Much Ado About Injunctions

It’s become an article of faith among those complaining that patent reform has gone too far that the 2006 eBay case must be overturned—but that assertion doesn't appear to be backed up by the facts.

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Granted In 19 Hours

Patent examiners have an extremely hard job.  They’re given a patent application—which could be anywhere from a page long up to hundreds of pages, with patent claims ranging from a…

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Latest Blog Post

When Does “Without Ads” Mean “With Ads”? When You Want To Abuse A Patent

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Funimation is a successful anime streaming company.  It has a monthly subscription tier, which is ad-free, and a free tier, which includes advertisement.  This week, failed company Firtiva filed a lawsuit against Funimation.  The lawsuit asserts that Funimation violates Firtiva’s patent, U.S. 10,116,999, titled “Method for advertisers to sponsor broadcasts without commercials.”

“Without commercials” apparently means “with commercials” when you’re trying to force a successful company to pay you money.

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Recent posts

One Case, All The Problems: VLSI v. Intel Exemplifies Current Issues In Patent Litigation

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Patent litigation suffers from a number of issues at present. Hedge funds backing non-practicing entities (NPEs) in order to chase a share of billion-dollar judgments.   Plaintiffs using damages methodologies that have little to no relation to the reality of the patent system in order to obtain those billion dollar judgments. NPEs asserting patents that they…

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New Study Shows That IPR Delivers An Economic Benefit, Even If The District Court Doesn’t Stay Litigation

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New research from the Perryman Group shows that inter partes review (IPR) is economically beneficial, even if co-pending district court litigation isn’t stayed.  The Perryman study, commissioned by Unified Patents, examines IPR’s economic impact, including the difference between staying or continuing on with a co-pending district court case.  There are two important findings in this…

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Senator Leahy to Take Chair of IP Subcommittee

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I’ve been informed that, contrary to what many expected, Senator Leahy will be taking over the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, with Senator Coons moving to a newly reconstituted Privacy, Technology, and the Law Subcommittee. Senator Leahy was one of the authors of the 2011 America Invents Act (AIA), and may…

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