On Monday, attorneys for Jimmy Buffett filed suit against an alleged infringer of Buffett’s marks. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division, accuses Robert Akard of infringement of Buffet’s name and likeness to sell merchandise without Buffett’s permission. According to the E! Online article (link below), Buffett has taken Akard to court previously, even obtaining a court order against him in Nevada, but the court order was not broad enough to extend to Akard’s subsequent ventures in New York, Texas, and Florida. The lawsuit, according to the Reuters article (link below), asks the court “to order Akard to stop using the singer's name and likeness, account for his profits, turn them over to Buffett and pay unspecified damages.” Akard’s website does include a number of Jimmy Buffett and tropical-themed items, and some of the web pages include the disclaimer that “Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville and Parrothead are all registered marks of Jimmy Buffett” and that “Under One Hut is not affiliated or associated with Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville or Jimmy Buffett affiliated companies.” Buffett has applied for hundreds of trademarks in the United States, including those listed above, WASTIN' AWAY AGAIN IN MARGARITAVILLE, PERFECT MARGARITA, IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE, and BLEW OUT MY FLIP FLOP . . . STEPPED ON A POP TOP!, among others.

Reuters News Article: LINK
E! Online Article: LINK
Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Website: LINK
Akard’s UnderOneHut Website: LINK

I will periodically post case citations from the Federal Circuit along with the date of the opinion/order and a brief list of the legal topics discussed therein (specifically those with additional embedded case law citations). This posting covers the ninety-first through the ninety-fifth patent cases that were appealed from the district court level and decided by the Federal Circuit in 2006. All opinions are precedential unless otherwise indicated.

Eolas Technologies v. Microsoft Corp. (07/31/2006): reassignment of patent infringement case to different district court judge, application of regional circuit law to the inquiry, unique nature of 7th Circuit law regarding reassignment, application of Circuit Rule 36 to remands

Pfizer, Inc. v. Ranbaxy Laboratories, Limited (08/02/2006): claim construction and subsequent infringement determination appellate standards of review, express disavowal of chemical structure in patent application, statements made during foreign counterpart patent applications are irrelevant to claim construction of U.S. patent, statements made during similar but not formally related or incorporated by reference are irrelevant to claim construction, patent term extension under Hatch-Waxman Act, claims not rewritten by a court to preserve validity, claim invalidation under § 112, paragraph 4, for improper dependency

Amgen v. Hoechst Marion Roussel (now known as Aventis Pharmaceuticals) (08/03/2006): review of claim construction of "therapeutically effective amount", claim construction begins with the words of the claims themselves, items courts should consider when performing claim construction (the claims themselves, the remainder of the specification, prosecution history, and others), anticipation appellate standard of review after bench trial (question of fact, reviewed for clear error), anticipation references must also be enabled, patentee burden of rebutting Festo presumption, discussion of requirements to rebut presumption, dissent regarding claim construction necessity as pertaining to this case

Pennington Seed v. Produce Exchange No. 299, et al. (08/09/2006): assertion of Eleventh Amendment immunity for patent infringement by University, potential state law remedies for infringement regarding lack of violation of due process rights, liability for infringement for government employees acting within official capacity, sufficient nexus required between official actions and infringement activity, personal jurisdiction over university officials, due process analysis of non-resident defendant

Serio-Us Industries v. Plastic Recovery Technologies (08/10/2006): two-step patent infringement analysis, claim construction appellate standard of review, review of objection to jury instructions, request for new trial in the absence of Rule 50 and 59 motions, discounting expert testimony if conflicting with claim construction mandated by the claims, appellate review of a judgment as a matter of law, federal preemption of state law claims, notifying potential infringers of infringement in good faith violates no protected right, review of exceptional case and fees claim

On Thursday, Budejovicky Budvar NP ("Budvar"), a brewer in the Czech Republic, announced that it successfully obtained a trademark for "Budweiser Budvar" in Portugal. Budvar initially applied for the mark in 1999, and U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. opposed Budvar's trademark application. According to the International Herald Tribune article (link below), "[i]t's another win for [Budvar] over Anheuser-Busch in Portugal after the patent office there [the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial] accepted its objections to Anheuser-Busch patent applications for the "Budweiser" and "Budweiser King of Beers" trademarks in 2003." According to Budvar's website, "Budweiser Budvar has to defend its historical rights to the registered trademarks against legal attacks from the Anheuser-Busch company in more than 40 legal disputes and a further more than 70 administrative proceedings currently before patent offices throughout the world." It is noted that Budvar currently uses logos of "Budejovicky Budvar", "Budweiser Budvar", and "Bud" with reference to is numerous beer types.

International Herald Tribune News Article: LINK
Portuguese Patent and Trademark Website (English version): LINK
Budweiser Budvar Website: LINK
Budweiser Budvar Trademarks Website: LINK

Last Friday, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee ruled that a subsidiary of Comdata Corp. did not infringe a patent regarding the activation of gift cards. Barry Fiala Inc. (“Fiala”) sued Stored Value Systems (“SVS”), now known as Comdata’s Stored Value Solutions, alleging that SVS infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,918,909, entitled “Package for card with data-encoded strip and method of using same.” After a three week trial before Judge Samuel H. Mays, Jr., the jury not only ruled that SVS did not infringe the patent, but also, according to the Comdata press release (link below), the jury “found that patent is invalid for failure to name all of the inventors, and that the patent is unenforceable due to inequitable conduct before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.” In April of 2005, Fiala was successful in its infringement lawsuit against Card USA Inc. In the same Court before Judge Jon P. McKalla, Fiala was awarded over $1.3M in damages for infringement of the same patent.

