28th June , 2010

Darjeeling Tea in patent row

Darjeeling Tea – the world’s most expensive variety of tea has been at the center of many a patent disputes. India still continues to fight off attempts by foreign entities from staking claim to this name.

The legal body of Kolkata-based Tea Board of India had recently blocked a French perfume company, one US tea firm and two German companies from naming their products “Darjeeling”. But the Board is unable to win over a French women’s wear company “Delta and Groupe Chantelle” to withdraw “Darjeeling”, its global garments line. This group with over 50 stores worldwide has been using the trademark Darjeeling for its garments line and shops since 1995.

The tea grown and produced in the defined area of Darjeeling district in West Bengal can only be called Darjeeling tea and it cannot be grown and manufactured anywhere else in the world. According to patent rules and geographical indication (GI) registration, Darjeeling logo and brand trademark can apply to tea grown in only 87 designated gardens and processed in select factories of these gardens.

Darjeeling tea is likely to be brought under “rule 510” in October this year, by the European Union. This would safeguard Darjeeling tea from being misused and India would no longer be required to pursue patent violations in individual countries. Recently, India is fighting patent infringement issues in 15 different countries.

ATM and credit card protection patent for BNZ

The Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) has patented a new protection mechanism for bank and credit cards. This technology would stop the unauthorized use or “skimming” of cards, where the information on the magnetic stripes is used by fraudsters without customers’ knowledge. Fraudsters also are able to capture PIN data and create fake cards to misuse the victim’s account.

The technology called Liquid Encryption Numbers or LEN was developed by BNZ’s Fraud Initiatives Manager Michael Turner. Usually the information stored on the magnetic strip of bank and credit cards is fixed and does not change, but with LEN this information is made dynamic so that it changes every time a customer visits a BNZ ATM. This would ensure that criminals who copy the data on the cards will not be able to use it for fraud.

LEN also helps a bank to locate the area from where the data was stolen. And if the bank detects a card has been copied but not yet fraudulently used, it doesn’t need to be blocked but they only need to update the LEN. This technology is in use in New Zealand for the past two years and BNZ has observed a decrease in fraud figures.

GlaxoSmithKline and Medivir agree for exclusive rights to cold sore treatment Xerclear™

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the worlds leading pharmaceutical and healthcare company and Medivir have signed an exclusive agreement for the commercialization of cold sore treatment, Xerclear™ (acyclovir and hydrocortisone) for non-prescription use (OTC) in the global market. Xerclear is the first and only clinically proven topical herpes labialis (cold sores) treatment to help prevent the appearing of cold sore lesions.

GSK now has the exclusive rights to commercialize and distribute non-prescription Xerclear™ as part of the Zovirax™ franchise in Europe, Russia, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand. The agreement excludes North and South America, China, South Korea and Israel. GSK will be funding ongoing and future commercial development of Xerclear in all territories covered by the agreement and the company will pay up to 3 million Euro in up-front and pre-launch milestones and royalties on sales to Medivir for the exclusive rights.

The marketing approval for Xerclear was granted in 14 European countries in October 2009.

Lawsuit against Google for Google Voice

Google Inc., the world’s largest Internet search engine operator was sued by Frontier Communications Corp. for infringing a new patent for enhanced telephone services.

Stamford, Connecticut-based Frontier Communications in a complaint in federal court in Delaware has alleged that Google is violating patent rights with products such as the Google Voice system. Frontier seeks unspecified damages and an injunction to stop the use of the technology.

Earlier last month Google had agreed to buy Global IP Solutions Holding AB, a maker of voice and videoconferencing software, for about $68 million to facilitate expansion of Internet video and audio capabilities. The Internet search engine has denied the charges put forward by Frontier.

Apple and HTC in another patent dispute

Apple Inc. has filed another complaint against HTC Corp., the Taiwanese smartphone maker, alleging violation of four of its patents related to software and technologies used in smartphones and other mobile devices.

The California-based maker of iPhones alleges that HTC violated its patent for "slide to unlock" start screen technology in its popular smartphone which requires dragging by a finger across the device to use it. HTC uses a similar system in some of its smartphones.

The other patent which HTC violated, according to Apple relates to a new power management techniques, and another relates to covering a system for real-time adaption to changes in display configuration.

Apple had sued HTC in March in a federal court in Delaware and also in the U.S. International Trade Commission for violating 10 patents in a lawsuit. The complaints pertained to Apple's touch-screen control, hardware and software, and sought to ban the sale of the Nexus One, sold directly by Google, as well as phones using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile Devices.

In May, HTC countersued Apple with a complaint with the ITC alleging that Apple violated five of its patents related to power consumption in smartphones and how cellphones dial contacts from an address book and sought that Apple’s  iPhone, iPad and iPod in the U.S. be halted.

Google and YouTube win copyright lawsuit against Viacom

Google Inc. won over New York-based Viacom Inc's $1 billion lawsuit accusing the Internet giant of allowing copyrighted videos on its YouTube service without permission. Viacom alleged that as many as tens of thousands of videos based on its copyrighted works were posted on YouTube, and that Google deliberately did nothing to stop illegal uploads.

But a U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton said that Google and YouTube were not liable under federal copyright law merely for having a "general awareness" that videos might be posted illegally. Viacom now intends to appeal to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Viacom controlled by Sumner Redstone also owns cable networks like MTV and Comedy Central and the Paramount movie studio. It alleged that copyrighted works uploaded illegally included "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "South Park," "SpongeBob SquarePants," and others.

Google and YouTube argued that under the digital copyright law they were permitted to "safe harbor" protection as they had did not have sufficient notice of particular alleged infringements. Google had bought YouTube for about $1.65 billion in November 2006.

Google has developed technology to allow content owners to automate the identification of copyrighted material on YouTube, helping them remove protected content quickly.

Salesforce.com Sues Microsoft over Patent Violation

In a lawsuit countering the suit Microsoft filed in May against the cloud-based software company Salesforce.com has alleged that Microsoft infringes on five of its patents. Salesforce.com seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages in the suit. Microsoft intends to pursue its own lawsuit, which accuses Salesforce.com of violating nine of its patents.

The lawsuit was filed on June 24 in the Federal District Court for the District of Delaware. The Salesforce.com patents in this dispute are "Dynamic Multi-Level Cache Manager," "Method and System for Handling Errors in a Distributed Computer System," "Work Sharing and Communicating in a Web Site System," "Java Object Cache Server for Databases" and "Apparatus and Methods for Provisioning Services" - all issued by the USPTO between 2004 and 2007.

Salesforce.com also claimed that Microsoft products that violate the patents include Windows Server App Fabric platform, the Windows Error Reporting system for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, SharePoint, the Windows Live Delegated Authentication system, and the .NET platform.

Microsoft's patents in the dispute include, "Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data," "Method and system for stacking tool bars in a computer display" and "System and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu."