2017/02/09 04:44:27 UTC
Microsoft Adds Patent Suit Protections For Cloud Customers
Offer will help Microsoft distinguish itself from rivals in fast-growing internet-based computing market.
“All of our customers are at some level becoming software providers of their own,” … Customers will be able to pick one patent from a pool of 10,000 offered — Microsoft has 60,000 patents total — to use in their defense.
2017/02/08 06:00:54 UTC
The ITC: Reviewing 2016 and Looking Ahead
The ITC had its busiest year since 2011, which was the peak of the smartphone wars. In 2016, 55 complaints were filed, 16 of those were filed by foreign…
“Looking ahead, it appears that the ITC will slot more cases for
early disposition under the 100-day program, as it has received
increasing attention. We also may see more open Commission hearings.
Finally, we expect to see continued use of the ITC’s pilot program for expedited review of new and redesigned products that are covered by existing remedial orders.”
2017/02/08 05:59:06 UTC
Apple v. Samsung legal battle goes back to its roots
A federal appeals court says it’s up to a district court to decide if there should be a damages retrial in the long-running patent case.
In December, the Supreme Court said in a unanimous opinion that
damages for design patent infringement can be based only on the part
of the device that infringed the patents, not necessarily on the
entire product…. The Supreme Court didn’t give guidance on how damages should be decided, though, and now an appeals court isn’t weighing in, either. With Tuesday’s ruling, the US court of appeals for the federal circuit has punted the case back to district court for the Northern District of California….
2017/02/08 05:56:53 UTC
TC Heartland: Statutory Interpretation, Fairness, and E.D.Texas
by Dennis Crouch The topside briefs have been filed in TC Heartland with strong support for the petitioner who is looking .
Useful summary of amicus briefs
2017/02/08 02:18:52 UTC
ALJ Lord Denies Motion To Preclude Reliance On Certain Representative Products In Certain Semiconductor Devices (337-TA-1010) | Lexology
On February 1, 2017, ALJ Dee Lord issued the public version of Order No. 58 (dated January 17, 2017) denying a motion filed by Respondents Broadcom.
Representative products in domestic industry showing at ITC.
2017/02/08 02:12:35 UTC
A Defendant’s Understanding of Infringement Contentions Is Not Enough To Comply With The Patent Local Rules | JD Supra
Order Granting Motion to Strike, Staying Discovery, and Granting Leave to Amend, GeoVector Corporation v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, Case No….
Judge Orrick explained that the local rules require specific infringement contentions so that defendants can properly respond to the claims, but also so the Court can make a principled decision on whether discovery will proceed. Thus, even if Samsung truly did understand the plaintiff’s direct infringement contentions, GeoVector still was required to articulate its contentions in the proper format contemplated by the rules.
2017/02/07 09:47:41 UTC
Why claim charts?: Underlying purposes and policies for Local Patent Rule requirements
Claim charts perform a major role in patent litigation. Also known as claims tables, infringement contentions (ICs), or invalidity contentions, claim charts are required under the Local Patent Rules (LPRs) adapted in most federal district courts, and infringement charts would be mandated under proposed amendments to the federal patent statute, particularly Rep. Goodlatte’s “Innovation Act” proposed changes to 35 USC 281A (“Pleading requirements for patent infringement actions”). But over the years, I’ve noticed widespread unclarity among consultants, experts, and even attorneys, as to what pur
A discussion of the underlying reasons why Local Patent Rules require claim charts (infringement contentions, invalidity contentions, etc.) in patent litigation. These reasons go beyond mere notice to the other side.
2017/02/07 05:27:56 UTC
Microsoft hosts the Windows source in a monstrous 300GB Git repository
Virtualized file system approach makes Git work better for huge
repositories.
2017/02/06 09:22:27 UTC
Russians Engineer a Brilliant Slot Machine Cheat—And Casinos Have No Fix
Digging through slot machine source code helped a St. Petersburg-based syndicate make off with millions.
