21st August , 2010

Malaysian firm can not trade mark “Ponni” for rice variant

Syarikat Faiza Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian rice supplier company has lost its proposal to retain exclusive rights to use the word “Ponni” for a variant of rice as the company’s trade mark.

A High Court Judge ruled that “Ponni” is a descriptive variety of rice originating from Tamil Nadu, India and the Malaysian firm is not entitled to retain the word “Ponni” exclusively when selling rice and can not register the word “Ponni” as a trade mark. He remarked that the entry of Ponni trade mark in the Register of Trade Marks in Malaysia is entered wrongfully under Section 45 of the Trademark Act 1976.

Allowing a civil action filed by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority of India (APEDA), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Indian farmers and two exporters in January this year, the Judge concluded that Syarikat Faiza was not entitled to the word “Ponni”. He ordered that the “Ponni” trade mark registration by Faiza be expunged and removed from the Malaysian Register of Trade Marks. “Ponni” - another name for the Kaveri river in Tamil is a rice variant grown in that river delta. TNAU was responsible for developing the “Ponni” rice variety in 1971.

Faiza had filed an application for the registration of the name “Ponni” as a trade mark in relation to “rice” in June 2000; the trademark was advertised in the Government Gazette in Oct 2005 and was entered in the Trade Mark Registers in Jan 2006.

Two toy makers in trade secret theft dispute

MGA Entertainment Inc (Micro-Games America Entertainment) has alleged that Mattel Inc – the maker of Barbie, is involved in stealing trade secrets and confidential information of toy companies by illegally entering private showrooms with the knowledge of its company executives.

Based at Los Angeles, California MGA Entertainment is a manufacturer of children's toys and entertainment products including the Bratz fashion doll line and Yummi-Land. MGA has alleged that some Mattel employees intentionally misrepresented themselves to gain access into private showrooms of competitors and thus attained a competitive advantage by spying and stealing trade secrets for at least 15 years.

 The toy maker alleges that Mattel's employees falsified identifications and attended toy fairs in New York, Germany and Hong Kong and entered its private showrooms, reserved for meetings with retailers and distributors and acquired information on new toy lines, price lists and marketing strategies.

Google sued by Oracle over Android operating system

 Redwood Shores-based Oracle has filed a federal lawsuit against Google alleging that Google's Android operating system was built on Oracle's Java software without their consent. Oracle charges Google with intentional infringement on Java patents and copyrights acquired by Oracle when it bought Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion this year.

Android operating system first released in 2008 was promptly accepted by computer manufacturers as an operating system for smartphones and other portable devices. The Sun Microsystems’ engineers who developed the Java programming language and related tools, had decided earlier to release essential elements of the Java code under an open-source license that would allow others to freely use it.

As Android, the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States is distributed as an open-source operating system Google may not directly profit from its sales but more search revenue for Google is generated through Android as more and more consumers use their smartphones to search the Web. There is news that Google searches from Android devices grew by 300 percent during the first half of 2010.

Oracle lawsuit which mentions that Google was aware of Sun's patent portfolio, as the company had employed some former Sun Java engineers, seeks suitable remedies including damages for their infringement.

Rambus and NVIDIA ink Patent License Agreement

Rambus Inc., one of the leading technology licensing companies, and NVIDIA, the worldwide leader in visual computing have signed a patent license agreement involving memory controllers, with effect from August 12, 2010.

Rambus has granted NVIDIA a patent license for some particular memory controllers at a 1 percent royalty rate for SDR memory controllers and a 2 percent royalty rate for other memory controllers including DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, LPDDR2, GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, and portions of GDDR5 memory controllers under the agreement. But NVIDIA has not granted any license to Rambus.

The terms of the license are as per the agreement that Rambus offers as part of its commitment with the European Commission.

Japanese Patent to Protagen for UNIclone Technology

Protagen, a German diagnostics company has been granted a Japanese patent for a method of identifying and selecting clones based on its UNIclone technology platform.

The UNIclone platform was licensed by Protagen from Berlin's Max-Planck Institute and it consists of libraries of human recombinant proteins representing more than 10,000 human genes. It is designed to be used with the company's UNIarray companion diagnostic and UNIchip antibody profiling platform.

A European patent has earlier been acquired by the diagnostics company for this unique technology. Protagen has signed a cooperation contract with Bayer Schering Pharma for the discovery of novel biomarkers in endometriosis using its UNIarray device, which uses proteins generated by the UNIclone platform in June this year. 

The company has also made a partnership with Mikrogen to use the UNIarray platform for the discovery of autoantibody signatures associated with infectious diseases.

Apple patents slide-to-unlock and keyboard letter pop

Apple Inc has been granted a US patent for its iPhone’s slide-to-unlock and ‘letter pop’ keyboard. The patent application filed by Apple three years ago, described the sliding mechanism on its unlock screen and the unique manner in which letters ‘pop out’  or appear from the onscreen keypad when the letters are typed.

 The US Patent Office awarded the patent for these interface elements to Apple. Now the company could carry out implementations of the interface elements and charge a licence fee from others who are using these elements.

Other smartphone operating systems have been using similar features if not the exact mechanism. The HTC Desire’s lock screen works with the same mechanism but functions vertically- this being the only difference. The Nokia N97 also uses a similar slide device and other applications such as nUnlock also have the same mechanism like the iPhone lock screen.

Chinese packaging design patent issued to Renhuang Pharma

The State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) of the People's Republic of China has granted patent protection for the product and packaging design of Renhuang Pharmaceuticals' Compound Honeysuckle Granules.

Renhuang Pharmaceuticals, a Chinese developer of biopharmaceuticals and traditional Chinese medicines has included the images of the plants from which the key ingredients of the remedies have been extracted, for packing Compound Honeysuckle Granules. The company is also trying to project the product as a plant-based product on the cover. The patent protects the packaging designs for Compound Granule Honeysuckle.