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Patent Acquisition and Guess Work

  Whenever an organization acquires any patent there is a whole lot of speculation that hits the market along with the product. Let us now see some of these acquisitions that made highlights in February, 2015.   (1) Google acquires Odysee. Google has purchased Odysee, an iOS and Android app concerned with the backing up and sharing of photos. Why would Google need this? It has Google+ photos! Odysee’s capabilities are slightly different. It allows for full quality photos to be automatically…
February 27, 2015 Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 954Views 0Like
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Xiaomi Redmi Note

Xiaomi maintains competitive pricing; Removes onus of Royalties on customers

Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi, suffered a major setback in India toward the end of 2014, as the Delhi High Court asked it to temporarily discontinue the sale of its smartphones in India. Subsequently, the Court decided that Xiaomi could go on with the sale of models that use Qualcomm chips until February 5, when the next hearing for the patent case is scheduled. Xiaomi is facing legal troubles in India since it was sued by Swedish technology company, Ericsson, some…
February 16, 2015 Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing, Patents 0Comment 535Views 0Like
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margaret knight patent

Margaret Knight: Most Notable Woman in the World of Patents

In the late 1860s, Margaret Knight was working in a paper bag plant in Massachusetts, USA. The paper bags of the time were conical in shape, with the bag tapering towards the bottom. She felt that a bag with a rectangular shape and a flat bottom could fit more items. So, she designed a  model of a machine for automatically cutting, folding and gluing paper bags with a rectangular shape and a flat bottom. She approached a machine shop to…
February 14, 2015 Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 715Views 0Like
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Kingsoft, Xiaomi Establish New IP Investment Fund

Chinese security software developer, Kingsoft, together in the partnership with the mobile phone maker, Xiaomi, Beijing Zhigu Technology Consulting Services (an entity controlled by Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun) and a few others, has launched a USD 35 Mn fund to support Intellectual Property related investments. Kingsoft announced that the investment vehicle managed by Beijing Zhigu Technology Consulting Services will have a 10-year term, without disclosing other specific details. It is widely speculated that the fund has been formed as an…
February 9, 2015 Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing, Patents 0Comment 572Views 0Like
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This image depicts the logo of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA). This image is relevant because it talks about the change in IEEE's IP policy. Click on the image to view full post.

IEEE amends it’s IP policy related to Standard Essential Patents

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has proposed a change to it’s IP (Intellectual Property) policy. The revised policy can be viewed here. The new policy comprises revisions to the provisions related to commitments from holders of Standards Essential Patents. The revised policy states that the patent holders have to make licenses for Standards Essential Patents available to other parties under Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms. The biggest change with respect to the updated policy…
February 7, 2015 Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing, Patents 0Comment 715Views 0Like
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Patent: Patents are Forever; What Jobs teaches you from the Grave!

Deceased inventors can also get Patents granted, if the approval process gets drawn out, or when attorneys seek “continuations” - new versions of old patents. And the more lawyers and money an inventor has, the more likely his ghost will rattle on. The estate of Jerome Lemelson, the sometimes-controversial independent inventor who came up with the bar code reader, received 96 patents following his death in 1997 at the age of 74! And that’s how, since Steve Jobs' death in 2011…
February 7, 2015 Patents 0Comment 502Views 0Like
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Decision on Non-obviousness of Patent

Is Criteria to Determine Obviousness in Patent Still Ambiguous?

The Courts have often engaged in discussion of the legal non-obvious inquiry, only with respect to evaluating whether it was obvious to combine certain elements and not with respect to the ultimate question of evaluating the level of advance over prior art or identifying the quantum of advance necessary to achieve non-obviousness. In the context of combining prior art, the Court explained the need to consider market demand, design incentives, and other market forces that might lead to combinations or variations…
February 6, 2015 Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 647Views 0Like
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New Intellectual Property Rights to ease Patent filing

  Under the existing Intellectual Property (Rights) regime in India, thousands of promising innovations and inventions remain un-patented. The new Intellectual Property Rights policy plans to change that. The first draft of the (IPR) policy released on December 19, 2014, emphasizes on the need to formulate a new IP law to facilitate the patenting of various ground-breaking Indian inventions.   In November, 2014, the Government formed an IP think-tank under former IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Board) chairman justice, Prabha Sridevan, which…
February 3, 2015 Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 602Views 0Like
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Device Locator x

True Position Inc.’s Device Locator Patent Invalidated

  In a final written decision of an inter partes review under the America Invents Act (AIA), the United States Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) stated that True Position Inc.'s (device locator) patent - 7,783,299, which describes a system for locating wireless devices in an emergency, is invalid in light of three prior art references. US patent 7,783,299 covers monitoring links in a wireless network, and triggering network events detected on those links. The technology…
January 30, 2015 Intellectual Property, Patents 0Comment 657Views 0Like
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This image depicts a Blackberry phone. This post discusses why Samsung wants to acquire Blackberry from an IP perspective. Click on the image to read the full post.

What makes Samsung want to buy Blackberry?

The market is rife with the reports of Korean phone-maker Samsung intending to acquire Blackberry for $7.5 billion, in spite of both the companies labelling the reports “groundless”. The speculation sent the Canadian smart-phone maker’s stock soaring 30% before it fell down by 17%. The possibility of the acquisition has raised a very important question- What makes Blackberry so appealing to Samsung? The acquisition would give Samsung the access to Blackberry’s robust patent portfolio that includes 44,000 patents worth over…
January 30, 2015 Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing, Patents 0Comment 519Views 0Like
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