Recently we blogged about Patent Plutonomies. The expression was coined following Ajay Kapur, (former) global strategist at Citigroup, who described countries which are defined by massive income and wealth inequality as “Plutonomies”. Translated into IPR, especially to the patent system, “Patent Plutonomy” refers to an IP world where only a few know how to play the system and to generate reasonable revenues, while the majority is – or just feels – overcharged. A recent study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows that NPEs...

Is “independent invention” a cure against trolls in that it can be argued that infringement cannot be established in case of an “independent invention”? No it is not. A  lot of confusion, misunderstandings, half-truths, nonsensical quasi-lawerly talk exists around the term “independent invention“. The term is often “spittered” about as means against patent infringement actions by NPEs or patent trolls, but has no basis in patent law and lacks a common understanding and agreement on what it means...

The debate about patent trolls or NPEs is not slowing down and more voices are heard every time about how patent trolls can or should be addressed. David Wanetick of IncreMental Advantage has very specific advice to companies dealing with trolls. He suggest diverse tactics – inspired by Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist – to counter patent trolls. As can be expected if you take “The Art of War” as guidance, the suggestions are all based on the presumption that patent trolls deserve to be...

Over the years patent build up could go without repercussions for the patent “market”. Let us say the market for supply and demand for patent rights. Initially, during the 1980s and early 1990s this was because Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean companies took licenses from European and US patent owners. Then the Korean powerhouses came up, well  placed to take over the consumer electronics market but low on IP.  Taiwan had its own policy but was not afraid of buying strategically, be it a lot less then Korean companies. ...

Not many things gets emotional in Patent World it seems, except when it comes to NPEs, Patent Trolls and Those Who Oppose or Defend Them.  When emotions run high and words come out fast, the pen can be much sharper than the tongue. That experienced Rick Frenkel, a lawyer and the (former?) director of IP litigation at Cisco who outed himself as the author of the widely-read Patent Troll Tracker blog. The blog follows companies said to holding patents solely to sue for infringement. (Now the blog can be read only by invited members)[1]....

The recent German Federal Supreme Court ruling Orange-Book-Standard (BGH, 5/6/2009 – KZR 39/06) seems to be a strong attack on one of the core features of intellectual property rights: the provision of an injunctive relief in (patent) infringement proceedings. In the context of standardized technology the Federal Supreme Court concludes that an injunctive relief is exposed to the widely known “competition law defence” under special circumstances. It may result in Germany being a NPE walhalla. However, there is light at...

CIP Forum 2009, currently held in Goteborg, Sweden, covers lot of IP management issues from valuation, open innovation and the relationship with IP, and of course contributions where the Patent Troll prominently appears as the bad guys. No IP forum these days can go bye without at least at some occasion hit on the trolls. Patent trolls or NPEs (Non Practicing Entities[1]) are bad, as they do not innovate, is what we learn. True or not, it misses the point. We like to compare NPEs with Real Estate management companies (“Agents”)....

Investment in IP as an asset class has grown significantly over the last years, however it is still in its infancy. Analysis of historical returns remains difficult, as limited data are available. Therefore, it is challenging to predict how the current economic crisis will impact on attitudes of institutional investors and the development of the asset class. What effect will this have on market perceptions (and valuations) of IP assets? Dependent on how strong the aftereffects of the financial crisis are, there are two possibilities....

Auctions to sell assets have been known for long. Goethe proposed the publisher Vieweg in 1797 to sell his manuscript of his poem Hermann and Dorothea via an auction (later to become known as “a second-price auction”). In IP no doubt auctions have become a household practice thanks to Ocean Tomo’s regular auctions of patents. They at least deserve praise for being the facilitator of “EBay” type of auctions of IP assets saleable like any other asset. And the public acknowledgement that comes with...

We noticed over the last two years an increase in investment houses to invest in IP as an asset class showing quite interesting and different risk profiles. We continue to see parties tapping on this new interest finding appropriate business models to develop IP monetization strategies. The different models become clearer by time. We have the non practicing entities. We blogged earlier about this. As a category its way too diverse to be a helpful “definition”. The term “Patent troll” is something we just...

