Patent Baristas

On January 13, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Chairman Jon Leibowitz held a press conference with Congressional members Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Bobby Rush (D-IL), and Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) arguing that health care reform legislation should include a prohibition to the patent settlements referred to as “reverse payment settlements” or “pay-for-delay settlements”. Reverse payment […]

Commentators like me frequently rail against what we view as the often unnecessarily high cost of obtaining patent protection. In truth, many patents are overpriced and provide questionable business value to their clients. Over-priced patents do not form the basis of this article, however. Instead, this is about the opposite phenomenon, i.e., under-priced patents. Specifically, […]

Section 292 of the Patent Act provides that a person who falsely marks an unpatented article as being patented, where the false patent marking was done with an intent to deceive the public, [s]hall be fined not more than $500 for every such offense. See 35 U.S.C. § 292(a).  The statute permits a qui tam […]

The Program: FastTrac® TechVentureTM is a hands-on business development program specifically designed to assist scientists, inventors, engineers and IT developers to commercialize an innovative and scalable technology, product or service. FastTrac® TechVenture will be presented over a six-week period beginning Tuesday, February 23, 2010.  Each week different business development and management topics will be discussed: […]

Eastman’s divestment of its PET business in the EU to Indorama ended up in Delaware federal court as the licensor’s patent infringement action.  Eastman Chemical Company v. AlphaPet Inc. et al. (09-CV-971).  Named as defendants are the Indorama licensees, and affiliates, and a U.S. subsidiary, AlphaPet. The complaint raises interesting problems about a licensor suing […]

Many readers of Patent Baristas may have noticed that the site has been “off-line” for a bit.  With my deepest apologies, I have found myself in the midst of a family emergency that is requiring most of my time and leaving little or no time for extras like blogging.  Since the difficulties may be extended […]

Though even thinking on the subject of time may prove discomforting, it is not a bad idea—especially at the beginning of a new year. As we look into 2010 we look at a block of time. We see 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. And all is a gift […]