IP Memes: What Would You Change About the Practice of IP Law? — and Other Hot IP Issues
This week’s IP Memes from Technolawer.com
TIPO, USTED ESTA CONSIGUIENDO UN DELL (DUDE, YOU’RE GETTING A DELL)
Dell has won the honors of being sued by DE Technologies for infringing a broad patent which covers international e-commerce. The patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,460,020, covers essentially the process of: (a) selecting a language to view a product catalog in, (b) selecting a preferred currency, (c) selecting a product, (d) retrieving price, product code and shipping information from a database, (e) calculating shipping costs, (f) determining a total cost, (g) receiving an order and (h) generating an invoice. It’s hard to imagine engaging in international e-commerce without taking such broad steps. The patent has already survived a reexamination before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a process that is sure to make the patent a harder nut for Dell to crack. The Register Article & IP Litigation Blog Post
TECHNOLAWYERS WHO READ THE PREVIOUS POST MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN …
Bought a book (or other goods) at Amazon.com lately? When you select a product you are interested in learning more about, Amazon typically engages in “suggestive selling,” providing a list (or two) of related goods for your review. For instance, looking that the page for “One L” by Scott Turow, one sees links to “Customers who bought this book also bought:” and “Customers interested in “One L” may also be interested in:.” Amazon.com’s practice caught the eye of hotel and rental car company Cendant Corporation, which recently filed a lawsuit for infringement of its patent (USPN 6,782,370) for a “System and Method for Providing Recommendation of Goods or Services Based on Recorded Purchasing History.” Cendant Patent & Forbes Article
THOSE LIBERAL AMERICANS!
The United Kingdom Patent Office has published a pamphlet entitled “Patents & Software: Fact & Fiction,” which sets about the task of explaining why the UKPO believes that the European Union’s “Computer Implemented Inventions Directive” is needed. The pamphlet stresses that “[w]e need a Directive to clarify the situation and prevent a drift towards the more liberal patenting regime of the United States. The EU Council has agreed a text which reflects the current position in the UK and other member states. That text will now be debated by the European Parliament. The EU position is that “[i]nventions involving the use of computers will be patentable only if they make a ‘technical contribution’,” apparently a “conservative” approach to America’s “liberal” standard allowing for “business method patents.” UK Patent Office Brochure & Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog Post
ICANN, UCANN, THEYCANN
” They can” now take away domain names easier thanks to ICANN’s new rules (which went into effect last Friday, November 12) which provide: “[f]ailure by the Registrar of Record to respond within five (5) calendar days to a notification from the Registry regarding a transfer request will result in a default “approval” of the transfer.” What can you do? Many of your client’s domain names may have been registered using an e-mail address of an employee who no longer works there, etc. Thus, there is a real chance that an e-mail sent to the “Administrative Contact” may not be responded to within five days. Good time to perform a whois search for your major clients to see if the administrator e-mail address appears to be at your client’s domain name and/or appears to be a current employee. I personally use Whois Source, but there are lots of others. What I like about Whois Source is that I can search from the address bar by typing “www.whois.com/DOMAINNAME.com” (e.g., www.whois.sc/technolawyer.com). To fix an incorrect Administrative Contact, your clients will need to contact the Registrar (i.e., Network Solutions, GoDaddy.com, etc.) where their domain name is registered. Additionally, most Registrars allow domain names to be “locked,” thereby preventing such an unintentional transfer. ICANN Policy on Transfer of Registrations between Registrars & Netcraft Article & TechLawAdvisor Blog Post & Whois Source
FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT (TO SAMPLE)
The Beastie Boys received some good news last week, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that their “use of a brief segment of that composition, consisting of three notes separated by a half-step over a background C note, is not sufficient to sustain a claim for infringement of Newton’s copyright.” Newton had sued as the composer of the work (performed by jazz flutist James Newton) which the Beastie Boys sampled (and payed a royalty to use). CNNMoney Article
WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE ABOUT THE PRACTICE OF IP LAW?
Illinois attorney blogger (who often writes on killing the billable hour) Matt Homann recently released his sixth “Five by Five” series of articles. In the Five by Five series, Matt asks five individuals what they think about a particular topic. In his sixth Five by Five, Matt asked five intellectual property attorneys (Marty Schwimmer, Douglas Sorocco, Dennis Crouch, Mark V. B. Partridge, and myself (Stephen M. Nipper) what they’d change about the practice of intellectual property law. Some of the responses are quite interesting. Five by Five — Intellectual Property Edition
About the Author
Stephen M. Nipper is a registered patent attorney with the law firm of Dykas, Shaver & Nipper in Boise, Idaho. Stephen’s practice includes patent prosecution, trademark protection, and patent litigation, with emphasis in agricultural arts, biological and chemical sciences, pharmaceuticals, mechanical arts, as well as computer and Internet related technologies. He also writes the Necessity’s Progeny patent law blog. You can contact Stephen via e-mail (s@dykaslaw.com) or telephone (208-345-1122).
About IP Memes
This weekly newsletter consists of technology-related intellectual property “memes” — IP issues that have just begun to surface and may soon become important legal issues. IP Memes enables corporate counsel, intellectual property lawyers, and interested others to learn about and react to new developments in intellectual property law. To sign up for this FREE weekly e-mail, go to http://www.technolawyer.com.