Is Google Gearing Up for a Patent Fight? Alan Wan, at Patently-O, looks at the recently recorded assignment of 1029 patents from IBM to Google – which more than doubles the number of U.S. patents assigned to Google.  A review of the patents suggests that they were carefully chosen from among IBM’s tens of thousands […]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made a change in policy based on the recent decision of In re Tanaka. Basically, the PTO has said that in a reissue application, the addition of claims that are narrower in scope than the existing claims, without any narrowing of the existing patent claims, may be the basis […]

Some interesting news out of Government Executive Magazine.  Yes, I know you read this religiously.  That is to say, you read it while praying the government doesn’t do yet more stupid things.  A recent survey among federal employees shows “More than half of federal workers value creativity and innovation in their jobs.” The Partnership for […]

This is the first of a series of articles on IP and Antitrust issues. This article introduces the topic and the governing laws and guidelines. The next few articles will deal with intellectual property licensing practices, patent pooling and cross-licensing, antitrust/anti-competitive issues in the field of licensing, effects of restrictions in intellectual property licenses and […]

In Clean Tech Intellectual Property: Eco-marks, Green Patents, and Green Innovation, author Eric L. Lane provides a concise review of the interplay of clean technologies and IP.  In it, he treats clean/green tech IP as a discrete field apart from the general intellectual property law. Section one of the book presents strategies for patent drafting […]

Law Grads Sue Alma Maters For Millions In Tuition Refunds Two lawsuits seeking class action status were filed against Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan and New York Law School. The plaintiffs, who are all graduates of the defendant schools, seek $250 million from Cooley and $200 million from NYLS in tuition refunds, as […]

The ABA is once again working on their list of the 100 best legal blogs and they want your advice on which blawgs you think they should include and / or what practice areas you’d like to see represented in the Blawg 100. Use the Blawg 100 Amici form to tell us about a blawg——not […]

The Biotechnology Industry Organization believes that fully realizing the promise of biotechnology requires a comprehensive national strategy that fine-tunes some policies and overhauls others. BIO’s set of policy proposals address two vital needs: 1) the need to re-engineer the biotech economic model, and 2) the need to re-invent the idea-to-market pathway for biotech cures and […]