It may raise question marks over the use of a patent that depends heavily on competitor technology, though.
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At root, this case tests whether courts can realistically enforce their judgments, including, as in this case, the judgment that a patentee has been denied the right to control the use of its patent.
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Google also proposed giving Oracle 0.015% of revenues for use of a second patent which is valid until April 2018.
The New York-based drug giant filed a lawsuit last year in the U.S.District Court inDelaware, alleging both Cialis and Levitra infringe a recent Viagra "method-of-use" patent.
"The Ariad position is equivalent to discovering that gravity is the force that makes water run downhill and then demanding the owners of all the existing hydroelectric plants begin to pay patent royalties on their use of gravity, " says Armitage.
Meanwhile, an entire pharmacopoeia of medicines have gone off patent and fallen out of use.
It was the first use of compulsory licensing under Indian patent laws passed in 2005.
The patent also covers use of the bacterium in ointments, creams and lotions for treating gynaecological conditions.
Indeed, the Prozac patent that was overturned in court was not the patent on the compound, which expires in 2001, but a patent on the use of the compound to treat depression.
Critical mass seems to be growing for serious patent reform legislation in the U.S. At the CES Innovation Policy Summit, the best-attended session so far featured Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who is co-sponsoring a bill which would severely limit the ability of holding companies to use the patent system to extort settlements, especially in the highly-litigated information technology sector.
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In the last month, Kodak initiated lawsuits against Apple, HTC, and long-time nemesis Fujifilm for multiple patent violations related to the use of digital imaging technology in smartphones.
Advocates of change say judges who deem a patent to have been infringed should use more discretion in deciding between awarding damages and a course of action that could close all or part of a business.
Since 2008, Spangenberg and his company TQP have launched suits against hundreds of firms, claiming that their use of a common cryptographic protocol in the HTTPS-encrypted portions of their web properties violates the patent invented by Jones and acquired by TQP in 2006.
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Last year, a U.S. firm was granted a patent for a traditional Indian home remedy - the use of turmeric as an antiseptic.
Holders of SEPs are obliged to licence the patent's use to competitors in return for a fee on so-called fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (Frand) terms.
If software engineers hate patent laws, they sure do seem ok with making use of the system to their potential benefit.
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An additional refinement is major analyst jockeys on these volatile growthies use a dividend discount model which gives weight to the negative impact of drug patent expirations 5 to 10 years out.
Shares in ailing 131-year-old camera maker Eastman Kodak spiked on Monday after the U.S. International Trade Commission announced it would review a patent-infringement claim against Apple and Research In Motion over the use of image preview technologies, patented by Kodak in 2001.
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The patent was later withdrawn after Indian scientists produced evidence of centuries of prior use, but many similar patents are pending approval.
Even while Apple has another patent which covers, and thus allows them to use, the very same point of technology.
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Bowman argued that he should be able to use those second-generation seeds for a natural and foreseeable purpose of planting and that Monsanto's patent rights were exhausted after its initial sales of the seeds.
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Patent law gives inventors the exclusive rights to use or license their inventions, for a fixed period of time, to encourage disclosure and allow them to benefit from and recoup the cost of their invention.
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