May It Please The Court: Weblog of legal news and observations, including a quote of the day and daily updates
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Quote of the Day - Whatever comes out of the Patent Office can impact you. Some of the patents are very broad, some are narrow.
Boring Old Patents Just Got InterestingIt's enough to make even the most seasoned litigator stand up and take notice. It perhaps hit first with all the hullabaloo with the RIM patent litigation over the technology in the Blackberry, resulting in a settlement of well over $600M. Long before that was the eBay patent litigation, which resulted in a mere (doesn't mere sound odd?) $35M verdict, and is now pending before the US Supreme Court. Now, we see that Mary Kay is liable for violating dermatological (I had to look that word up to spell it right) patents, to the tune of $40M. Then, TIVO hit for $74M, and could possibly get triple that amount since the infringement was found by the jury to be willful. Some have accused people who buy patents and sue to enforce them as "patent trolls," and as if we haven't heard enough about the iPod, here comes the next Blackberry lawsuit. Can you do without your iPod? Wow. And I thought patent litigation was boring. Not anymore. Enforcing your patent just became a new way to make money.
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