U.S. Patent No. 5,918,909: LINK
Nashville Business Journal News Article: LINK
Comdata Press Release: LINK
Comdata Website: LINK

On Friday, the USPTO announced via the Federal Register that it will eliminate the Disclosure Document Program effective February 1, 2007. This program, implemented in 1969, allowed “an inventor to file a document with the Office which includes a written description and drawings of his or her invention in sufficient detail to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention to establish a date of conception of an invention in the United States under 35 U.S.C.104 prior to the application filing date.” According to the Federal Register, provisional applications are available and have been since June of 1995, noting that provisional applications are “more useful to an inventor” as they “establish a constructive reduction to practice date with respect to an invention claimed in a nonprovisional application.” To memorialize this change, 37 CFR § 1.21(c) will be removed and reserved for future use.

Federal Register Excerpt: LINK
37 CFR § 1.21: LINK
MPEP § 1706 (“Disclosure Documents”): LINK

It was announced last week that authorities in Malaysia have detailed three phone dealers for illegally downloading songs on the internet for profit. A raid occurred in Kuala Lumpur and ended with several arrests of people who resold the illegally downloaded music as mobile phone ringtones across the world. According to the Associated Press article (link below), the men arrested were earning more than $150 each day selling these illegal ringtones, and if found guilty of copyright infringement in Malaysia, they could each face up to 5 years in prison and fines exceeding US$5,000. Additional mobile phone dealers are being pursued in Malaysia for similar practices, and according to this same article, "Malaysia is one of 36 countries on a U.S. watch list of serious copyright violators, and music and movie industry officials have expressed concern over the prevalence of piracy [in Malaysia]."

Associated Press Article (via MSN Money): LINK
BruneiDirect.com News Article: LINK
Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) Website: LINK
Malaysian Copyright FAQ Webpage: LINK

I would like to thank John Welch, author of The TTAB Blog, for his kind words regarding the Daily Dose of IP blog. As you may know, John writes about each Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision soon after it is handed down, providing his own commentary for further review and discussion. If you practice trademark law and are not yet familiar with John's blog, I recommend that you visit his blog as it is a useful resource.

On Wednesday, Forgent Networks announced that it settled all of its remaining claims in the cases regarding its JPEG patent. In a brief two-paragraph press release, Forgent mentioned that it and "all of the parties in the cases" regarding U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672 ("Coding system for reducing redundancy") reached a settlement as to all claims being litigated. Although the press release states that "Forgent is precluded from disclosing the terms of the agreement," several sources, including the CNET news article (link below), report that a spokesperson for Forgent announced the settlement was for $8 million. It was reported that 15 of the 45 initial defendants settled with Forgent prior to this most recent settlement. Since acquiring the patent in 1997, Forgent has obtained over $110 million in royalties on this patent alone.

U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672: LINK
Forgent Networks Press Release: LINK
Forgent Networks Website: LINK
CNET News Article: LINK

On Tuesday, Judge Kent Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware held that Eastman Kodak Co. ("Kodak") did not infringe a patent held by Ampex Corp. The case, filed in October of 2004, alleged that Kodak infringed claims 7, 8, and 10-15 of U.S. Patent No. 4,821,121, entitled "Electronic still store with high speed sorting and method of operation." Judge Jordan granted Kodak’s summary judgment motion, acknowledging Kodak’s assertion that the terms "video image," "data," "directly," "an input port and an output port," and "external port" were not practiced, but making the decision that Kodak did not literally infringe Ampex’s patent based on the term "data." Kodak argued that their cameras did not satisfy the "data" limitation because of the processing that takes place prior to the image storage in permanent memory, and according to Judge Jordan, "[s]ince the numeric values representing at least some of the pixels in an image are changed before storage in permanent memory, Defendants’ cameras cannot literally infringe any of the claims asserted by Ampex." In addition, Kodak was deemed not to infringe under the doctrine of equivalents, noting that specific amendments to defeat a 35 U.S.C. § 112 rejection by adding "the" and "said" to modify "data" in the claims led to the application of prosecution history estoppel "in every claim asserted by Ampex regardless of whether it was ever amended."

According to a recent World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) press release, the 900,000th trademark under the Madrid system has been registered. Madrid registration no. 900,000 (Gryphon logo shown here) was registered to Chaozhou Fengxi at the Jinbaichuan Porcelain Crafts Factory for "Glassware for everyday use, including cups, plates, kettles and jars included in this class; liqueur sets; ceramics for household purposes; services (tableware), not of precious metal; toilet utensils; China ornaments; spice sets; pots, not of precious metal; vases, not of precious metal; flower pots." It is estimated that the 1,000,000th trademark registered under the Madrid system will be registered within the next three years, noting that less than 34,000 international trademark applications were filed in 2005. The Madrid system, administered by the International Bureau of WIPO, functions under the 1891 Madrid Agreement and the 1989 Madrid Protocol.

WIPO Press Release: LINK
Trademark No. 900,000: LINK
WIPO's Madrid System Webpage: LINK
Current Members of the Madrid Union: LINK