BlackBerry Maker Develops 'Workaround'

Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry wireless e-mail device, said Thursday it has made good on its promise to develop a software "workaround" that would keep its service running if a court bars the use of its current system in a patent dispute.

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When Genae Girard received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006, she knew she would be facing medical challenges and high expenses. But she did not expect to run into patent problems.

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Fed up with patent holding companies suing them, a consortium of high-tech companies is taking a different approach: beat them to the punch.

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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today rejected all of the patent claims for a common yellow bean that has been a familiar staple in Latin American diets for more than a century.

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"We've seen a problem with quality," [Jon Dudas, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] said, adding that U.S. patent approvals have slipped from a high of 72 percent of all applications to the current level of about 42 percent.

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By the time Bill (not his real name) left the Church of Scientology a few years ago, he had amassed quite a collection of Scientology material—mostly books, tapes, e-meters.

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When he first saw it, David Bloch thought the patent infringement lawsuit against client Discover Financial Services was just another troll case in the rocket-docket Eastern District of Texas.

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The millions of blogs littering the Internet prove that everyone has an opinion. But you won't often find the general counsel of a major tech company shooting his mouth off about ongoing patent litigation.

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The US Patent Office has dealt a blow to Amazon over its controversial "1-Click" shopping cart patent. The patent, which Amazon filed for in 1997, was used in Amazon's case against Barnes This is interesting.

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Obviously, this recipe is unfinished.

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US patent laws often inhibit innovation and economic growth more than they encourage them. Patents are supposed to give inventors an incentive to create things that spur economic growth.

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Patents have always had an important role in the game industry and that role is growing in importance each year. People in the industry have mixed feelings about using patents, and everyone agrees the patent system could use some structural improvement.

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The U.S. Congress took a small step on Wednesday toward revising what many large computer industry companies charge is a broken patent system.

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Brazil seems to be the next nation to use the power of eminent domain to purchase AIDS drugs for its poor at a price point that is affordable.

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The judge overseeing the Vonage/Verizon patent lawsuit has just signed off on an injunction that will prevent Vonage from signing up new customers, according to the AP.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) yesterday struck a blow against the human embryonic stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

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Vonage has signed an agreement with a VoIP network services provider to carry calls placed by Vonage customers, giving the troubled VoIP provider an out on two of the three Verizon patents it was found to have infringed.

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Recently, Christopher M. Montalbano presented an article entitled Flakey Fluorescents. In that piece, Mr. Montalbano reports that Washington may be preparing to pass legislation which will ban normal, everyday light bulbs.

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The U.S. patent system is in bad shape and needs reform, said Rep. Howard Berman (D-California) and a bipartisan group of lawmakers in a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday.

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A pact made in a London pub could lead to a cheap version of a drug that cures hepatitis C becoming available to millions of the world's poorest people. … Shaunak and Brocchini's plan was to outmanoeuvre patents held by chemical giants Hoffman-La Roche and Schering Plou …

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Gaming blog Kotaku has obtained a court filing, issued by the US District Court of Delaware, which accuses Nintendo of infringing on a patent filed previously by Interlink Electronics.

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In a case that hinges on the meaning of "obvious," at least one thing is obvious: the U.S. Supreme Court has grave doubts about one of the key criterion used to decide if an invention deserves a patent. The case of KSR International Co. vs.

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To be eligible for a patent, an invention must be novel, useful and, according to the statute, not "obvious" to a person of "ordinary skill" in the field.

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Newer technologies are often fertile ground for patent litigation, and VoIP has proven to be no exception.

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Ecology beyond biology

If you avoid junk food, you should avoid junk software as well.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) should revoke three patents that cover most U.S. research using embryonic stem cells because their science was obvious and not new when the patents were granted, two nonprofit organizations said today at a press event in Los Angeles.

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