Not sure I entirely believe this, and very unlikely source code
itself (as opposed to reverse engineered binary code) was accessible
in slot machines purchased on the open market, but
interesting/amusing on reverse engineering pseuorandom number generators in slot machines
2017/02/04 07:25:56 UTC
Self-described ‘Hacker’ and Cybersecurity Expert Joins LSU Faculty
New LSU faculty member Golden Richard developed an obsession with how computers work that has grown into a career as a leading cybersecurity expert
Golden G. Richard III will be teaching the university’s first class on reverse engineering where students take apart and analyze malicious software and viruses to study them. Students will see how systems are exploited and how they can be protected.
2017/02/04 05:18:41 UTC
The alleged betrayal in these photos, texts, and emails cost Snapchat $158 million
When Snap Inc. filed its IPO papers with the SEC last night, it ended
one of the most tantalizing mysteries in tech: What happened to the third founder of Snapchat, the Stanford student who allegedly invented the concept, designed the ghost logo, and
2017/02/04 05:15:51 UTC
Lawsuit Alleges Apple Broke FaceTime on iOS 6 to Force iOS 7 Upgrades, Save Money
Christina Grace of California has filed a new class-action lawsuit that alleges Apple broke FaceTime in iOS 6 to force users to upgrade to iOS 7,…
… When Apple’s peer-to-peer FaceTime technology was found to infringe on VirnetX’s patents in 2012, Apple began to shift toward Akamai’s servers to handle iPhone-to-iPhone connections. A year later, Apple was paying $50 million in fees to Akamai, according to testimony from the VirnetX trial. The class-action lawsuit, pointing to an internal email titled “Ways to Reduce Relay Usage,” alleges that the growing fees were beginning to bother Apple executives….”
2017/02/03 08:55:41 UTC
About Half of Patent Owners’ Attorneys Say PTAB Beneficial
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board proceedings, once called patent “death squads,” received high marks from about half of the attorneys representing patent owners, a recent survey found.
In-house counsel for patent owners were about evenly split on whether the value of their patents had decreased since the PTAB proceedings became available. But only 7 percent of them said their budgets for filing patent applications were decreased…. The most likely explanations are that the petitioner’s PTAB decision was to cancel some, and maybe even most, but not all, the patent claims. …
2017/02/03 08:52:02 UTC
Focused Patent, Copyright Bills Are on House Agenda
The House Judiciary Committee will advance bills to update copyright law and curb patent litigation abuses this year, committee chairman Robert W. Goodlatte said Feb. 1, but only after it deals with…
2017/02/03 07:22:45 UTC
Our take on recent patent litigations – GreyB
Almost every day, multiple patent litigations suits are filed. The increasing frequency of these cases indicates companies are now more inclined to stop competition or get value over their claimed invention. But what if these claimed inventions…
“… we started conducting preliminary analysis on recent patent litigation cases to check if a plaintiff’s patent really holds water or not? The table below includes our comments on the strength of various patents under litigation i.e., it will survive a litigation or not? …”
2017/02/03 06:28:19 UTC
Facebook
The Zenimax vs Oculus trial is over. I disagreed with their characterization, misdirection, and selective omissions. I never tried to hide or wipe any…
‘… If he had said “this supports a determination of”, or dozens of other possible phrases, then it would have fit in with everything else, but I am offended that a distinguished academic would say that his ad-hoc textual analysis makes him “absolutely certain” of anything….’
2017/02/03 04:52:12 UTC
http://swipreport.com/
The Software Intellectual Property Report covers the places where software intersects the law of intellectual property, including the “big four” of patents,
2017/02/03 02:18:08 UTC
Cloud Computing: Software Patent Claims and the Risks to Service Availability | Lexology
As the public cloud services market continues to mature and grow – up from $178bn in 2015 to $209bn in 2016 according to research company Gartner.
… OSS developments and communities are easier targets for NPEs than proprietary software as they don’t need to go to the same lengths to discover potential infringement. The softness of the target increases risk for CSPs using OSS and their users.
2017/02/03 01:35:43 UTC
Ninth Circuit’s Recent Patent Local Rules Amendments: Elevating Damages Considerations to Same Level as Infringement and Invalidity Contentions
Given the large cluster of technology companies in Silicon Valley, the Northern District of California has long been a top venue for patent infringement litigation. In December 2000, that court adopte
The biggest changes come in Pat. L.R. 3-8 and 3-9. The former requires the patent owner(s) to serve detailed Damages Contentions not later than 50 days following service of the accused infringer’s Invalidity Contentions. The latter requires that the accused infringer serve its Responsive Damages Contentions thirty days later.
