Jun
11
Quanta v. LG
Posted by Dirk Avery at 10:44 am under Patent, Supreme Court.
Patent exhaustion is alive and well, even for method patents. The key from the Supreme Court’s slip opinion:
Nothing in this Court’s approach to patent exhaustion supports LGE’s argument that method claims, as a category, are never exhaustible. A patented method may not be sold in the same way as an article or device, but […]
Feb
16
EU members, read this book
Posted by Dirk Avery at 8:36 am under Copyright, Supreme Court.
Before the EU proposal to extend copyright, sound-recording protection from 50 to 95 years becomes law, it “would need approval by the European Parliament and a majority of the EU’s 27 governments, whose votes are weighted by population size.” Of course, whenever copyright extension comes up, Lessig comes to mind. EU citizens and […]
Jan
17
Patent exhaustion at the Supreme Court
Posted by Dirk Avery at 5:14 pm under Patent, Supreme Court.
Maureen Mahoney, Quanta’s lawyer, [contends] under the legal doctine of “patent exhaustion,” once Intel made a sale of the chips to Quanta pursuant to its license with LG, LG could no longer seek royalties from companies downstream in the manufacturing process.
Several justices, including Stephen Breyer, seemed to agree.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_7987537
Patent exhaustion background: “[T]he patent […]