In Defense of University Patent Licensing
This article defends the use of patents by colleges and universities to protect inventions created by their faculty. To its credit, it identifies the grounds for recent objections to the practice and meets them on those terms. More...
Reading The Apple Patent Tea Leaves
News about a series of patents obtained by Apple on the look and feel of its desktop, including a controversial patent for the garbage can icon, filed in 2002. More...
Patent Scare Hits Streaming Industry
Yet another patent shakedown is underway, this time by a small company called Acacia which claims to hold the patent for streaming media over the internet. "It's extortion," Roe said. More...
German Patent Office Mediator Wants Copyright Levy on PCs
If Germany goes ahead with this plan to impose a copyright tax on computers, I have only one question: how do I get my share of the royalties for all the content I've made available over the internet? Oh, that's right: I don't. More...
Today's patent shakedown is from a company called Tect central, which claims to own the patent to conducting testing over the internet. More...
SBC Enforcing All-Encompassing Web Patent
A company called SBC Communications Inc is reported to be enforcing patent it owns on the use of frames in web pages. In a letter distributed to web site owners, the company notes the site's use of "selectors or tabs that correspond to specific locations (which) are not lost when a different part of the document is displayed to the user." It then demands between $527 and $16.6m per year to license the patented technology. More...
Open Source Prepares to Kiss EU Patent Ass Goodbye
Every time I run an item from the Register I get an unusual number of bouces from content filters, and today's listing is no exception. But their ire in this case is understandable as the European Parliament is poised to align its copyright regime with that of the United States. More...
NY Judge Narrows Terms in BT Internet Patent Case
Web development companies - and especially Prodigy - are breathing a little easier today after a British judge narrowed british telecom's claim of a patent on the hyperlink. More...
U.S. Patent Debate to Pit IP Rights vs. Competition
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department's antitrust division will conduct hearings over the next six weeks to consider whether the government is issuing too many patents and (consequently) stifling collaboration and invention. Of course, the issue isn't the number of patents so much as the substance. Defenders of the patent system downplay such concerns. More...
Wireless Attendance Recording: The FTL patent explained
See, this is the sort of thing that can just kill innovation. A company called Frontline Technology Limited (FTL) has obtained patents for "the transfer of student data by radio." Now the company's information page says, "I am using IEEE 802 wireless/ I am using GPRS to collect student data by radio. Should this be licensed by the patent? Yes." Thus, if you use your 802.11 wideless network to transfer an Excel speadsheet over your LAN, you should pay FTL royalties for this "innovation." This is not just some idle threat, either: FTP has taken Tasc Software Solutions Limited of Wolverhampton and others to court for infringement of its patent relating to the transfer of pupil data in education by radio ? patent number EP 0664061. More...
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