Federal Circuit Provides Guidance for Obviousness Determinations by the PTO and the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences By Abby Lauer – Edited by Dorothy Du In re Kao, 2010-1307 (Fed. Cir. May 13, 2011) Slip Opinion The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“Board”), which had rejected patent application 11/680,432 (“the ‘432 application”) for obviousness. The Federal Circuit also affirmed findings of obviousness by the Board regarding patent applications 12/167,859 ... Read More...
Federal Circuit Ruling in Favor of TiVo Against EchoStar Changes Test for Reviewing Contempt Orders By Dorothy Du – Edited by Matt Gelfand TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp., 2009-1374 (Fed. Cir. April 20, 2011) (en banc) Slip Opinion The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the decision of the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which had found the appellants (collectively “EchoStar”) in contempt of two provisions of the court’s ... Read More...
By Dorothy Du IBM Creation “Watson” May Have the Potential to Assist in Legal Research Watson, an IBM super computer four years in the making, competed on the popular TV game show Jeopardy! on February 14 through 16. On the 16th, Watson prevailed against former Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, tallying in at a total of $77,147 in winnings — more than triple each human contestant’s totals, as PC World reports. Robert Weber, IBM’s senior vice president of legal ... Read More...
By Dorothy Du Facebook Plans to Fix Privacy Flaw that Allows “Apps” to Share User Information The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook applications (“apps”) have been transmitting user-IDs to dozens of third parties. These third parties include advertising and data-gathering companies, which use and sell the information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that all of the top ten Facebook.com “apps,” including FarmVille and Mafia Wars, are guilty of such actions in violation of their web developer agreements with Facebook. ... Read More...
