US Court of Appeals Hands Google a Patent Setback
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Google's browser toolbar faces patent infringement charges in court, after an appeals overturned part of a lower court decision.
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Google Inc. won a major legal victory Wednesday when a federal judge ruled that the search engine's advertising policy does not violate federal trademark laws.
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A federal court judge on Thursday  dismissed a lawsuit against Google Inc. by disgruntled  advertising customer Kinderstart that had accused the Web  search leader of monopolistic business practices.
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The US Patent and Trademark Office has preliminarily rejected a Microsoft patent on a system for recognizing computer files, a victory for &quot;open source&quot; advocates
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Telecommunications giant AT&amp;T and Microsoft took a patent battle to the US Supreme Court Wednesday, in a case that has wide implications for US firms doing business abroad.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it harder to obtain patents, with technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. supporting a change. The case, involving a patent on gas pedals for vehicles, has the Supreme Court examining how lower courts arrive at a decision that an invention was obvious, and therefore not patentable. In the case, Teleflex Inc. and Technology Holding Co., holders of the electronic gas pedal patent, sued KSR International Co. for patent infringement, but the defendant argued the courts should invalidate the gas pedal invention for obviousness. After oral arguments Tuesday, some patent lawyers said they expected the Supreme Court to overturn a 4-decade-old approach to deciding obviousness often called the teaching-suggestion-motivation test. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has used this test, saying that there must be some proven teaching, suggestion or motivation to lead a person of ordinary skill to combine "prior art" products into a new invention for that invention to be declared obvious. Other patent lawyers said they expect little movement from the Supreme Court, although any change would have a huge impact on patent holders. If the Supreme Court throws out the motivation test, all current patents could be suspect, said Paul Andre, an intellectual property lawyer with Perkins Coie LLP, in an interview. A change in the motivation test could mean fewer patent infringement cases brought by patent holders, because they would fear that courts would rule their patents invalid, he said. "The alleged infringer would have an easier time challenging a patent," he added. But most patent lawyers seem to believe the Supreme Court won't change the law, with the court last acting on the obvious standard in a 1966 ruling, he said. "If the Supreme Court wanted to do it, they'd have changed it by now," he said. But justices asked several questions about the obviousness standard, with Chief Justice John Roberts suggesting courts needed more flexibility to determine obviousness. The court will likely require the Federal Circuit to come up with a new standard, said Sharon Barner, an intellectual property lawyer with Foley and Lardner LLP, in an interview apart from the court hearing. Cisco and Microsoft, joined by three other companies, filed a brief in the case saying the motivation standard makes it too hard to prove obviousness, leading to bad patents. Microsoft and Cisco have been sued for "allegedly infringing dozens of questionable patents," wrote their attorney Peter Sullivan, of Hughes, Hubbard and Reed LLP. The motivation test "establishes too lenient a standard for patentability, and it has had a stifling effect on true innovation because it encumbers ideas well beyond the limits imposed by Congress for patentable inventions," Sullivan wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court. But a group of patent lawyers filed a brief opposing a change in the law, saying a change in the obviousness standard could make it difficult to get a patent on any invention that combines old products. The current standard is established and well-thought, wrote lawyers for the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Without the motivation test, there's no standard to determine obviousness, said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, in an interview. "Things are often obvious in hindsight when they weren't that obvious," he said. "Big un-innovative ... are trying to make the invention game a king's sport because they hate having to compensate inventors."
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A federal appeals court handed Google Inc a setback in a patent fight on Wednesday, tossing out part of a summary judgment in the Web search engine's favor in a lawsuit filed by Hyperphrase Technologies, LLC.
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LONDON - A US federal court has ruled that Google can continue selling advertising linked to user searches for trademarked words after insurance firm Geico lost its legal battle to halt the search giant doing so.
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Patent infringement found; split decision sends part of case back to lower court.
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Blog: Google wins on appeal in Usenet copyright case.
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TORONTO/WASHINGTON  - A U.S. appeals court upheld  a patent infringement finding against BlackBerry e-mail device  maker Research In Motion Ltd. RIM.TO on Tuesday, but said  part of the earlier court ruling was flawed and sent the case  back to a lower court.
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A US court of appeals delivered Research In Motion (RIM) a partial blow, ruling to uphold most of a lower court decision that ruled in favor of NTP&#39;s patent infringement claims.
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Google responded to a lawsuit filed against it by Northeastern University, denying claims that its core search service infringes on patented technology.
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A US appeals court issued a mixed ruling this week in a patent dispute between Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the popular BlackBerry devices, and NTP.
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Google Inc. has lost a bid to  overturn a Belgian court order that requires it to publish an  earlier ruling forbidding it from reproducing article snippets  on its news amalgamation service.
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A US appeal court has delivered a mixed ruling in a patent dispute between Research in Motion (RIM) and NTP. It upholding a decision that RIM had infringed on patents held by NTP, but cancelled an injunction
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A federal judge on Wednesday handed online search engine Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) a victory in a trademark infringement case on Wednesday, ruling