Patent Baristas

For both startups and well-established businesses, intellectual property is a core asset that drives both innovation and brand development. As a result, it is crucial to preemptively protective one’s resources from potential challenges by outside firms whose sole business practice is instigating litigation against operating companies. These “patent trolls” seek to buy up intellectual property […]

As of July 2008, twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have filed antitrust suits against Abbott Laboratories and Solvay’s Fournier Industrie et Santé and Laboratories Fournier in Delaware District Court, charging them with blocking generic competition by engaging in product hopping, among other “anti-generic strategies.”  Patent Baristas reported the initial filing here. As Stephen […]

It’s a well-known fact that drug industries pursue patents with a zeal that few possess – after all, a patent in the hand is worth millions in the bank and a relative monopoly over the pharmaceutical market. They lobby for political support to push these patents through, even if they know that the drugs have […]

This summer I went on vacation for a few days to get away from the office, computers, and patent law.  Yet I couldn’t help but to bring a little work with me.  Only this time it wasn’t something I could bill a few hours for; it was the thriller Undue Diligence written by Paul Haughey, […]

Brand-name and generic medicines: Both play an important role in health care today by Larry Lucas My job representing America’s pharmaceutical research companies requires me to be on the road a lot. As a “road warrior,” I spend a great deal of time in communities across the country talking to patients about the health care […]

Since the original decision in Ex Parte Bilski, the fate of U.S. application 08/833,892 has been a subject of great interest to the patent law community. Last month, the Federal Circuit, on its own initiative, issued an order granting an en banc hearing to the appeal of Bilski’s rejection by the patent office. Since then, […]

Johnson & Johnson has sued the American Red Cross, an indisputably highly regarded charitable organization, over ARC’s “commercial” use of the red cross symbol trademark. It seems that the ARC has been licensing others to use the symbol in connection with first-aid type products sold in retail stores. To raise money, of course. That’s generally […]

One of the less-noticed items during the Senate Judiciary Committee mark-up of the Patent Reform Bill (Senate Bill S. 1145) was the adoption of Senator Specter’s amendment on venue. Following is an analysis of that amendment: S. 1145 (before today): Implements venue reform by limiting venue to where (1) either the patent holder or infringer […]