21st July, 2009

Brand Collateralization of Brands for Rs. 2000 Crore credit by Kingfisher Airlines

Kingfisher Airlines, a brand registered with the trademark office distinct from its wine brand. The previous year there was a separate valuation made of the brand value of the airlines, arising majorly from the $400 million Private Equity funds that the brand had accumulated. The brands worth was estimated approximately around Rs 1900 crores, forming an essential place in the company’s balance sheet. This brand value has eventually been virtually used to raise credit.

Kingfisher Airlines have convinced State Bank of India (SBI) to obtain a credit of Rs 2000 crores using the Brand value as a collateral or say security. It is not a unique of its kind but a first instance where a public sector bank has accepted asset such as a Brand to issue credit, previously it was only done by private banks.

UB Group itself has leveraged brands to raise funds for recent acquisitions. The group’s liquor business “United Spirits” offered some of its leading whiskies like Bagpiper and a few Whyte & Mackay brands as collateral to raise over Rs 6,000 crore from institutions such as ICICI Bank.

In India such instances have been seen previously as well. LT Foods (earlier LT overseas) had earlier raised leverage by using its rice brand “Daawat” as collateral to fund its acquisition of US based rice firm “Kusha Inc.”

Globally, many companies have used their brands’ value to open lines of credit. The most famous example is that of Walt Disney, which had done so in 1988 in the Japanese market to raise as much as $725 million.

DIGITAL PIRACY

There are music fans who copy music illegally as it is more convenient than buying it. If these copyright infringers could be encouraged to using legal music services, the digital music business would be benefited.

Sales of CDs have continued to fall over the past few years and paid-for downloads from services such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes have fallen short of hopes, but record companies have moved to embrace casual file-sharers. Legal services offering free, unlimited streaming of music, rather than downloads, are proliferating.

The music industry has high hopes that the growth of sites such as We7, would change the reputation of Europe as a hive of digital piracy. Similar businesses include Deezer, in France, and Spotify, started by two Swedish entrepreneurs has grown rapidly in Britain and elsewhere. All of them are licensed by the music industry and hope to make money from advertising.

Microsoft Corp. too has planned to offer a music streaming service in Britain, via its MSN Web business. A survey by two research firms, Music Ally and Leading Question, showed that Britons were adopting such services in large numbers. The survey showed a decline in the number of British teenagers who had regularly engaged in unauthorized file-sharing. Music copied illegally still accounts for the vast majority of digital listening but the survey results did not distinguish between licensed and unlicensed streaming services or others, such as YouTube, where both kinds of music can be found. The new services are often attracting people who previously shared files illegally. According to research by one of the major record companies, nearly two-thirds of Spotify users now engage in less piracy. Spotify says it has two million registered users in Britain and another two million in Sweden, Spain and France.

MADRAS HC STAYS IPAB ORDER ON DUAL-SIM PATENT

The Madras High Court has set aside an interim order passed by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), suspending, the patent held by a Madurai-based engineer S. Ramkumar for the technology that enables usage of more than one SIM card in mobile handsets, also known as dual SIM.

The IPAB had suspended the patent on the basis of a petition filed by Spice Mobiles, in response to Mr Ramkumar’s earlier civil suit in Madras HC, demanding royalty for usage of dual SIM technology in its handsets. The handset manufacturer had filed three petitions at the IPAB — a main petition challenging the validity of the patent, second requesting urgent hearing of the petition, and a third seeking suspension of the patent till the main petition is heard.

The handset manufacturers did not have to pay royalty for the dual SIM handsets they sold in the market, as a suspension disables the patent holder from operating the patent. Mr Ramkumar would have had to prove the validity of his patent in the main petition hearing.

While the court issued an interim order, prohibiting the manufacture of dual SIM handsets in India, it adjourned the hearing on their import and sale.

Mr Ramkumar had moved the customs department in February, stopping imports of dual SIM mobile phones, by paying a security deposit for the consignments held. While some handset OEMs consented to pay royalty, some stopped imports.
The IPAB suspended the operation of Ramkumar's patent in a one para order. This order was in relation to a revocation petition filed by Spice Mobiles Ltd before the IPAB against Ramkumar's patent. A similar revocation petition by Samsung is pending before the IPAB. The petitioner prayed that since the final order (either validating or invalidating the patent) may take a while, the IPAB pass an interim stay against the operation of the patent.

