Philip Brooks' Patent Infringement Updates

International Comparative Legal Guide to Patents 2012

Research and Markets has published the above-titled book that covers: patent enforcement & amendment; licensing; patent term extension; patent prosecution & opposition; border control measures; antitrust law & inequitable conduct in 29 jurisdictions.

The table of contents:

General Chapter:

1 The Use of Declaratory Relief Across the World – Gerry Kamstra & Christian Harmsen, Bird & Bird LLP

General Chapter:

1 The Use of Declaratory Relief Across the World – Gerry Kamstra & Christian Harmsen, Bird & Bird LLP

Country Question and Answer Chapters:

2 Australia Griffith Hack Lawyers: Wayne Condon & Eliza Mallon
3 Austria Fiebinger Polak Leon Attorneys-at-Law: Constantin Kletzer & Kristina Hesse
4 Belgium Baker & McKenzie: Pierre Sculier & Elisabeth Dehareng
5 Brazil Momsen, Leonardos & Cia: Otto Banho Licks & Marcela Trigo de Souza
6 China CCPIT Patent and Trademark Law Office: Chuanhong Long & Lili Wu
7 Finland Roschier, Attorneys Ltd.: Rainer Hilli & Johanna Flythström
8 France Armengaud & Guerlain: Catherine Mateu
9 Hungary Danubia Patent & Law Office: Michael Lantos
10 India Subramaniam, Nataraj & Associates, Patent & Trademark Attorneys: Hari Subramaniam & Ritu Gandhi
11 Ireland Matheson Ormsby Prentice: Alistair Payne & Gerard Kelly
12 Israel Ehrlich & Fenster: Dr. Gal Ehrlich & Roy S. Melzer
13 Italy Avvocati Associati Franzosi Dal Negro Pensato Setti: Vincenzo Jandoli
14 Japan Nakamura & Partners: Yoshio Kumakura & Yuriko Sagara
15 Luxembourg Philippe & Partners: Emmanuelle Ragot
16 Macedonia PEPELJUGOSKI LAW OFFICE: Dr. Valentin Pepeljugoski
17 Mexico Olivares & Cía.: Alejandro Luna & César Ramos, Jr.
18 Netherlands Van Doorne N.V.: Bas Pinckaers & Ricardo Dijkstra
19 Norway Wikborg, Rein & Co.: Gunnar Meyer & Ingvild Hanssen-Bauer
20 Pakistan Bharucha & Co.: Qamar Uddin & Shumaila Ali
21 Philippines SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan: Enrique T. Manuel & Vida M. Panganiban-Alindogan
22 Poland Patpol: Katarzyna Karcz & Bartlomiej Kochlewski
23 Spain Gomez-Acebo & Pombo: Eduardo Castillo & Gonzalo Ulloa
24 Switzerland Schellenberg Wittmer: Andrea Mondini & Philipp Groz
25 Taiwan TIPLO Attorneys-at-Law: J. K. Lin & H. G. Chen
26 Thailand Tilleke & Gibbins: Nandana Indananda & Vasan Abe Sun
27 Ukraine Vasil Kisil & Partners: Oleksiy Filatov & Tetiana Kudrytska
28 United Kingdom Bird & Bird LLP: Gerry Kamstra
29 USA Kirkland & Ellis LLP: Ken Adamo & William Cory Spence
30 Vietnam Pham & Associates: Pham Vu Khanh Toan

A sample is available by registering here.

Longtime Litigator Joe Katarincic Writes a Pittsburgh Legal Thriller

Previous client, Joe Katarincic, has added to his many accomplishments with the publication of a novel. The following is excerpted from an October 3, 2011 article by Tim Grant published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

In the 51 years that he has practiced law in the Pittsburgh community, Joseph Katarincic earned a reputation for being a ferocious litigator.

Now he's added a new description to his extensive career resume -- self-published novelist.

Mr. Katarincic, 80, recently wrote a legal thriller, "Too High A Price," which is based on a personal injury case that stemmed from an incident more than 40 years ago on the Hot Metal Bridge on Pittsburgh's South Side.

The story's central character, Joe Carter, has it all. A beautiful wife, three sons, a dream home in a good neighborhood and he's on the fast track to make partner at one of the best law firms in town.

But when he is retained to defend a railroad in the trial of a worker seeking compensation for a severe injury suffered on the job, Mr. Carter discovers the jury has been tampered with during the middle of the federal trial, leading to a juror being dismissed.

Read the full article here.

