patent_Application Publication 26994d3b-961e-4a7c-a235-cf111a7b3747 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) has announced that the director has signed a Final Rule, which has not yet been published, that rescinds the hotly contested proposed claims and continuation rules. These rules would primarily have limited the number of patent applicant filings of: (i) continuation applications, (ii) Requests for Continued Examination (“RCEs”), and (iii) claims without examination support documents (“ESDs”) within a single application. The proposed rules were at the heart of a two-year legal battle that pitted co-plaintiffs Triantafyllos Tafas and GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”) against the PTO and its director. http://www.haynesboone.com/PTO_rulemaking_authority_claims_continuations_rules Publication 4a1f5ebb-e331-4459-a126-c94800fbcdc0 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT The IP Beacon is a quarterly newsletter prepared by the Haynes and Boone Intellectual Property Practice to inform clients and friends of trends and changes in intellectual property law. http://www.haynesboone.com/The_IP_Beacon_October_2009 Publication 5bc5e1fd-b408-43ea-8f6a-8df7cbf5902e Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT In a case that may prove to be as serendipitous for struggling software companies as anything else, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote another chapter in the law of unintended consequences with its ruling in Cincom Systems, Inc. v. Novelis Corp. (published September 25, 2009 pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206: File Name: 09a0346p.06). http://www.haynesboone.com/Software_Licenses_Permission_vs_Forgiveness Publication d9219b09-a069-4bb8-956c-4271b9428666 Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT