LexBlog

Subscribe to LexBlog

In a recent post on the University of Houston Law Center Faculty Blog (another LexBlog site), Ray Nimmer asks whether the Supreme Court’s recent eBay v. MercExchange permanent injunction decision will lead to compulsory licensing. Nimmer discusses two alternatives when a permanent injunction is not granted after a patent infringement finding:
One response is simply to assess damages as to past infringement, leaving any future use of the patent for a voluntary agreement of the parties (a license) or a subsequent infringement suit for the subsequent infringements. That is clearly the preferable option, although it does raise limited issues of judicial economy.
A second alternative is to permit subsequent use by the defendant subject to the payment of a reasonable royalty imposed by the court. This is a form of compulsory licensing that rewards the wrongdoer, unless the remedy has been requested by the patent owner. Nevertheless, a panel of the Federal Circuit indicated that such a remedy may be appropriate. One wonders why.
Nimmer concludes that courts should not impose compulsory licensing for future infringement absent substantial public policy reasons:
The preconditions should be both an opportunity to negotiate a license and, failing a bargain, a request by both parties for the court to impose a royalty as part of the remedy for infringement. A patent creates a right to exclude and, where the patent owner prefers to exercise that right, it should not be forced into a licensing arrangement resulting from a case in which it prevailed on the infringement claim. There may be some cases in which vital public policy interests justify this result, but those cannot be grounded simply in the fact that the court denied a permanent injunction or the parties have not agreed to license terms. A remedy should not penalize the person to whom the remedy is awarded.
…
Continue Reading Will eBay v. MercExchange Lead to Compulsory Licensing?

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the “new” electronic data discovery (“EDD”) rules.* In fact, the EDD rules were not new, they were intended to be a codification of the basic rules already in use by the various district courts. Despite that, a study conducted by LexisNexis at the October Association of Corporate Counsel 2007 Annual Meeting in Chicago found that corporate counsel continue to struggle with implementation of the rules and confusion about what the EDD rules required. For example, 70% of respondents believed that electronic files had to be produced in their native formats. In fact, you simply must work with opposing counsel to decide what format to produce the files in, either their native formats or some chosen standard format. This confusion should not have surprised anyone. Even in IP circles, lawyers rarely fully understand a company’s IT infrastructure and the IT people rarely understand the legal process. This disconnect can be very dangerous when it comes to meeting EDD obligations.
If your company is still struggling with the EDD rules or, worse, avoiding them completely, you can solve your problems with some relatively simple actions. First, take a breath, open your copy of the Federal Rules and read them thoughtfully and then set up a meeting with the head of your company’s IT infrastructure, the head of your company’s legal department or litigation staff and an outside counsel with EDD experience. Working together, come up with a general plan for gathering and preserving the appropriate information as cases arise. Pay special attention to how your plan fits with the company’s overall data retention policies (yes, your company should have data retention policies and the policy should be followed carefully) and how to suspend any periodic or automatic data removal when a litigation hold needs to be instituted. Once you have a plan, meet periodically to update it and to ensure that it is being followed. If you are prepared for EDD, it is an excellent litigation tool. If you are not, it is a potential disaster.
For more on EDD, check out these blogs:
Alextronic Discovery
Dennis Kennedy
EDD Update
E-Discovery Team
E-discovery 2.0
Electronic Discovery Blog
Electronic Discovery Law (another LexBlog blog)
Ride the Lightning
Sound Evidence
Hat tip to the EDD Blog Online via Legal Blog Watch for identifying the LexisNexis survey..
* Tomorrow is also the date that the next set of changes to the Federal Rules becomes effective. Fortunately, these changes are focused on making the rules more readable instead of adding or changing obligations. But once you are prepared for the EDD rules, you should still turn back to your copy of the Federal Rules and read through the revisions.
…
Continue Reading Happy Anniversary Electronic Data Discovery Rules!