2017/02/02 07:03:51 UTC
Goodlatte pledges to pursue patent litigation reform, copyright reform in 115th Congress – IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Patent Law
Goodlatte’s agenda includes patent litigation reform to address what he characterizes as ‘truly frivolous lawsuits,’ as well as copyright reforms to keep…
2017/02/02 06:55:29 UTC
N.D. Cal New Disclosure Rules
By Dennis Crouch The N.D. California Court has amended its local rules used for patent infringement cases. [patent_local_rules_1-2017]. One of the most .
By Dennis Crouch. The N.D. California Court has amended its local rules used for patent infringement cases. … Damages Contentions Within 50-days of Invalidity Contentions: Identify each . category[] of damages it is seeking for the asserted …
2017/02/02 06:52:16 UTC
The Western District Declines to Compel Additional Discovery | JD Supra
Armstrong Pump, Inc. v. Hartman, No. 10-CV-446S, 2016 WL 7208753 (W.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2016) – In this case, pending before the Court was a motion by…
“In support of its motion to compel, Armstrong now argues that the reviewed documents did not contain “actual programming” and thus were able to be produced under the parties’ protective order for discovery without any additional protections designed to protect source code. Optimum argued in response that the documents were “functionally equivalent to source code” and should not be subject to production. … when adding a few more pages of documents requires five or six inches of motion papers, and when those few more pages would be added to over one million pages of total discovery, …”
2017/02/02 06:37:58 UTC
Supplier’s Role Shows Breadth of VW’s Deceit
The German company Bosch will pay $327.5 million to vehicle owners in the United States over claims that it helped devise software to cheat on tests.
“When Volkswagen executives decided in 2006 to use software to evade emissions rules, they needed help. No one inside Volkswagen knew how to write the software. So the company turned to one of its most trusted partners: the German supplier, Robert Bosch. Working from Volkswagen specifications, Bosch developed code that instructed computers in diesel engines to fully deploy pollution controls only when the cars were being tested in laboratories, according to lawsuits in the United States and Germany….”
2017/02/02 06:23:42 UTC
http://swipreport.com/cafc-rejects-construction-of-controller-in-patent-claim/
In a de novo review of claim construction, the Federal Circuit rejected the District Court’s (ILND) claim construction of the patent claim term “controller” in The Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Techtronic Industries Co. LTD (Fed. Cir. 2017). The…
‘This case highlights that claim construction can turn on a thorough description of claim terms in the written description. In this case, the patent applicant not only described what a “controller” is, but also provided two examples. The CAFC used those examples to specifically undercut a theory that the claim only covered one of those examples….’
2017/02/02 06:21:40 UTC
http://swipreport.com/data-processing-claims-survive-alice-challenge/
Patent claims directed to processing data for more efficient data access not patent-ineligible for being directed to an abstract idea.
“Here is a case that undercuts the notion that claims are patent-ineligible where they are entirely directed to processing data. This is a favorite rationale of patent examiners rejecting claims under the Alice test. In Speedtrack, Inc. v. Amazon, Inc….”
2017/02/02 06:09:29 UTC
A Look At Post-Alice Rule 12 Motions Over The Last 2 Years – Law360
The use of Rule 12 motions by defendants facing infringement claims
based on computer-based subject matter is likely here to stay. But now that there have been hundreds of post-Alice decisions resolving such motions, several guiding principles for…
2017/02/01 11:40:48 UTC
Dallas Jury Slaps Facebook With $500M Verdict in Oculus IP Case
In a win for lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a Dallas jury hit Facebook-owned Oculus with a $500 million verdict.
…. Facebook attorneys had just one weekend to conduct due diligence before completing the deal….
2017/02/01 06:52:43 UTC
Recent PTAB Decisions Further Illuminate Denial of Review Under 35 U.S.C. 325(D) –
Authors: Kevin J. Spinella Editor: Aaron J. Capron Recently, the
Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) denied grounds in petitions under 35 U.S.C. 325(d
2017/02/01 04:57:43 UTC
Apple vs. Qualcomm: Everything you need to know
Apple is following the FTC’s lead and has sued Qualcomm for a massive
$1 billion in the U.S. and $145 million in China.
