28th December, 2009

Public performances & copyright issues

In this festive seasons of Christmas & New Year, Public performance license must be taken for any performance of pre-recorded Indian and International music in public places or Hotels, Disco theque etc as per copyright law. Calcutta Police made it mandatory for all the public entertainment programmes from now onwards.

Phonographic performances Ltd., appointed by Central Govt. as nodal agency, to collect the license fee from various commercial entertainment programme and disburse proportionately it to the record companies. Subsequently record companies disburse a portion of it to the performers/artists.

Samsung and Kodak settle camera patent dispute

Samsung and Kodak have agreed to resolve their dispute relating to violation of two patents used in Samsung's camera phones. The companies will sign a cross-licensing deal and Samsung will pay an undisclosed sum as royalty fees to Eastman Kodak Co.

A judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) had ruled that Samsung had violated Kodak's patents related to image capture and preview, compression, and data storage. Kodak had settled with LG in a similar case and the two companies had settled earlier this month with Kodak agreeing to sell its technology for super-thin OLED screens to LG.
 
Kodak based in Rochester has more than 1,000 digital-imaging patents, and all of today's digital cameras rely on its technology. Camera phones made by the world's biggest manufacturer of memory chips, liquid crystal displays and flat screen televisions, Samsung violated various patents that Kodak obtained from 1993 to 2001.

Beckman Coulter Genomics sued for infringement of Nucleic Acid Purification Patents

GE Healthcare, UK has sued Beckman Coulter Genomics for alleged infringement of its two patents relating to technologies for isolating and purifying nucleic acids.

The lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Delaware claims that Beckman Coulter Genomics is infringing two patents that were originally assigned to Amersham, which GE Healthcare had acquired in 2004. Both patents describe methods for using "suspended magnetically attractable beads" for isolating nucleic acids.

GE Healthcare claims that the Agencourt AMPure, CleanSEQ, CosMCPrep, FormaPure, Genfind, Orapure, RNAClean, RNAdvance, and SprintPrep kits, as well as the SPRI-TE Viral NA Extraction Kit, SPRI-TE FFPE NA Extraction Kit, and SPRI-TE gDNA Extraction Kit supplied by Beckman Coulter Genomics infringe one or more claims of its patents.

According to GE Healthcare, Beckman Coulter was aware of the infringement and had filed reexamination requests for both the patents in 2008, which were found valid by the USPTO. GE Healthcare is now seeking a permanent injunction, triple damages, and attorneys' fees from Beckman Coulter Genomics.

Viron granted patents for Organ Transplant and Arthritis Drug

Viron Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company developing virally-derived protein therapeutics has been granted U.S. patents related to three of its drug candidates, VT-111, VT-346 and VT-384. Viron already has more than 80 previously-granted patents for multiple therapeutic drugs.

This new patent which gives protection for VT-111 up to 2021 is entitled "Methods for treating transplant rejection," and covers the treatment of chronic transplant rejection by administering VT-111 in combination with an immunosuppressant, such as cyclosporine. At present there are no therapeutic drugs for chronic organ rejection.

Viron's, patent for VT-346, entitled "Nucleic acid molecules and polypeptides for immune modulation", relates to using VT-346 in treating immuno-modulatory disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, transplant rejection, asthma and inflammatory bowel disease.

For a patent on VT-384, Viron has received a Notice of Allowance from the USPTO. It covers a protein derived from the Yatapox virus that targets IL-18, a cytokine expressed at sites of chronic inflammation. IL-18 has been associated with autoimmune diseases and various cancers.

Design Patents for Orion Energy Systems' Street lighting Technology

The USPTO has approved two design patents for Orion Energy Systems' exterior lighting technology, including its streetlight and parking lot fixtures.

These are the 24th and 25th patents for Orion Energy Systems, a leading power technology enterprise that designs, manufactures and deploys energy management systems, mainly energy-efficient lighting, intelligent wireless control systems and direct renewable solar technology.

This exterior technology uses efficient fluorescent lamps that reduce energy consumption by 50 percent and are less expensive. This technology is designed to survive and perform in extreme weather conditions Orion's fluorescent technology also delivers considerably more light than high-intensity discharge lights (HIDs). Orion's tough exterior technology has been thoroughly tested to perform extraordinarily in all types of weather, including subzero temperatures, changing climates and wet locations.

Its patented reflector geometry and encapsulated design contribute to high visual comfort probability (VCP) ratings. This exterior lighting technology was introduced in February 2009.

North Face wins trademark case

A Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court has found that Mei Zhaohui, a Chinese American businessman had forged an authorization document from The North Face, a United States outdoor clothing and equipment brand and had three local companies produce jackets with its trademark.

Mei had asked the Haobai Company to produce a batch of jackets, zippers and price tags with the North Face trademark. Haobai had transferred the assignment to the Baierhao Company and Baierhao sub-contracted it to the White Swan company in Zhejiang Province, ultimately producing 17,600 jackets with a total value of 3.33 million yuan.

The North Face had registered the trademark in China in 2003. The company sought a compensation of more than 1.5 million yuan as the four defendants did not agree for a settlement. It has won 800,000 yuan (US$117,147) as damages from Mei Zhaohui and the three companies for trademark infringement.

Mei and Haobai were ordered by the court to pay 600,000 yuan as compensation as they had sold the jackets in partnership and the other two companies were ordered to pay 200,000 yuan because they had not verified the authorization document before accepting the order.

Microsoft sued for Bing trademark infringement

Bing! Information Design, a small design company based in St Louis, Missouri has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft using the Bing name for its search engine.

Bing! Information Design alleged that the multibillion-dollar software corporation had intentionally used the word Bing when it relaunched its search engine this year.

The Missouri company which had been using the Bing! mark for nearly 10 years has sought action against Microsoft. Microsoft had filed for trademark applications for the same name for a variety of uses, including search engine software, interface software, advertising, telecoms and for "providing a website and website links to geographic information, map images and trip routing".

Two other companies, a web-based shopping service called BongoBing and a software company Terabyte, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation, or Bing for short, are also taking action against Microsoft alleging trademark infringements.

Abbott and Sandoz in Patent dispute for Muscle-Relaxant Nimbex

Abbott Laboratories, a healthcare-product maker, has alleged that Sandoz Inc., a unit of Switzerland’s Novartis AG, is infringing a patent for the muscle-relaxant Nimbex. Abbott Laboratories’s sells Nimbus as an intravenous accessory to anesthesia to relax a patient’s muscles during surgery.

Sandoz Inc. is seeking approval to market a generic copy of the drug; Nimbex in the U.S. Abbott wishes to stop the New Jersey- based Sandoz, from selling its version of Nimbex until the 1995 patent expires in 2012.

Abbott Laboratories had reported $29.5 billion in sales last year.