Last week the intellectual property world obsessed over injunctions – specifically, a preliminary injunction hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia resulting in an injunction against the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s (“PTO”) new continuation rules. There was a lot of analysis about the injunction, including live blogging by Patent Practice Center Patent Blog and a lot of post-injunction analysis by, among others: 271 Patent Blog; FileWrapper; Patent Baristas; Patent Docs (and here); Patent Prospector; PHOSITA; Patently-O; WSJ Law Blog; and Washington State Patent Law Blog. For those of you who have no idea what a continuation is or just do not care about the particulars of the rules, I promise that I am done with patent continuations for this post. Honestly, I find the rules rather tedious myself. I prefer to focus on litigating patents, rather than the PTO’s prosecution rules. So, today we talk about injunctions:
According to TechCrunch, Patent Monkey received a permanent injunction when it was sold to the Internet Real Estate Group. But Patent Monkey’s patent search technology will see its injunction lifted when it is used on www.patents.com. Hopefully, for those like me who enjoyed it, Patent Monkey’s Infinite Monkey Theorem Blog will also see its injunction lifted.
Virtually Blind has an interesting report on Second Life’s* new Patent & Trademark Office, the SLPTO. No word on whether the SLPTO and the Second Life legal system generally will allow for any permanent injunctions. Right now it appears that the SLPTO will be heavily skewed toward copyright and trademark, which makes sense in a virtual world. And before we learn whether the SLPTO has any enforcement mechanisms, Blawg IT is offering to represent virtual clients before the SLPTO. I would get a retainer up front Brett – virtual clients can be difficult to track down when the bills are due.
The Patry Copyright Blog shows why Second Life injunctions may be necessary. Six Second Life players have sued a Queens man in the Eastern District of New York for trademark and copyright infringement based upon sales of goods in Second Life. I wonder if the trademarks and copyrights were registered with the SLPTO or the US PTO/Copyright Office. And does the E.D.N.Y. have authority to issue cyber-injunctions?
Promote the Progress provides an interesting piece on the long-term effects of last week’s injunction against the PTO on shaping patent reform.
SportsBiz explains that plaintiffs who were bilked out of millions in attorneys’ fees by their now-jailed lawyers were not irreparably harmed. A Kentucky court awarded them a 20% ownership interest in Curlin, the prize race horse and Breeder’s Cup Classic winner partially owned by the jailed lawyers.
Adams Drafting issues its own injunction against using virgules. Using what? The virgule, or the forward slash. He explains that it is frequently used to mean: 1) “per” – 50 miles/hour; 2) “or” – and/or; and 3) “and” – all parents/subsidiaries/affiliates are bound by the obligations. The problem is that the various uses create ambiguity. Adams acknowledges that he cannot find any litigation specifically about the virgule. But the best solution is to remove the virgule from your writing before you become embroiled in the first litigation over one. And when it comes to rules of writing and grammar, the best solution is to listen to Adams.
What if you do not want an injunction or just want a faster, cheaper resolution? The IP ADR blog is talking about last week’s big settlement between Vonage and Verizon. They suggest that you consider using contingent agreements to control for changing future conditions and charitable contributions. They also point out that creativity and out-of-the-box thinking are important elements for reaching settlements.
Another way to avoid an injunction is to understand how best to argue against the opposing party and their counsel. The Center for Internet & Society discusses how men and women in the United States and in other cultures communicate and suggests that understanding the nuances of how different people communicate around the globe could advance legal discourse.
Lowering the Bar reports on a Michigan man sentenced to sixty days in jail for a home invasion that ended in him throwing two large pickles at residents of the home. No word on whether he will be enjoined from pickle ownership. Okay, that is a weak tie-in, but who can resist a pickle invasion story.
Deliberations discusses one of the basic truths of trial law – you must connect with your jury about basic truths of your case. That is equally true when seeking an injunction – if the judge senses something is not right about your argument, you will not get your injunction.
The writers’ strike that is expected this week is not an injunction, but it will mean an end to new scripted television and movies. Concurring Opinions has an interesting post about a brewing legal dispute between the studios and the writers’ union, the Writers Guild of America (“WGA”). The WGA is requiring that members provide information on all unproduced projects and an update on the status of those projects, as per the labor agreement between the WGA and the studios. But the studios, based upon their individual agreements with writers, are warning writers that the studios own the scripts and the writers are barred by contract from giving the WGA any information about the projects. These conflicting contracts place the writers in quite a pickle (I could not resist), and it poses an interesting legal question as to which contract controls.
And I end with a post that is actually about an injunction. The Maryland IP Law Blog (another LexBlog creation) posted about a District of Delaware court that upheld a jury verdict of patent infringement and plans to enter a permanent injunction against Lonza, Ltd., Nutrinova Inc. and Nutrinova Nutrition Specialties & Food Ingredients GmbH prohibiting the U.S. sale and use of a fatty acid product currently marketed under the brand name Lonza DHA for use in functional foods and dietary supplements.
Thanks for reading. And for the Blog’s regular readers, I will be back to my usual Northern District of Illinois focus tomorrow.
* Second Life is an internet-based virtual world where “residents” interact through avatars. For example, the Seventh Circuit’s Judge Posner appeared in Second Life with an avatar closely resembling him to answer questions from, among others, a DC IP lawyer using an avatar of a humanized raccoon. Check out the New World Notes blog for a transcript and some screenshots.
…
Continue Reading Blawg Review #133

I am hosting the 133rd weekly Blawg Review on Monday. For those of you new to the Blawg Review, it is a round up of the best law blog* posts of the last week based upon submissions and the host’s (that’s me) own additions. Feel free to nominate your own posts — click here for submission guidlines and a form for submitting your posts. And check back Monday morning for Blawg Review #133.
* I generally use the term “law blog.” The Blawg Review goes with “blawg” to mean the same thing. There has been considerable debate on which term is most appropriate — click here, here or here if you really want to know more about this debate from Kevin O’Keefe at LexBlog.
…
Continue Reading Chicago IP Litigation Blog Hosting Blawg Review #133

Blawg Review #123 was published today by the Texas Appellate Law Blog. For those who do not know, Blawg Review is a review of each week’s law-related blog posts hosted by a different legal blog each week. This week’s review is written in the style of an appellate opinion.* The review highlights yesterday’s Blog post reporting that Roger Ebert has withdrawn Disney’s right to use Ebert’s thumbs up/thumbs down trademark until negotiations regarding Ebert’s return to his movie review program are resolved. I will be hosting the Blawg Review on November 5th.
* The Blawg Review opinion did not reach the issue of whether “blawg” or “law blog” is the correct term for legal blogs. This is, perhaps surprisingly, a hotly contested issue (and here and here). I side with Kevin O’Keefe at LexBlog. Legal blog or law blog is sufficiently descriptive and the least confusing title. “Blawg” is too cute and confuses people.
…
Continue Reading Blawg Review #123

Google’s continuing expansion has led it into the patent world.  Google is offering a new service called Google Patents.  It is a very powerful tool.  You can search for patents using the standard Google interface or you can do an advanced search which allows you to search by inventor, assignee, filing date, issue date or classification. …