An inventor who approached the U.S. Army with an idea for a "mysterious acoustic wave propagation machine" has been barred by the Army from even talking about the invention, much less filing a patent application on it. And that inventor, Bruce Horton, has now filed a lawsuit against the Army in a California federal court - accusing the Army of having his patent application "illegally frozen and not reviewed nor allowed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office."
The Wall Street Journal carried the news that Alexander Poltorak, GPC's Chairman and CEO, has joined Spherix Incorporated as a member of its Board of Directors. ("General Patent Corporation Chairman and CEO Alexander Poltorak Joins Spherix Board" Wall Street Journal - October 29, 2013)
October 31, 2013 - Patriot Scientific Corporation prevailed in its patent suit against HTC Corporation, which was found to have infringed Patriot's US 5,809,336 patent. The patent is part of a larger portfolio of U.S., Japanese and European patents that is known as the Moore Microprocessor Patent (MMP) portfolio.
A jury in the U.S. District Court of Northern California found that HTC's devices infringed multiple claims of the '336 patent, and awarded Patriot $959,000 in damages.
Trademark and trade dress disputes are nothing new in the world of alcoholic beverages. The latest alcohol-related trade dress dispute in the news is between the camps of Gentleman Jack and a legendary (but now deceased) Appalachian moonshiner named Popcorn Sutton.
October 28, 2013 - A patent infringement lawsuit that began in 2007 has been decided in favor of TouchTunes Interactive Networks, an interactive out-of-home entertainment network whose mobile app allows users to control jukeboxes in over 60,000 bars and restaurants in North America via the user's smart phone.
The federal judge presiding over the case found that TouchTunes had not infringed any of the patents that Arachnid, Inc. claimed were infringed.
October 25, 2013 - ParkerVision Inc. was awarded $173 million by a federal jury in its patent suit against Qualcomm Inc. That's the largest jury verdict in a patent lawsuit in 2013, but it still falls well short of the $500 million ParkerVision had requested.
Blogger Matt Gorniak offered several reasons why it makes sense for businesses to file for patent protection as soon as possible. In comparing the relatively low cost of filing a patent application with the astronomical median cost of defending yourself in a patent lawsuit, Gorniak quotes GPC's Alexander Poltorak. ("Matt Gorniak: File as Soon as Possible" Wall Street Journal Blogs - October 18, 2013)
Alexander Poltorak, GPC's Chairman and CEO, attended a forum on nonpracticing entity litigation organized by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association and was one of the few attendees to question whether patent trolls are the villains they are made out to be. ("Lawyers' Voices Needed In Anti-Troll Debate, Judge Says" Law360.com - October 10, 2013)
October 10, 2013 - KFx Medical, a San Diego-based company that develops bone implant products, was awarded $29 million in a patent infringement lawsuit against its rival Arthrex Inc. At trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, the jury found that Arthrex willfully infringed KFx's patents relating to knotless double row rotator cuff repair.
October 3, 2013 - Chipmaker Macronix International Co., Inc. filed a patent lawsuit against Spansion LLC and Spansion Inc. for infringing seven Macronix patents related to flash memory chips, including the manufacturing, security, circuit designs and other aspects of flash memory chips.
Macronix has requested both monetary damages and an injunction to prohibit Spansion from continuing to infringe the patents.