Infringement Nation - Copyright 2.0 and You

Written on the occasion of copyright’s 300th anniversary, John Tehranian’s Infringement Nation presents an engaging, witty and accessible analysis of the history and evolution of copyright law and its profound impact on the lives of ordinary individuals in the twenty-first century. Organized around the trope of the individual in five different copyright-related contexts - as an infringer, transformer, consumer, creator and reformer - the book charts the changing contours of our copyright regime and assesses its vitality in the digital age. In the process, Tehranian questions some of our most basic assumptions about copyright law.

Drawing both upon theory and the author’s background litigating high-profile copyright suits, the book highlights the unseemly amount of infringement liability an average person rings up in a single day, the counterintuitive role of the fair use doctrine in radically expanding the copyright monopoly, the important expressive interests at play in even the unauthorized use of copyright works, the surprisingly low level of protection that American copyright law grants many creators, and the broader political import of copyright law on social regulation and control.

Tehranian supports his arguments with a rich array of examples - from the unusual origins of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, the question of numeracy among Amazonian hunter-gatherers, the history of stand-offs at papal nunciatures, and the tradition of judicial plagiarism to contemplations on Slash's criminal record, music as a form of torture, Captain Kirk's reincarnation and Holden Caulfield's maturation. In the end, Infringement Nation makes a sophisticated and lucid case for reform of existing doctrine and the development of a copyright 2.0.

Access John Tehranian's website and a link for purchase of the book here.

Thesaurus of Claim Construction

Stuart Soffer, Director of Patent Strategy and Analysis at IPriori, Inc. and Non-Resident Fellow, Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society wrote to me this weekend to alert me to the publication of the above-titled book from Oxford University Press. The book is co-authored by Robert C. Kahrl and Mr. Soffer.

Description

Claim construction is a major phase of a patent litigation where the meaning and scope of the claims themselves - the invention - is determined by the court. The outcome of this definition phase is crucial to the respective infringement and invalidity positions of the parties. The Thesaurus of Claim Construction directs practitioners to cases-and in contrast to searches on more general electronic databases, only those cases-in which claim terms have previously been construed, and further to the sources of the evidence used by previous courts to construe the terms in dispute.

Features

• A unique, comprehensive thesaurus for claim construction terms
• Written by two experts with a wealth of experience in IP law and technology
• An excellent source of relevant cases tailored to the needs of those specifically interested in claim terms

The book is available directly from Oxford or from Amazon.

China's Guidebook for Pharmaceutical Patent Protection

The following is excerpted from the description for the above-titled book that was released in February 2011 by Piribo Limited's Pharmaceutical Market Research:

China is expected to become the fifth largest drug market in the world by 2010 with a growth rate of 20-25 percent per annum in next three years. As China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) and integrates more completely into the global economy, it will further open the door to a lucrative drug market for overseas pharmaceutical companies, which attracts more and more overseas pharmaceutical manufacturers and producers to enter such drug market and seize a larger part of such drug market. However, the Chinese social environment for the protection of intellectual property right is complex. The locally produced generics and copy products dominate the Chinese drug market. It is estimated that about 97 percent of the drugs produced by local companies are generics or counterfeits.

China's Guidebook for Pharmaceutical Patent Protection is an essential resource for overseas and multinational pharmaceutical companies to achieve a successful patent protection for their intellectual property in China. This guidebook, targeting overseas and multinational pharmaceutical companies and combining case studies of patent infringement dispute in China from them, will provide a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the Chinese patent system and legislation institution to guide overseas and multinational pharmaceutical companies step by step to achieve a successful patent protection for their intellectual property in China, which is beginning from the organization structure and the responsibility of Chinese patent authorities, the application for patent, the examination and approval of application for patent, the protection of patent right, to design for compositions of optimized patent protection strategies.

Learn more and purchase here.

Professional Responsibility in Litigation

The above-titled book by Douglas R. Richmond, Brian S. Faughnan, and Michael L. Matula was published in February 2011 by the ABA's Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section:

"Professional responsibility" is defined broadly to include not only legal ethics, but also the related subjects of sanctions and, in some instances, professional liability. The ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct have served as the standard for the sake of practicality and uniformity.

Professional responsibility is a dynamic subject, and answers to thorny questions often pivot on the facts and variations of state law. Accordingly, the book provides ample citations to authority--principally cases and ethics opinions--to assist readers in their own research.

Chapters cover:

    * Pre-suit investigation
    * Co-counsel and referral relationships
    * Surreptitious investigations and discovery
    * Receipt and release of confidential information
    * Ethics of e-discovery
    * Expert witness conflicts of interest
    * False testimony
    * Lawyers as witnesses, and much more!