INDIAN PATENT OFFICE TO ISSUE ELECTRONIC NOTIFICATIONS

The Consultative Working Group on Patents, Designs, Trade Marks system in India, was constituted by the FICCI to highlight the concerns of the Indian Industry in relation to Intellectual Property to the Government. Various changes have been made about by the recommendations of this group in the working of the IP regime in India. To name a few; a separate wing was established in the Mumbai Patent Office exclusively for data analysis and online availability of Controller's decisions.

The latest reform which has been introduced by the newly appointed Controller General on the recommendations of the fifth Consultative Working Group on Patents, Designs and Trademarks in India is the issuing of electronic notifications to patent applications which has come into effect from the 1st of July. Communication in electronic form will expedite the process of obtaining patents. The notification said that all communications including notices and examination reports to patent applications, patent agents would be sent through electronic email that has been mentioned in their documents. It instructed applicants or agents to submit their email IDs to respective Patent Offices and to fill in their e-mail address in the application for patent (Form-1).

Introduction of electronic communication will reduce the burden on both the Patent Office and the applicants as there is no need for the applicant to be physically present at the mailing address. This is an significant step taken by the Patent Office towards meeting international standards and speeding up the patent process.

MEDIZONE INT. INC. HAS FILED FOR PATENT FOR ITS ASEPTICSURE- A HOSPITAL STERILIZATION SYSTEM

Medizone has filed a patent application for the Company's product AsepticSure. This U.S. priority patent application establishes protection of the commercial rights to this technology internationally. This innovative technology has greatly enhanced bactericidal rates with all of the pathogens tested so far and has the ability to obtain 4.4 log/99.994% to 5 log/99.999% kill rates for all of the pathogens of concern in hospital acquired infections. This patent covers disinfection for rooms and their contents within all healthcare facilities, and other establishments like schools and government buildings. The Company prepares to move into hospital testing later this year.

Medizone International, Inc., is a research and development company engaged in developing technology to decontaminate and sterilize hospital surgical suites, emergency rooms, intensive care units, schools and other critical infrastructure. Current trials will now be expanded to include a hospital mock-up and then hospital beta testing of the production prototype. Initial sales are presently targeted to be initiated by the end of this year.

BLACKBERRY MAKER SETTLES PATENT BATTLE WITH VISTO

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd.(RIM)  of Waterloo, Ontario will pay $267.5 million to settle a patent dispute with mobile email provider Visto Corp.of Redwood City, California. RIM is a frequent target of patent lawsuits, as the spread of cellphones makes the wireless industry among the most active battlegrounds for IP disputes. The company has spent more than $1 billion in the past two yearson patents and plans to book part of the cost of the Visto settlement, which gives RIM a lifetime license to some Visto patents and legal possession of others, as an acquisition of intangible assets.

Visto,., first sued RIM for patent infringement in May 2006 in U.S. federal court and a subsequent series of lawsuits and countersuits reached courtrooms in Italy, Canada, Britain and Germany.

This settlement is equivalent to 15% of RIM's cash holdings and it removes the biggest legal risk to the company's business. RIM could have ended up paying as much as $1 billion had Visto prevailed at trial. While RIM may have eliminated the risk of a bigger payment down the road, its willingness to pay could open the company up to more patent-infringement suits. RIM faces at least five such actions.

IMATION CORP. TO PAY $53 MILLION TO PHILIPS TO END PATENT SUIT

Imation Corp., maker of Memorex brand DVDs and videotapes, has agreed to pay Royal Philips Electronics NV $53 million over three years to end litigation over optical-storage media.

This agreement ends a chain of disputes in multiple jurisdictions which included licensing issues and claims of patent-infringement. Imation Corp., based in Minnesota, would take a charge of $49 million, or 81 cents a share, against second- quarter earnings.

Amsterdam-based Philips is Europe’s biggest consumer- electronics maker.
David Wolf, a spokesman for Philips, said the company is glad to have finally settled the case and reached an agreement on licensing.

LINUX VENDOR SETTLES PATENT DISPUTE WITH MICROSOFT
Melco Group, a manufacturer of Linux-based networking devices has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to Microsoft in order to settle a patent claim. Under the agreement, Melco Group will pay the sum to Microsoft in exchange for indemnity coverage for its Buffalo brand Network Attached Storage devices and routers.

