IP: News and Views

What's new in IP-land?

September

Doctor Who Leaked Documents Will Pay $100,000 to Lilly NYT -- Dr. Egilman received the documents as a litigation expert, then provided them to other sources including the New York Times. Is the NYT liable for trade secret misappropriation too?

Pharma Companies form Joint Venture – THe New York Times is reporting that two companies, Isis Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have formed an equally owned joint venture, Regulus Pharmaceuticals. One of the driving forces behind the joint venture was to combine their IP, specifically, patents, in order to do research without fear of patent infringement. (Snitty 08:20, 7 September 2007 (EDT))

Tech, drug companies battle over patent reform. The Washington Post, reports on some of the lobbying around proposed Patent Reform that Congress will consider on its return from recess. Look at the industry groups lined up on opposing sides. 9/3/07

Before Models Can Turn Around, Knockoffs Fly Fashion designers want IP protection for their designs. Should they get some? New York Times, 9/3/07

A big victory: Golan v. Gonzales Professor Larry Lessig blogs about the unanimous court ruling, effectively working towards that works that are in the public domain stay in the public domain. Also: [Stanford Center for Internet and Society] 9/5/07

Pepsi Alerted Coca-Cola to Stolen-Coke-Secrets Offer In this article, Fox News reports on an attempt to sell Pepsi some of Coke's trade secrets.

August

Unlocking the iPhone could invite DMCA suit This link PC WORLD article speaks about how some really intelligent hackers may get into trouble with AT&T and Apple. Apparently, reverse engineering and innovation is not always a good thing, especially when companies are making money for their hard work to keep an exclusive relationship.

Google Settles Trademark Suit Google settled a suit brought by American Blind and Wallpaper Factory for their AdWords program. The theory of the suit was that Google was getting revenue from using trademarks owned by AB&WF. When someone would search for American Blind, google would display sponsored results, thereby making money off of their trade mark. The settlement ended up not being for money, but for a promise that Google wouldn't change AdWords policy to adversely affect AB&WF. You can view the story here: New York Times --Ben Snitkoff

Failure to adhere to Open Source License is not Copyright Breach A blog article detailing Jacobsen v. Katzer. 8/27/07 link title