The Wall Street Journal carried the news of General Patent's recent win against Fanuc on behalf of client company Trounson Automation LLC. ("General Patent Corporation Settles Patent Infringement Lawsuit with Fanuc" Wall Street Journal - April 23, 2013)
Two years ago, a U.S. District judge ruled that artist Richard Prince infringed photographer Patrick Cariou's copyrights on several photographs depicting Rastafarians.
Fanuc Takes a License under Trounson Automation’s CNC Patent
Suffern, N.Y. – April 23, 2013 − General Patent Corporation (GPC), a leading patent licensing and enforcement firm, announced today that it settled a patent infringement lawsuit filed by its subsidiary, Trounson Automation LLC, against Fanuc Corporation and its U.S. affiliate, Fanuc FA America Corporation (Fanuc). As part of the settlement, Fanuc took a license under the Trounson Automation patent on single processor computer numeric control (CNC).
April 23, 2013 - Viacom lost its copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube when a federal judge ruled that YouTube was protected by the "safe harbor provisions" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Under that law, YouTube would have to have knowledge of acts of copyright infringement committed by its users in order to be held liable for that infringement.
You can buy insurance for many different types of business liabilities, so why not insurance to protect your company from lawsuits brought by so-called "patent trolls" or non-practicing entities (NPEs)? That kind of coverage is now available for members of a group that represents digital agencies and production companies. At first glance the insurance may look like a fine idea, but some attorneys say the coverage has its drawbacks.
April 17, 2013 - The House of Representatives held a hearing on April 16 in which IP experts testified about how much of an impact non-practicing entities (less charitably known as patent trolls) have on the procedures of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).
This past December, the feature article in our e-newsletter, Wealth of Ideas, detailed several ways that the America Invents Act has basically backfired on the American patent system. (See "America Invents Act Turns Out to Be a Law of Unintended Consequences".)
April 16, 2013 - The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) cleared the way to proceed with the creation of a unitary patent system when the court dismissed challenges by Italy and Spain.
The two countries had objected to the creation of the EU unitary patent on the grounds that the legislative process used to create the new patent system was misused and an infringement of EU law.