RIM ordered to pay $147 million for patent infringement

San Francisco District court has ordered Researchers in Motion (RIM), makers of Blackberry to pay $147 million as damages for infringing patents of Mformation technologies. Mformation took Blackberry to court on an allegation of violating their patent on “remote management of device from server” which is used in blackberry mobiles.

Court ordered RIM to pay $8 per every mobile device already sold in use which amount to $147 million when summed up. Thankfully court didn’t take into consideration any of the current and future sales, which if taken up would have resulted in much higher damages.

In a statement, RIM said that it is disappointed by the outcome, and is evaluating its options.

"RIM has worked hard for many years to independently develop its leading edge Blackberry technology and industry leading intellectual property portfolio, and RIM does not believe that the Mforemation patent in question is valid"

This decision is the second biggest loss for RIM in patent infringement suits, after March 2006 settlement with NTP Inc
It would be interesting to watch how RIM proceeds with the case, whether to go for review or appeal or to settle the issue ignoring its current drop in market.

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In Re EMC: Another Blow to Patent Troll

Hardly one year after passing of the American Invents Act which addressed some of the irritating habits of patents trolls now it is the turn of US Court of appeal for Federal circuit to address the menace of patent owners who uses patent litigation as a tool to make money from companies rather than entering into actual business.

On May 4^th 2012, the Court of Appeal issued a blow to all Non-practicing entities who files multi- defendant cases as an effort to avoid the requirements of the America Invents Act. The Court in this case held that “Joinder” is not appropriate in multi-defendant patent infringement cases where only commanlity is alleged infringement of same patents. 

Oasis Research LLC, the plaintiff in the original suit is the owner of four US patents which deals with off-site computer data storage by allowing home computer users to remotely connect to an online service system for purposes of external data storage. Oasis Research LLC files a Multi – defendant patent infringement claim against the petitioners (defendants in original suit) as they offer online backup and storage though various websites.

The petitioners filed motions before the Eastern Texas District Court to sever the claims and transfer them to various jurisdictions. The District court denied petitioners motions reasoning that claims of Oasis LLC satisfy the transaction or occurrence test of Rule 20 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Denying the reasoning given by the Texas Court, the Court of appeal points out that under the correct test of transaction or occurrence an existence of a single common question of law or fact alone is insufficient to satisfy the transaction- or- occurrence requirement. Thus mere fact that the infringement of same claims of the same patent does not support joinder, even though the claims would raise common questions of claim construction.

Further the joinder of independent defendants is only appropriate where the accused products are same in respect to the same patent. But commonality of patent alone is not sufficient to allow joinder. Commonality shall be supplemented with overlapping facts which give rise to each cause of action. Thus, if there is no actual link between underlying facts of each claim of infringement the independently developed products using differently sources are not to be considered as the part of the same transaction.

The 18 page ruling of the Court of Appeal is a serious financial blow upon the patent owners who count on using cheap litigation to win favourable settlements.

ACTA Voted Down...

European parliament yesterday voted down the much debated Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement designed to enforce intellectual property rights. The law was previously approved by all European countries however now the European parliament failed to ratify the Agreement which means that neither EU nor its members can join the agreement.

Decision of European parliament is now posing doubt about future of US supported treaty.

Tirupati laddu GI case – Rectification hearing on July 16

After much delay hearing in the rectification plea against geographical indication granted to “Tirupati Laddu” has been fixed on July 16.  The petition has been pending with the Registrar of Geographical Indication, Chennai for more than a year.

Mr Praveen Raj, an IP enthusiast and former examiner of patent and designs at India Patent office had moved the rectification plea to revoke the G.I. secured by Tirumal Tirupati Devasthanam(TTD) over the famous Tirupati laddu in 2009. TTD, the Trust which administers the famous Sri Venakateshwara temple in Andhra Pradesh, obtained GI for their sacred prasadam under the GI Act to prevent others from making and marketing laddus under the same name. This was the first time anywhere in world a religious shrine has obtained GI over its offering. The decision have been criticised heavily on multiple ground from several corners.

The rectification petition filed claims that the grant of GI for laddus is violative of section 11(1) of the Geographical indication of Goods Act since GI’s are supposed to be collective community rights and not of a single beneficiary like TTD. The claims also consider it as violative of section 9 as the use of such a mark is likely to deceive consumers and also is susceptible to hurt religious feeling of communities in India. The petitioner also opposes grant of  “good” status to a temple offering as allowing monopoly on goods produced by private entities would defeat the purpose of GI protection.

It would be interesting to look into the rectification proceedings  and how Registrar’s offices address these issues which lies in the core of GI protection.

Decision on European Unitary Patent Law Postponed

The European Parliament (EP) has postponed the recent vote on the new “Unitary Patent Law” which was drafted jointly with the European council. Last Friday the European Council comprising of 27 states of European Union (EU) reached an agreement to create a single patent system for 25 states of the Union under a single patent court.

The proposed European Unitary Patent also known as the EU Patent, if passed, enables any individual or company to file single patent application with the European Patent Office for getting a unitary patent throughout European Union. The proposed patent system is intended to remove the difficulties of the existing European Patent Convention where patents are granted as a “bundle of nationally enforceable rights”. Unitary Patents is considered to reduce costs of patent application and to boost innovation by providing an affordable patent in Europe with a single specialized jurisdiction.

The proposed regulation provides for establishing a specialized court for dealing with Patent issues. Thus an infringement case can be filed in any of the three courts established in Paris, London and Munich subject to their specializations. Article 6 to 8 of the Regulation passed in last December, on the basis of an agreement between the Council and EP, allows an appeal from specialized patent courts to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in direct and indirect patent infringement cases.

But the new agreement reached by the Council on Friday deleted these clauses, thereby giving exclusive jurisdiction to the newly established Patent court and its clusters over patent infringement cases. Even the European Court of Justice will not have jurisdiction over matters concerning patent infringements. This limitation towards jurisdiction of the ECJ has led to differences among the members of European Parliament.

Many members of the EP consider it a “Big mistake” to exclude ECJ from the unitary patent system though on the contrary, the representative of UK consider this as reasonable. According to them “the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice leads to anomalous consequences”. These debates on the new issue on jurisdiction of ECJ have forced the EP to postpone its votes on the regulation for further deliberation.