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As a public service, we present Apple's handy guide to not infringing the iPad or iPhone with your tablet PC or smartphone (Hat tip to ITworld.com):

(UPDATED December 30, 2011)

We thought it was interesting when we read that PIEtech, Inc., a company in Powhatan, Virginia, actually asked to be a defendant in a patent infringement lawsuit that involved one of its clients.

In August, PIEtech's competitor (and neighbor in Richmond, Virginia) Wealthcare Capital Management, sued the large Wall Street firm UBS Financial for infringement of patents for a “Method and System for Financial Advising”. Both patents were issued last summer.

By David Ziskind, IP Counsel - In a December 12, 2011 PatentlyO blog entry, Patent Law Analysis by Professors Dennis Crouch and Jason Rantanen[1], the authors notice a trend that average patent application pendency has leveled off (and in fact has begun to recede to a time period of three years or less) in the years between 2010-2011.

Normally this blog isn't known for keeping up with any of the (many, and seemingly interchangeable) Kardashians, but we couldn't pass this one up: A resident of Beverly Hills has filed for a trademark on the name "KardashianLash," and the Kardashian clan is not amused.

Sarah Ehrlich applied for the trademark for use with a "medicated liquid eyeliner for the purpose of enabling eyelash growth." She plans to use the proceeds from the sales of this product to send Honduran orphans to cosmetology school.

As if the news weren't already sufficiently preoccupied with Occupy Wall Street stories, we bring you another one. But instead of featuring the exploits, arrests or debauchery of bored college kids living off their capitalist pig parents, let us tell you the tale of some good old American opportunists making a beeline for the Trademark Office.

Filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook had a happy ending for WhoGlue, a "relationship-management-software developer" recently acquired by the social networking giant.

WhoGlue sued Facebook in September 2009 for infringment of U.S. Patent No. 7,246,164, which was awarded to WhoGlue in 2007 for a “Distributed personal relationship information management system and methods.”

Why did the kale cross the road? Probably to get away from a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Butterfingers take note: You will soon be able to buy a smartphone that refuses to be a victim of your clumsiness.

Apple has patented a crack-resistant glass that "employs a tunable shock mount" between the glass and the rest of the device. When the smartphone's internal accelerometer lets it know it's falling, the mount will inflate to reduce the impact on the glass.

Promptness is a trait valued by party planners looking for RSVPs - and it seems insurers value it pretty highly, too. Case in point: Rockland Exposition, Inc., v. Great American Assurance Co.

Rockland Exposition (REI) has a commercial general liability policy from Great American. In June of 2008, a company called the Association of Automobile Service Providers of New Jersey ("AASP") sued REI for trademark infringement because REI had "[created] a similar and therefore competing trade show, and [used] a name that is similar."

As dozens of app developers look to the horizon, hoping for Apple and Google to make Lodsys go away on their behalf, some are taking matters into their own hands.

One, a college sophomore named Michael Karr who developed an app called 69 Positions (don't ask), figured he'd waited long enough for the cavalry and agreed to take a license from Lodsys.

It looks like the gig may be up for Righthaven LLC, the "copyright troll" that filed 275 copyright infringement lawsuits against website owners, bloggers and even message board posters without actually owning the copyrights in question.

The anti-joinder provision of the America Invents Act - about which we've written in a recent blog entry and a Patent Infringement News story - is expected to have a chilling effect on litigation brought by so-called "patent trolls." That's because instead of suing several defendants at once, patent owners must file a separate lawsuit for each individual infringer.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that the business model of Righthaven LLC was, in fact, very wrong - evidenced by the fact that it has been ordered to pay nearly $120,000 in attorney fees and court costs to the defendant in one of its failed copyright infringement suits.

Attorney-client privilege can only go so far to protect you against the airing of potentially damaging communications in court. That's what Google learned this month when a judge allowed Oracle to use a Google engineer's unsent email message as evidence in their patent infringement lawsuit, which began with Oracle suing Google in August 2010 for allegedly infringing its patents on the Java programming language in the Android mobile operating system.

On our Patent Infringement News page, we recently reported on a company called Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC which has filed several patent lawsuits against hotels and restaurants that provide free Wi-Fi for their customers. But as it turns out, Innovatio's patent enforcement campaign may fall victim to provisions in the America Invents Act (AIA).

You can say what you want about the U.S. patent system and its laws concerning infringement, but it'll cost you - that is, if you're the CEO of a company found liable for patent infringement. (Mondis Technology Ltd v. Chimei InnoLux Corporation et al)

Well folks, it seems that the false patent marking statute is constitutional after all. Hollander v. Ranbaxy Laboratories Inc.

Recently, we have been anticipating the demise of Righthaven, the infamous copyright troll (see our many previous blog entries on this subject: WARNING!, No Response, No Comment, Picking Your Battles, A Step Too Far, Strange Bedfellows and

In the ongoing trademark war between Facebook on one side and roughly the rest of the world on the other, one small combatant has achieved, if not victory, then at least an honorable peace. (Lamebook LLC v. Facebook Inc.)

Just when we thought that the long-running daytime legal soap opera, THE BRATZ, had come to an end, along comes one Bernard Belair to, as they say in Hollywood, “rescue the franchise.” Belair v. MGA Entertainment Inc. et al.

Mr. Belair has alleged that the Bratz dolls were improperly based on a series of drawings he had created for a third party. Apparently uncertain as to which of the two toy manufacturers would ultimately prevail in their litigation marathon, he sued both of them. (Mattel is the “et al.” in MGA Entertainment Inc. et al.)