The book is available for purchase here.

New 2010 Supplement to 'International Patent Litigation: A Country-by-Country Analysis'

The following is excerpted from a December 6, 2010 press release published at PR Newswire:

BNA Books, a division of specialized news and information publisher BNA, announced today the publication of the new 2010 Supplement to International Patent Litigation: A Country-by-Country Analysis.

Patents, like other types of intellectual property, have owner rights that are specific to the country that grants them. The 2010 Supplement to International Patent Litigation: A Country-by-Country Analysis helps practitioners learn how to protect their clients' assets in these established foreign markets.

Written by international experts in patent litigation, the section for each country examines key topics such as the rights of the patentee, what constitutes infringement, how claims are interpreted, which courts have jurisdiction, notices that must be served to the infringer, pretrial procedures, types of remedies, types of defenses, and appeals. Practitioners can depend on International Patent Litigation: A Country-by-Country Analysis to provide the information they need to accurately anticipate the problems and properly evaluate the issues they will confront while conducting or directing patent litigation abroad.

Read the full release here.

Computer Games and Virtual Worlds: A New Frontier in Intellectual Property Law

The above-titled publication (Ross A. Dannenberg, Steve Mortinger, Roxanne Christ, Chrissie Scelsi, Farnaz Alemi, Editors) is available at the American Bar Association Web Store.

As the uses and ubiquity of video games and virtual worlds expand, the legal issues they raise grow more complex and commonplace. These issues include the traditional areas of intellectual property law, namely, copyright, trademark, patent and trade secrets, as affected by contractual issues arising from the end user licensing agreements (EULA) and terms of service (ToS) promulgated by each video game and virtual world proprietor.

This book explores and discusses how to obtain these traditional rights in the non-traditional settings of video game and virtual world environments, and serves as a primer for legal practitioners researching these emerging legal issues. Each chapter addresses, in order, end user license agreements, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets, as addressed by U.S. law. The book also includes a commentary on international legal issues stemming from the multi-national user-base and foreign operation of many virtual worlds.

You may purchase the book here.

A Lawyer's Guide to Section 337 Investigations Before the ITC

Editor Tom M. Schaumberg offers the above-titled book available through American Bar Association Book Publishing (publication date - February 16, 2010).

Get expert analysis and explanation of the participants in Section 337 investigations and the unique role played by the ITC.

This book provides you with the procedural rules of a Section 337 investigation, including preparation of a complaint, the discovery process and other pre-hearing procedures, the hearing and post-hearing processes and the remedies available to a successful complainant.

Other topics addressed include enforcement of a violation ruling, parallel litigation and appellate court review of an ITC decision.

Read more and purchase here.

The Corporate Insider's Guide to U.S. Patent Practice

The above-titled book by Charles Macedo, frequent guest blogger at Philip Brooks' Patent Infringement Updates, is available at Oxford University Press:

Description
Given the growing importance of patents to businesses both in the United States and abroad, there is a growing demand for a succinct guidebook to serve as a reference for attorneys and "c-level" executives who have not (and most likely will not) be trained as specialists in the patent field. The Corporate Insider's Guide to U.S. Patent Practice meets this need by providing a basic understanding of patent practice in the United States as it relates to both obtaining and enforcing patents. It also provides an overview of patent licensing and related transactions.

Written by Charles R. Macedo, a practicing attorney at an elite intellectual property firm, The Corporate Insider's Guide to U.S. Patent Practice offers readers a high-level, practice-oriented approach to patents that never loses sight of the business implications at stake. In short, it teaches what every executive should know in terms of how best to spot patent-related issues effecting both short and long-term organizational goals.

Contents

1. What is a Patent?
2. Why Seek Patent Protection?
3. What is Patentable?
4. What to Patent
5. How to Protect an Invention
6. How to Get a Patent
7. How to Read a Patent
8. What is Prior Art?
9. What to Disclose to the Patent Practitioner
10. Type of Claim Coverage to Seek
11. How to Construe a Patent Claim
12. How to Determine Infringement of a Patent Claim
13. How to Enforce a Patent
14. Where to Resolve a Patent Dispute
15. What is a Patent Worth?
16. How to Avoid Willful Patent Infringement
17. When Can a Patent Stop a Competitor?
18. How Rights Are Transferred

Purchase the book here. [Disclaimer: I received two free copies of this book from the publisher.]