IP P®OSPE©TIVE

I've been tipped off by the IAM Blog to these interesting statistics released by the Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China. 30,626 civil cases related to IPR at first instance were received by the China national court system in 2009, up 25.49% Of the 2009 IP cases counted, 4,422 involved patent infringement, 6,906 involved trademarks, 15,302 involved copyrights, 747 involved technical contracts, and 1,282 involved unfair competition While a direct comparison to U.S. IP cases is not available (I'm not aware of ... Read More

I have discussed in other posts the direct link between quality patents and shareholder value. Now, we have proof that a favorable patent ruling at the hand of the CAFC can help a stock price surge. Yesterday, the CAFC ratified the district court's contempt order in Tivo, Inc. v. EchoStar Corp.  The case, which focused on television simultaneous recording technology patents, was well-watched by the IP community.  According to IP Watchdog, Tivo, Inc.'s stock price surged at the news of the hearing: "On ... Read More

Consider a hypothetical:  Imagine you are the CEO and sole owner of a new business enterprise.  You hire a few employees who will have some innovative roles within your business model, whereby they may have some opportunities to create original work product that will be important to your business' success.  This work product may be a process, a technology, a marketing plan, a human resource protocol, a work of art, or a memorandum.  Now assume that, a few years down the road, ... Read More

I'd like to first thank all of the faithful IP Prospective readers over the last 12 months.  IP Prospective will celebrate its first birthday next month! 2009 has been quite a year - for good and for bad. The financial market was consumed by a somber mood for most of the year, with just enough shining moments near the end of the year to lead U.S. consumers and investors into 2010 with an optimistic vibe. The intellectual property market did what most expected ... Read More

Chicago-Kent Law School, a member institution of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), will offer the first multidisciplinary Masters program in Intellectual Property Management and Markets in the United States. The IAM blog first broke the news to me, as Joff Wild wrote last week that Ron Laurie, long time advocate of and expert on the CIPO movement, apprised him of the new offering.  I had caught wind of such an interdisciplinary program in the works at an institution in the UC system ... Read More

The debate rages on. This is an oral argument with very different closing statements and a hung jury. The case is argued by the plaintiff, "Fair Use", and the defendant, "Don't You Dare Use." It is a vicious cycle: do Intellectual Property Rights encourage innovation or stifle it? The side that dedicates their career to research sees an impediment to new research. The side that dedicates their career to protecting the right to an economic advantage created by innovation sees a means ... Read More

An interesting piece by Jackie Hutter over at the IP Asset Maximizer Blog uses some narrow empirical data offered by Marcus Malek of the Intangitopia Blog to dispell the notion that intellectual property auctions have provided any benefits for individual inventors or patent holders.  The piece was written in response to this NY Times article by Steve Lohr, which claims that "patent auctions offer protections to inventors."  Ms. Hutter "wonder[s] if the fact-checkers took a break when this article was presented for publication," adding that ... Read More

An interesting article in the New York Times today discusses a Silicon Valley company called Tessera Technologies that creates packaging technology that allows for the production of miniature electronics products.  The intrigue of the article to most readers, and to the author, is two-fold: (1) the miniature technology products envisioned by the company's leaders, and (2) the ability of the company to avoid the demise that many Silicon Valley companies have met over the last few years.  A certain few last paragraphs ... Read More

I apologize for the break in action. I have been on the road almost continuously since attending last week's ICAP/Ocean Tomo "IP Markets 2009" Summer Auction and Conference in Chicago.   Thanks to those who have messaged or emailed in search of the "full report" I promised before the event, I have not been derailed from my mission and will hereby "give the people what they want." We all know the results of the auction.  For the second straight auction, the numbers were disappointing.  ... Read More

Recently I had a conversation with two other attorneys that reinvigorated an interest in this topic: Whether the government could take intellectual property whenever it deemed appropriate, use it for a public purpose, and pay the previous owner just compensation. In other words, could IP become subject to the government's eminent domain powers (or limitation on its powers, however you decide to view the 5th Amendment), similar to real and other personal property? I had spent a long time mulling over this ... Read More