Last week the Wall Street Journal revealed that a group of tech companies got together to incorporate a new group, called Allied Security Trust. The way it is being described, see the WSJ Law Blog, is that the companies, among which Cisco, Google, Verizon, buy patents they fear might be used against them by patent trolls or NPE’s (non practicing entities, rather like that term, see our earlier blog). Each member puts money in the basket to acquire those patents. All members get a license right to use the acquired patent(s)....

In an earlier blog, we wondered “Will 2008 bring the same troll trend in Europe?”. Well it’s no surprise that it does. A yet relatively unknown NPE (Non Practicing Entity, or otherwise called “patent troll”) an IP exploitation company called “IPCom GmbH & Co. KG”, backed by private equity funds, sued Nokia for infringement of 8 patent families at the patent court in Mannheim (Germany) this week. IPCom GmbH & Co. KG by doing so, threatens Nokia’s financials in its core business, mobile phones. IP-Com...

Patent Troll Tracker tracks patent litigation. Read their year end’s “rundown on some numbers concerning patent litigation“. The Troll Tracker looks at the Fortune 100 (top 100 US companies in terms of revenues) to see who got sued the most for patent infringement, and found that the top 35 companies were sued a combined 500 times for patent infringement in the last two years alone. TechDirt refers to this amount as “an awful lot of money wasted on lawyers that could be going towards actual innovation”. However,...

Not later than the nineteenth century patenting of the automobile by Rochester patent attorney George Selden paper patents and marginally developed patents have been obtained for the principal purpose of suing major manufacturers. Whether good or bad, providing a nasty buzz word to describe such activities in a generalized fashion merely inflames the rhetoric. Thus was born the term “patent troll” to widely define the enforcement of patents by those who do not themselves manufacture and sell products. …

Philips c.s. mp3 patent litigation by Sisvel has mostly come to an end in Europe and the US, as most bigger players in the electronics space have settled with Sisvel (on behalf of the patent holders Philips, France Telecom, IRT and TDF). When Sisvel settled with most vendors of mp3 consumer goods they did that after seizing goods at consumer fairs, starting patent infringement cases, using the European Border Detention Regulation 1383/2003 for blocking incoming mp3 enabled consumer goods from Hong Kong and China and other Asian...

Further to our earlier post about the SanDisk vs. Philips judgement by Pumfrey J, here is a verbatim account on what the court contemplated about the question to what extent this case leaves open issues for the Court of Appeal to decide on jurisdiction “I am of the view that if this jurisdiction needs to be worked out and if there is no substantial challenge to my approach to the cases such as they are, then this is a matter where the Court of Appeal should themselves decide is a suitable occasion for working out such...

In a high profile legal battle on mp3 patents, UK Judge Pumfrey rendered its judgment in a request for interim injunction by SanDisk against Philips et al. The first four defendants (the patentees, registered in the Netherlands, France, France and Germany respectively) own a number of European patents relevant to mp3 technology. The patents have been the subject of an intensive licensing campaign carried out on behalf of the patentees by the fifth defendant, Sisvel, an Italian licensing company. Sisvel claims that five of the...

In earlier posts, I described the mp3[1] patent area as a minefield. One big landmine has been added to the terrain, the mp3 patents of the French company Alcatel. Last Friday Alcatel won a US Federal Court Jury verdict for US$ 1.52 billion damage award for patent infringement by Microsoft. The largest patent infringement damage award ever (the last record was the Kodak damage award of approx 900 million US$). According to reports, about half of the damage award is based on foreign sales under US patent law section 271(f). At...

How Sisvel can get away with cowboy type legal actions as the one they now provoked in Germany (see previous post) is puzzling. Sisvel did it in Italy with Motorola (who had to give up and take a license), they now repeat it in Germany, trying to force SanDisk into taking a license. SanDisk, however, is of the opinion that the underlying three patents are invalid and not infringed upon. SanDisk is involved in civil patent litigations in Germany, The Netherlands and the UK. The outcome of these cases is not expected any time...

Sisvel, Europe’s most notorious patent troll, is known for its unscrupulous way of using (many feel: misusing) the criminal system in Italy, where they convinced Italian public prosecutors – not particularly known for their penchant for patent law – to use the criminal system in an unprecedented way, to enforce its patents it licensed from Philips c.s. against alleged infringers. The practice has driven many companies in (involuntary) license deals by making their lives miserable and forcing business people...