Microsoft did not state which patents were at issue, but the company in recent months has said that it believes certain parts of the open source Linux operating system, violate its Windows patents. Melco officials said the company plans to increase its use of Windows in its products while continuing to maintain open source components.

GPLv2, or General Public License, version 2, requires vendors that use Linux to make the source code available to end users. Users employing this source could be liable for patent infringement if it is later shown that the code infringes on third-party intellectual property held by a vendor such as Microsoft.

The Linux community has argued that their OS does not violate any patents, and has challenged Microsoft to publicly specify exactly which patents are being infringed.

CTI GROUP GRANTED PATENT FOR SCALABLE CONVERSATION RECORDING

CTI Group Inc., an international provider of electronic invoice processing and management (EIM), enterprise communications management software and services solutions and carrier class VoIP management applications, has been granted a new patent.

The company now owns the “Process for Scalable Conversation Recording” patent. CTI Group owns the technology for providing call recording on operator oriented VoIP networks with this patent

Operators will now be able to record calls on complex VoIP service provider networks where traffic mirroring and packet sniffing solutions cannot function.CTI Group has extended its value by leveraging its call recording technology with BroadSoft, MetaSwitch and Natural Convergence, Inc. Such integrations allow service providers to easily include call recording into their service offerings since the recording feature is already integrated at the switch level.

FBI CHARGES SATELLITE DESCRAMBLERS UNDER DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT

The FBI has charged three persons behind the Viewsat satellite receiver (satellite descramblers) with conspiracy to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Viewtech’s owner Jung Kwak and his associates were arrested in San Diego They face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine each.

Viewsat is a free-to-air (FTA) satellite receiver box that claims to provide users with access to free satellite programming, such as religious and cultural content. The device is engineered in a way that makes it easy for users to grab what is otherwise designated as for-pay satellite programming. It is required for the FTA boxes to spoof DISH's smartcards so that the DISH Network can see that the boxes are authorized.

The satellite companies intermittently re-encrypt their signals and send out new smartcards to genuine customers. The DISH Network has started rolling out new encryption known as either "Nagra 3" or "rom 240," which reduced the sales of Viewsat receivers. Kwak and his two associates started working on outwiting this new encryption by March 2008.

As a result, the FBI charged the trio with conspiracy to violate the DMCA, which bars circumvention of encryption technologies like the ones DISH uses. It's going to be hard for the defendants to argue their way out, as the group seeked to profit from stolen satellite signals.

GENZYME SUES SANDOZ OVER DIALYSIS DRUG PATENT

Genzyme Corp. in Cambridge, Mass., sued the Sandoz Inc. unit of Novartis AG, alleging infringement of a patent for Hectorol, used to treat patients on kidney dialysis. Genzyme and patent partner Bone Care International LLC argue that Sandoz is planning to market a generic copy of injectable Hectorol before the patent expires in 2014, according to a federal complaint filed in Wilmington.

Sandoz is seeking US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to sell a replica of the medicine. Genzyme, wants a court to block approval until the patent expires. The drug is used to treat overactive parathyroids in patients with chronic kidney disease who are on dialysis. Hectorol was first approved by regulators in 1999.

NATCO’S  ALBUPAX IS EVOKED FROM INDIAN MARKET

Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has asked Natco Pharma, Hyderabad-based pharmaceuticals to evoke its breast cancer drug Albupax from the market. Albupax which is a nanotechnology based generic version of the drug of US based company Abraxis BioScience, proved to cause serious side effects and liver damage, associated with cancer treatment.

Abraxis had collected samples of clinical data after tests done on the targeted subjects in several US  labs and  made a complaint to the DCGI based on those study reports. As a conclusion Natco Pharma was asked to stop manufacture of Albupax till the complete investigations got over.
According to the official source, Natco’s Albupax  sample is being sent by DCGI to the Kolkata-based Central Drug Laboratory (CDL) for testing endotoxin and chloroform levels. The samples failed to show the positive result in the endotoxin test as the drug has crossed the prescribed limits of endotoxin content in it. The chloroform test is yet to be conducted.

Although Natco has already maintained that Albupax passes all quality parameters. Natco has also filed pre-grant opposition on the patents file in India and in the procees of being granted. Natco’s recent tie up with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories is a great effort in order to to take this product to the USA.