intellectual property rights

Chip makers Broadcom Corp and Qualcomm Inc sparred in an appeals court on Wednesday over patents used to make cell phones that offer Internet and other multimedia features. Qualcomm was ordered last year to stop selling phones with WCDMA chips by January 2009 because they infringe on three Broadcom patents and was barred from seeking new customers. The ruling issued in the U.S. District Court ..

The simmering suspicions over a proposed bill on intellectual property rights (IPR) that would give government-funded universities and research institutions the right to patent innovations has spilled out into the open once again with a popular blog on IPR publishing the text of the secretive bill. Spicy IP, run by Shamnad Basheer, research associate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research..

Roche Palo Alto LLC on Wednesday won a legal battle with Canadian generic drug company Apotex over a patent for an eye inflammation medicine. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a summary judgment Roche won in U.S. district court for the Northern District of California. The case dates to 2001, when Roche's predecessor, Syntex, sued Apotex after it filed an application to..

Patent applications filed by Indian pharma firms have witnessed a sharp fall of 41% during FY08. Data provided by the Controller General of Patents shows that only 449 patent applications were filed in 2007-08 compared to 765 filed in 2006-07. This is the first dip in number of patent applications by Indian companies in the past four years. It was on a steady rise since 2004. In FY05, 278 patents ..

India is no where close to countries like US, Japan and China, when it comes to filing patents. But it still does a significant bit in the IP space. A lot of it's happening through patent service outsourcing in India. This means, a lot of background work for the numerous patents that are being filed by other countries, are being done out of India. Experts say, patent services outsourcing, the ..

The Indian patent office will provide drug innovators a chance to explain their views before a decision to grant compulsory licences against their patented medicines is taken. The patent office's decision has, for the first time, set rules for examining compulsory licence applications from local companies against multinational drug majors like Pfizer and Roche. The patent office on July 4 dismi..

Bollywood content on illegal websites and video-hosting sites is costing movie companies dearly. Are they up to the challenge? On a trip to Helsinki in Finland, Rajjat Barjatya stumbled upon 15,000 Indian families who had regular access to Bollywood movies even when no production house was distributing them there. "The families were paying monthly rent to a website that delivered the latest..

The latest battle in Google’s ongoing court battle with Viacom over YouTube copyright infringement is a glass half full or half empty situation. In the half full department, Google scored a legal victory as a judge shot down Viacom requests for the search giant’s search code and other critical intellectual property. In the half empty department, Google is being forced to turn over YouTube user his..

A serious conflict is brewing between Indian retailers and multinationals over imports of global brands. To stay afloat in the dog-eat-dog world of retail, local retailers have reached arrangements with overseas players to bring in some international brands, rattling many MNCs who manufacture or market these products locally. In some cases, these brands have not yet been introduced in India. S..

Video software developer Gotuit Media has sued Microsoft, claiming that its Silverlight multimedia software infringes several of the company's patents. Gotuit Media filed the suit on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, claiming that Silverlight infringes on three Gotuit patents, which cover ways of making videos searchable on the Internet. Released last year, Silverlight is Microsof..

Within days of Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo acquiring Ranbaxy Laboratories, another innovator (essentially, patent holders of blockbuster drugs) company Sanofi Aventis of France said it is making a bid to acquire Czech generics company Zentiva. Does this signal a paradigm shift in the global pharmaceutical space? Last month’s surprise decision of the Ranbaxy promoters to exit the country’s ..

Research In Motion won a delay in a patent-infringement case filed by Visto regarding wireless e-mail technology. The trial was scheduled to begin next Monday in Marshall, Texas, but the judge said a postponement was warranted until the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office re-examined the four disputed patents. In the order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham said a delay until the paten..

A number of technology heavyweights trying to reduce the risk of costly patent-infringement suits Monday launched a trust to try to buy those patents that they deem most important to their businesses. Members of the Allied Security Trust include Cisco, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Sun Microsystems, Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, and Verizon Communications. The group is hoping to work together..

A mysterious Sony patent office filing discovered today reveals that, at the very least, the company is entertaining the idea of a multi-touch handheld with phone capabilities. Even more mysterious than that is the name of the patent inventor: Phil Harrison. Harrison was the former head of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), and now works for publisher Atari. The Sony patent officially..

Domestic pharma major Cipla has received product patents for new forms of two blockbuster drugs—Osemaprazole and Alendronate—from the Indian authorities. While the company’s patent on Osemaprazole is a modified form of Astrazeneca’s blockbuster drug marketed under the brand name Nexium, Alendronate is one of the best-selling drug of Merck sold under the brand name Fosamax. Nexium, the world’s ..