By Kathleen McGuinness

Congress Passes Symbolic Resolution: “No UN Control of the Internet”

Responding to the UN’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (“WCIT-12”), Congress passed a symbolic resolution on Wednesday opposing any increased UN authority over the Internet. Although many participating countries would like to reduce the United States’ control over the Internet, Ars Technica reports, the WCIT-12 has no power over individual state legal regimes. Wired describes some controversial policy proposals that would subject the Internet to the same legal regime as that covering telephone networks, but concludes that they are unlikely to have any practical effect.

Supreme Court Will Hear Case on the Legality of Pay-for-Delay Practices

On Friday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in FTC v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 12-416, 2012 WL 4758105 (U.S. Dec. 7, 2012). The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in the case is hosted by Bloomberg Law. This case will resolve a circuit split discussed by Thomson Reuters on the question of whether the common pharmaceutical industry practice of “reverse payment settlements” or “pay-for-delay”—paying a generic competitor to drop a patent challenge—constitutes anticompetitive behavior. Patent Docs describes the case in more detail.

Preliminary PTO Finding Invalidates Key Apple Multitouch Patent

The PTO issued a first office action on December 3 invalidating an important Apple multitouch patent, Ars Technica reports. The patent concerns iOS’s ability to distinguish between different types of user behavior, such as scrolling, panning, and zooming. While this finding is only preliminary, the fact that all twenty of Apple’s claims were rejected indicates that reversing the finding may be difficult. FOSS Patents discusses the matter in more detail.