21st July, 2010

Delhi Fashion Week organizers in trademark dispute

The Delhi High Court has restrained Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), the organizers and key sponsor Pearls Infrastructure Projects Limited (PIPL), from using the word “Pearl” during a six-day fashion event to be held at New Delhi, due to trademark infringement charges.

Little People Educational Society, the owners of the Pearl Academy of Fashion had filed a petition claiming the word “Pearl” used by the organizers will amount to infringement of its trademark. The academy is the owner of the registered trademark since 1993. Though FDCI was informed regarding this alleged infringement, it entered into an agreement with PIPL to hold the fashion week. The court order which came just one day before the start of the fashion week directed the sponsors to use different words for the event.

Delhi Couture Week – the fashion event now has a new logo and the word ‘Pearls’ has been changed to Pearls Infrastructure Projects Limited, with a disclaimer mentioning that the event is not related with the fashion academy.

eBay faces patent suit over electronic payment system

XPRT Ventures, a Connecticut-based patent-holding company is suing eBay, the online auction and retail site claiming patent infringement and a trade secret theft. XPRT claims that its technology was used to make money and profit from electronic payment systems like PayPal. PayPal is a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay since October, 2002.

 eBay had  filed for a patent titled 'Method and System to Automate Payment for a Commerce Transaction' in 2003. XPRT claims that eBay used its (XPRT’s) confidential information to include PayPal into its e-commerce platform and to roll out many features like PayPal Pay Later, PayPal Buyer Credit, PayPal's Balance Manager Service and the Checkout payment system into eBay's payment systems.

XPRT, in its suit, which was filed in Delaware District Court claims it had filed its patents two years before eBay and seeks a monetary compensation of US$3.8bn. The company has named eBay associates PayPal, Bill Me Later, Shopping.Com and StubHub as defendants in the case. XPRT Ventures holds six patents for systems and methods for effecting payments for electronic auction transactions and e-commerce transactions.

'Harry Potter' Publisher in Copyright Infringement case

Paul Allen, a trustee of late author Adrian Jacobs estate has filed a copyright infringement suit against Scholastic Inc., the U.S. publisher of the popular Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. The trustee sued the British publishers of the series in 2009 and Rowling in 2010.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, alleges that Rowling copied themes from Jacob's "The Adventures of Willy the Wizard -- No 1 Livid Land" in her book "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." "Willy the Wizard" was published in the United Kingdom in 1987, while "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was published in 2000. "Willy the Wizard" was not published in the United States. Scholastic has denied any infringement and cites the claims were without merit. The lawsuit cites a number of similarities between the two books, including that the basis of both involves a yearlong wizard contest in which the central characters of both the books win.

The lawsuit seeks a halt in the sale of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and destruction of all the copies of the book. It also seeks compensation from the publisher for the profits derived from the book's sale.

Microsoft Settles Software Piracy Suit

Microsoft Corp., the software giant has settled a copyright infringement case with China's Citic Kington Securities Co. According to the settlement, Citic Kington Securities Co., a unit of Citic Securities Co., would purchase software from Microsoft worth CNY 3.23 million (US$476,714) and compensate Microsoft for the infringement.

Microsoft had sued this Chinese company for operating nine types of 958 copies of unlicensed Microsoft software worth over 2 million yuan at the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court in October 2009. The two companies have also agreed to collaborate on software asset management and IT management.

Microsoft had won a separate lawsuit in April this year against Shanghai-based Dazhong Insurance Co. over that company's use of pirated Microsoft software. The use of pirated software, as well as Microsoft software such as its Windows operating systems, is widespread in China. This recent out-of-court settlement scripts another triumph against software piracy in China.

Novartis sues USPTO over extension of its patents

The USPTO's delay in processing patent applications is much in news now. In January, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had cited in Wyeth v. Kappos that the PTO inaccurately calculated patent term adjustments in light of the time it takes to process applications.

Novartis, in an effort to extend the reach of the Federal Circuit's Wyeth ruling on patent term adjustments has sued the USPTO. In its complaint filed in Washington, D.C., federal district court, Novartis claims that the patent office excluded patents issued before September 2009 from receiving a term extension under Wyeth. The Basel, Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company seeks an extension of the end date for its patents on 11 chemical processes.

The PTO is willing to give the benefit of that decision to newer patents after the Wyeth decision. Novartis's attorney is requesting adjustments ranging from 5 to 435 days for the patents in question. In the federal statutory scheme, there is a provision which prevents patent holders from seeking reconsideration of patent term adjustments if it's longer than six months after the patent was issued. The USPTO had set up an accelerated procedure on March 2 this year for calculating extensions on patents issued on or after Sept. 2, 2009. Novartis claims that the six-month rule should not serve as a cutoff point for its older patents. Novartis is the first patent holder to try and extend Wyeth's reach.

Paice and Ford Settle Hybrid Vehicle Patent Infringement row

The Ford Motor Company and Paice have made an out-of-court settlement on a patent infringement lawsuit on July 8, 2010. Ford Motor Company would license Paice's U.S. Patent No. 5,343,970.   This agreement would end all patent infringement litigations between the two companies. 

Both companies had filed lawsuits against each other regarding a patented technology used in hybrid versions of the Ford Fusion sedan and Escape crossover.

Paice, an acronym for Power-Assisted Internal Combustion Engines, is a U.S. technology company formed in 1992 to develop hybrid vehicle technology with lower emissions, superior driving performance and fuel efficient internal combustion engines. Paice has 11 U.S. patents related to hybrid vehicle technology, including the patent (the '970 patent) in this dispute which describes the use of high voltage in a hybrid automobile.

Paice now owns the most dominant hybrid patents in the world and has demonstrated that using voltage as high as 500 volts or more is essential to achieving real efficiency in hybrid automobiles. The patented technology uses both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor in the vehicle.

Delhi High Court orders IPO regarding date of grant of patent

The Delhi high court has directed the office of the controller of patents in India to reveal the grant of patents on a real-time basis and to circulate patent hearing dates a day before the hearing. This would lead to transparency in the process of granting patents and check malicious pre-grant oppositions.

The existing patent process which results in a time gap between the grant of a patent and the issue of the certificate was lawfully challenged. This time gap is exploited by competitors in filing an opposition even after the patent had been granted.

Justice S. Muralidhar while issuing this judgment held that the final order of grant of a patent signed by the controller or the assistant controller must be instantaneously placed on the website on the same day to remove the time gap between the signing of the order and publishing it. This would ensure that the patent would come into force on the day on which the order has been signed and not when the order is published or the patent certificate is issued.