Patent Baristas

Today’s post comes from Guest Barista C. Lee Thomason, a registered patent attorney and IP litigator at Frost Brown Todd’s Louisville office. My interest in ads that compare the efficacy of a product to the competitors’ products was peaked by the FTC ruling in In the Matter of Telebrands Corp., TV Savings, LLC, and Ajit […]

Taiwan has come out saying it could produce up to a million doses of anti-influenza drug Tamiflu within months to counter a possible bird flu pandemic if it obtains a license from the drug’s manufacturers. Roche has said it is willing to share production with governments or other companies as fears of a pandemic rise […]

Today’s post comes from Guest Barista C. Lee Thomason, a registered patent attorney and senior litigator at Frost Brown Todd LLC, in Louisville, who keeps track on developments in patent litigation. New “Amendment” to Patent Reform Act of 2005 will makes Inequitable Conduct determinations as simple as a three-ring circus. Rep. Lamar Smith has pared […]

President Bush has appointed Chris Israel as the new Coordinator of International Intellectual Property Enforcement, a position Congress created last year to coordinate law-enforcement efforts aimed at stopping international copyright infringement and to oversee a federal umbrella agency responsible for administering intellectual property law. Intellectual property law enforcement is divided among a range of agencies, […]

AstraZeneca has been fined £60m (about $73 million) by the European Commission for illegally trying to prevent generic competition to its best-selling ulcer drug Losec. After a six-year investigation, the EC said the firm gave incorrect information about when the drug was first approved, enabling the firm to extend the patent’s life. Losec (omeprazole) is […]

The Washinton Times reported that a so-called wild-card patent provision, expected to be proposed to Congress as part of the Bioshield II bill (Senate Bill S.3, Protecting America in the War on Terror Act of 2005), has been modified to overcome objections from companies that manufacture generic drugs. S.3 would make changes to the earlier […]

The House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property circulated a discussion draft a Patent Reform Bill. Since it’s just a draft, it’s not worth over-analyzing at this point but it is interesting to get a glimpse at the topics that may be subject to amendment. The proposed legislation includes changes to: Creating a post-grant opposition procedures Willfulness […]

Jon Gowshall of Forrester Ketley & Co. sent us a note on changes to UK patent law starting on 1 January 2005.  The changes are to bring UK law into line with the WIPO Patent Law Treaty (PLT) signed in Geneva in June 2000, and into line with the European Patent Convention as prospectively amended […]