14th July , 2011

Apple to pay $8m over playlist patents

The Smartphone maker Apple has been ordered by a federal jury to pay eight million dollars to a patent-holding firm for violating two patents relating to "An audio program and message distribution system in which a host system organizes and transmits program segments to client subscriber locations."

A Texas-based firm, Personal Audio had first claimed$84m for the alleged infringement. The suit was filed in June 2009, and initially involved Coby Electronics, Archos, and Sirius XM Radio along with Apple. Coby and Archos settled with Personal Audio out of court, and their portion of the case was dismissed in May 2010. The same was done by Sirius and their involvement in the case was dismissed in July 2010.

The two US patents in question relate to an audio program player with an active program selection controller and an audio program distribution and playback system, respectively. The technology involves downloading a playlist and skipping forwards or backwards through the list to find a particular song. Personal Audio had alleged that Apple was using this technology in both its Iphone and Ipod. After a prolonged battle of 744 days in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the jury came to the conclusion that the patents were valid, and that Apple was violating them.

Phonographic Performances Ltd wins copyright dispute

Phonographic Performances Ltd. (PPL), the top licensing section of the Indian music industry, which is authorised to issue licences to any hotel/ pub/ event organiser involved in the commercial playing of copyrighted music, has moved court and won three important cases of music copyright infringement.

Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and Dream Merchants and The Ottera Hotel - the organisers of Bangalore Fashion Week (BFW) were the three groups against which PPL triumphed.

The Phonographic Performances Ltd.  is of the opinion that any kind of copyrighted music played in a public place needs to be licensed before it is commercially exploited. This win against the three cases emphasize PPL’s position as the legal authority on music licensing and establish the need for taking lawful licences for playing of music.

The infringement of music copyrights is the biggest challenge that the music industry now faces, forcing loss of several crores to the music industry due to non-payment of licence fees. PPL has initiated a national campaign extended over a number of cities where it gets injunctions from various courts against all defaulting venues which are not paying the licence. Fifteen percent of the licence fee will be taken by PPL and 10.3% will go to the government, while the rest of the money will be given to the music company.

In all the cases the high court stated that the provisions of the Copyright Act specifies it is mandatory to obtain licence to use, enjoy, and exploit the sound records owned by the PPL.

Anheuser-Busch applies to trademark 15 U.S. area codes

 Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev has filed applications to trademark 15 signature area codes of U.S. cities including Pittsburgh, San Diego, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington.

Anheuser-Busch which had acquired Chicago-based Goose Island from Fulton Street Brewery, earlier this year as part of a $38.8 million deal holds trademarks on “312 Urban Wheat” and “312 Urban Wheat Ale Goose Island Chicago.” The company has filed applications to trademark the following area codes: "704" (Charlotte, N.C.), "216" (Cleveland), "214" (Dallas), "303" (Denver), "713" (Houston), "702" (Las Vegas), "305" (Miami), "615" (Nashville, Tenn.), "215" (Philadelphia), "602" (Phoenix), "412" (Pittsburgh), "619" (San Diego), "415" (San Francisco), "314" (St. Louis) and "202" (Washington).

Anheuser-Busch may have an objective for trade marking the area codes as it may come up with a variety of beer products from a particular area.

P&G files design infringement suit against Luhns, a German soap maker

Procter & Gamble has filed a design infringement lawsuit against Luhns a European manufacturer and distributor of dishwashing liquids, to stop it from violating P&G’s intellectual property and selling products that look similar to P&G’s detergents.

Procter & Gamble in the suit filed in the District Court of Düsseldorf, Germany has alleged that, a private-label manufacturer and distributor Luhns is violating P&G’s intellectual property by making and selling Magnum private label hand dishwashing detergents in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Cincinnati-based P&G alleges Luhns’ products, particularly the shape of the bottle and its overall appearance, infringe P&G’s European Community design rights for its Fairy dishwashing liquids.

Luhns’ use of P&G’s intellectual property without its approval is illegal and can cause consumer confusion. Fairy is the market leader in hand dish washing soap in the United Kingdom.

Celgene in dispute over its Revlimid Trademark

Celgene Corp., a maker of anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory drugs, was sued by PKC Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Massachusetts company that provides chemicals to researcher institutes.

PKC Pharmaceuticals Inc. filed a complaint in the federal court in Boston, seeking a court declaration that it doesn’t infringe New Jersey-based Celgene’s trademarks. PKC, which makes and sells chemical compounds for use in non-human and preclinical pharmaceutical research claims that it doesn’t sell drug products or drug substances, and that it produces chemical compounds only for research and not for human consumption.

PKC sells lenalidomide powder. Celgene sued the chemical company in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, in March alleging infringement of its trademark. Celgene cautioned that the company’s sale of lenalidomide powder was unauthorized and infringed the Revlimid trademarks and that its sale could result in serious health problems for consumers. It has asked the court to declare that it is not infringing the Revlimid marks.

Gilead first pharma company to join medicines patent pool

Gilead Sciences has become the first pharmaceutical company to sign a licensing agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool to increase access to HIV and Hepatitis B treatment in developing countries. This agreement will facilitate making of medicines to be made available at a lower cost and in easier-to-use formulations without delays.

This deal is a landmark in managing patents for public health as people in the developing countries will not have to wait for years before they can access latest health technologies.

The agreement allows for the production of a number of of Gilead's HIV medicines, including tenofovir and emtricitabine, cobicistat and elvitegravir. Tenofovir is also licensed to treat Hepatitis B. One hundred and eleven countries will now get the supply of tenofovir and emtricitabine, 102 countries will get cobicistat and 99 countries will have access to supply of elvitegravir and the combination drug, Quad because of the licences.

UNITAID, the international health financing mechanism established the Medicines Patent Pool, in 2010 with a goal to stimulate innovation and improve access to HIV medicines through voluntary licences on medicine patents that permit generic competition thus developing novel formulations. The US National Institutes of Health was the first patent holder to join the pool when it licensed darunavir, the life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) in October last year.

The licensing agreement however excludes middle-income countries like Brazil and China, which will now have to issue compulsory licences if they wish to manufacture the drugs still in development.