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Ostrolenk Faber is a premier intellectual property boutique law firm. Since 1929, we have specialized in domestic and international patent, trademark and copyright law matters. We handle all aspects of IP law from counseling clients to prosecuting their applications to litigating their disputes. Our client base spans from Fortune 500 companies to privately owned businesses to individual inventors. They operate in fields as diverse as consumer electronics, luxury goods, entertainment, pharmaceuticals, and industrial products. With over 75 years of history, we have participated in the development of intellectual property law and gained the experience necessary to best serve our clients now and in the future. Read More
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Supreme Court Grants Cert in In re Bilski
In a case that is being called the most important patent case in the last 50 years, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Certiorari in the Federal Circuit case of In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc). The Supreme Court will be deciding whether the Federal Circuit erred by holding that for a process to be eligible for patent protection under 35 U.S.C. §101, the process must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or transform a particular article into a different state or thing (‘machine-or-transformation’ test). The Court is also being asked to consider "[w]hether the Federal Circuit’s ‘machine-or-transformation’ test for patent eligibility, which effectively forecloses meaningful patent protection to many business methods, contradicts the clear Congressional intent that patents protect ‘method[s] of doing or conducting business.’ 35 U.S.C. §273." Oral Arguments in the case are expected to be heard in the Court's term beginning October 2009.
CAFC Holds Product-By-Process Claims are Limited to the Exact Method of Making
In an unusual move, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ("CAFC") acted sua sponte, (on its own accord) en banc to address the construction of a product-by-process claim, without taking additional briefing and holding no additional oral argument. In Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, Inc. (Fed.Cir., May 18, 2009), the court construed a product-by-process claim including a crystalline form of cefdinir "obtainable by" specified process steps. Relying on Supreme Court precedent, the CAFC decided that a claim to, in this case, a chemical composition that is "obtainable" by steps in a particular process is limited to the composition that is actually obtained by carrying out those steps. If the same product (e.g., chemical composition) is created by a different process, even though the product is the same, that product does not infringe the claim. |
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Yahoo! Infringes Patent for Background Advertising System
On May 15, 2009, Creative Internet Advertising Concepts, Inc. received a unanimous jury verdict against Yahoo! Inc. in a patent infringement trial in the Federal District Cout for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.
Creative Internet Advertising Concepts, Inc., a subsidiary of Acacia Research, Corp., a large patent holding company, asserted U.S. Patent No. 6,205,432 (the “‘432 patent”) against Yahoo! On the grounds that Yahoo! ’s Messenger program, including “IMVironments” was infringing.
The jury decided that Yahoo! infringed the patent both literally and under the Doctrine of Equivalents, and further that such infringement was willful. Although a defense expert witness testified that the total amount of damages to compensate for infringement should be approximately, $300,000, the jury returned an award of over $6.5 million, or roughly a 20% royalty. Read More
As Profiled in the The Patent Lawyer
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