If so, which patent-rich wireless companies might be next?
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But as nonsensical as it might be, the plan to make drugs cheaper by taking them across the border and back highlights the degree to which patent law determines the profit margins of pharmaceutical companies.
Paul Ryan is CEO of Acacia Research, which manages patent portfolios for over 160 companies.
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Vytorin itself is a combination of Schering-Plough's Zetia and Merck's Zocor, which lost patent protection in 2006.
Google has now asked the US International Trade Commission, which handles patent disputes, to withdraw both claims.
The drug's success is particularly important as it tries to match the success of older medications like Lipitor, which loses patent protection in just three years.
Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears patent appeals, reversed, saying in effect the body of the patient was a machine that transformed the thiopurine into something completely new.
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Updates to the law to address current issues in high-tech industries should not create new issues for the industries for which the patent system functions well, namely drugs and biotechnology.
The triumphant bidder will control a formidable patent portfolio which could fuel billions of dollars worth of offensive patent lawsuits or offer solid defenses against future patent litigation.
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The Supreme Court in April raised the bar for receiving a patent, which could also have the effect of reducing the number of patent lawsuits.
It is, for example, entirely possible that Samsung does own a patent which Apple has breached in Europe.
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Rembrandt IP Management, which holds the patent and won the case, is now moving to secure even bigger profits.
Even while Apple has another patent which covers, and thus allows them to use, the very same point of technology.
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And today we are announcing a fast-track patent which will allow inventors to get approval in less than one year.
Google also proposed giving Oracle 0.015% of revenues for use of a second patent which is valid until April 2018.
That case law proved inconclusive, so Justice Altio next looked to case law applying Section 271(c), which covers contributory patent infringement.
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That could be a bigger benefit to beaten-down Schering-Plough than to Merck, which will lose patent protection on Zocor in 2006.
They got congressmen on the Senate and House judiciary committees, which oversee the patent office, to lobby Jon W. Dudas, its director.
Merck will ask the court to reconsider the decision, but an appeal would have to go to the Supreme Court, which rarely hears patent cases.
In a nutshell, generic drugs which are off patent that are costly to produce, but usually cheap to purchase, are generally the medications in short supply.
The case involved Myriad Genetics, which holds the patent rights on two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that are associated with increased risks for breast and ovarian cancer.
British Airways, which has a patent on the yin yang pattern, doesn't think direct aisle access is a major issue for most travelers, said Simon Talling-Smith, BA's executive vice president for the Americas.
M-PESA, technically a business unit of Vodafone, which holds the patent for the idea, is now being implemented in South Africa by Vodacom, where Lonie acts as executive head of its mobile payments business.
Google has taken a principled and somewhat lonely stand in favor of open video standards, with most other technology companies pushing for the proprietary H.264 standard, which would enrich patent holders but harm open source software.
"We believe Rembrandt's patents represent an important foundation of social media as we know it, and we expect a judge and jury to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence, " said lawyer Tom Melsheimer from legal firm Fish and Richardson, which represents the patent holder.
Microsoft... patent for which a violation was found and will help us avoid infringement of this patent in the US market.
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Microsoft has launched an Internet-based automatic patent monitoring service, which tracks changes to a variety of Patent Registers in Europe and North America to help with its cause.
One small firm, Sensaris, which makes wireless sensors to detect air pollution, has decided to make a filing under the international Patent Cooperation Treaty, which is a way of putting down a marker without the expense of a full patent application.
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.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has two months to contest a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which ruled that the Steve Jobs multi-touch patent is invalid.
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