March 29, 2013 - A federal judge found that Johnson & Johnson infringed three patents belonging to Covidien, a healthcare products provider, and awarded Covidien $176.5 million.
The patents-at-suit cover "ultrasonic cutting and coagulation surgical devices" and were found to be infringed by the Harmonic line of ultrasonic surgery products sold by J&J's Ethicon Endo-Surgery division.
Most of us who survived college with our dignity intact are pretty content to put it behind us. But if you're not already happy to have joined the ranks of the grown-ups, this story of an alcohol-fueled trademark dispute might do the trick:
With the U.S. Patent Office changing to a "first-to-file" system on March 16, the race to file patent applications ahead of that change has kept many patent law firms frantically busy for the past few weeks. Patent experts including GPC's Alexander Poltorak had predicted that this would be the outcome of the America Invents Act - and that smaller inventors will be the biggest losers under the new system. ("Inventors Race to File Patents" Wall Street Journal - March 14, 2013)
March 14, 2013 - In September, an administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) said in a preliminary ruling that Apple did not infringe certain patents belonging to Samsung. However, the full ITC is now set to review the matter and issue a decision on May 31.
March 14, 2013 - A jury found that Nintendo infringed a patent belonging to Tomita Technologies and awarded the plaintiff $30.2 million in damages. The patent-at-suit relates to glasses-free 3D displays.
March 5, 2013 - Last week, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh struck more than half of the $1.05 billion damages award Apple Inc. won in its patent suit against Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Judge Koh made the change because of errors in the way the jury calculated damages for 14 of the Samsung devices found to infringe Apple's patents.
March 4, 2013 - After the U.S. Supreme Court found in Gunn et al v. Minton that a legal claim of patent malpractice was not covered by federal law and could be handled by a state court, Motorola Mobility is pushing for Apple's appeal before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to be dismissed on the grounds that the CAFC lacks jurisdiction.