2017/02/01 04:26:43 UTC
U.S. Court of Appeals officially reopens the Apple vs. Samsung patent case
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reopened the years-long case between Apple and Samsung in which Samsung has been accused of copying the design of the iPhone for its Galaxy S series.
article of manufacture” – the legal term that refers to both a product sold to a consumer and a component of said product – has a “broad meaning,” and that an “article” could refer to “a particular thing.” In Samsung’s case, an “article” could be an infringing smartphone’s appearance, for instance, or software feature.
2017/02/01 02:29:47 UTC
Cambridge Design Technology explains reverse engineering
News from Cambridge businesses. Network members upload news here about their products, services and achievements.
2017/01/30 08:56:10 UTC
A Former Goldman Employee’s Long, Strange Legal Odyssey
Sergey Aleynikov, accused of taking computer trading code from his former Wall Street employer, has had success and setbacks as courts differ on what “tangible” means.
“Aleynikov admitted that he had downloaded source code used by Goldman for its high-frequency trading operation, and that he planned to use the data in a new job to create a competing platform. He has long maintained that his actions did not break the law, and violated only Goldman’s internal corporate confidentiality policy, which he argued should not be the basis for a criminal prosecution.”
2017/01/25 07:21:04 UTC
PTAB Finds MRI Machine Claims Patent-Ineligible Under Alice | JD Supra
On December 29, 2016, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a decision rejecting most claims of an application for an MRI machine patent,…
2017/01/25 06:16:24 UTC
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Enfish: Unraveling the Maze of Parallel Court/PTAB Proceedings | Lexology
The saga of Enfish v. Microsoft continues. The Enfish litigation provides a textbook example of the multi-pronged defense now common with the advent.
2017/01/24 11:01:00 UTC
Federal Circuit Invalidates Ameranth’s Menu Software Patents as Unpatentable Abstract Ideas | Lexology
The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Apple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc. highlights the potential impact of including a discussion in the specification.
the Federal Circuit relied on an admission in the specification that “the discrete programming steps are commonly known and thus programming details are not necessary to a full description of the invention.”
2017/01/24 07:32:08 UTC
Aleynikov on the Hook Again for Taking HFT Code From Goldman
Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. programmer Sergey Aleynikov is guilty
of theft — again — for taking the bank’s high-frequency trading code to a new job.
2017/01/24 07:28:47 UTC
Biz claims it’s reverse-engineered encrypted drone commands
The internet of sh*t hits the rotor
Article is skeptical about company’s claims
2017/01/24 05:54:09 UTC
How Does Industrial Espionage Affect Economic Growth?
A new economic paper argues that industrial espionage works.
Based on study of East German archives
2017/01/23 10:00:02 UTC
Attacks on Embedded Open Source Code Could Rise by 20 Percent This Year
Researchers from Black Duck Software expect the rate of attacks against known vulnerabilities in open source code to increase by 20 percent in 2017.
“Security researchers from Black Duck Software told CSO Online that the number of commercial software projects composed of 50 percent or more of open source code has increased tenfold, from 3 percent of the overall market in 2011 to 33 percent in 2017…. According to Black Duck, the average commercial application has 100 open source components. Of these applications, two-thirds are likely to contain code with known vulnerabilities. This is likely because developers don’t typically conduct their own independent security audits on OSS software….”
2017/01/23 09:18:33 UTC
Kudelski Group Takes on the NFL Over Patent Infringement – Streaming Media Magazine
The Kudelski Group and subsidiary OpenTV have sued the biggest names in streaming in the last few years. Now, the NFL joins the list.
“patents involved are for ways to insert content into video streams, let viewers interact with videos, and link multiple sets of video metadata … combining multiple data streams into one broadcast stream, and linking streamed videos to other websites.”
2017/01/23 09:14:52 UTC
DARPA, Galois Launch Benchmark Challenges To Prevent Software ‘Reverse Engineering’
Galois today announced two benchmark challenges – sponsored by DARPA – that invite competitive submissions able to break the security of program obfuscation technology designed to prevent software `reverse engineering.’ The challenges are part of…
“The DARPA SafeWare Program aims to develop obfuscation technology
that uses cryptographic methods to render the intellectual property
in software incomprehensible to a reverse engineer, yet allow the
code to otherwise compile and run normally.”
