Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The Eastern District of Texas will remain the patent lawsuit capital of America, thanks to a decision Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Tech companies hoped the court would overturn a 26-year-old decision that gives patent owners wide latitude on where to file their suits. It did not.
Both a Plano chip business and a one-time suitor turned rival could be pardoned if they both felt some disappointment about a federal district judge’s rulings Tuesday in their seven-year
Frequent patent lawsuit filers pulled back their new litigation between January and March, the possible result of bringing hundreds of cases last November to avoid rule changes, according to a report.
Andrew Weiss and his employees at BSP Software celebrated in 2011 when the company received patent No. 7,945,589 from the USPTO. Weiss allegedly circulated a photo of himself holding the ‘589 patent while wearing a t-shirt which read, “Muck Fotio.” BSP employees viewed the pic while singing “We Are the Champions.” This is the inside story of a simple patent infringement dispute that started in Chicago four years ago but spread to federal courts in Sherman and Dallas and now includes allegations of patent fraud and the use of a fake identity. The article chronicles a legal battle that has gotten personal and expensive between BSP Software/Avnet and Dallas-based Motio Inc.
A pair of squabbling telecom equipment makers asked a Marshall panel for damages totaling $62 million on respective infringement claims of a combined 10 patents. Instead, they got a verdict killing parts of six of those patents.
A federal jury in Tyler ruled Wednesday that Apple willfully infringed on patents owned by a Nevada security software company and ordered the technology giant to pay VirnetX Holding Corp. $625 million in damages.
While those damages in the patent infringement litigation may sound great, the Plano firm’s real goal could be to land a permanent injunction to get competing technology off the market.
For now, its neighbors to the east reign supreme as the national hotspot for patent litigation. But Congressional and appellate forces could eventually squelch the Tyler-based crowd’s party – and make Dallas-Fort Worth courts an attractive alternative.
The Texas Lawbook has the details on all the data, which even veteran IP litigators that are EDTX regulars find stunning.
Hope Shimabuku grew up 15 minutes from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Her mother worked for NASA on the Apollo program. Her father was an oil and gas engineer. After college, Shimabuku worked as an engineer at Dell. On Monday, she becomes the first director of the new Dallas office of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Shimabuku, a former lawyer for Blackberry and Xerox, has big challenges ahead. The Texas Lawbook has the full profile.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office named Xerox Business Services Corporate Counsel Hope Shimabuku to be the first regional director of the agency’s newly-created Dallas office. A former lawyer at BlackBerry, Shimabuku will take office Jan. 4. She will be charged with building an office that will eventually include more than 100 examiners, judges, and outreach and administrative staff.
Businesses and individuals filed a record 851 patent infringement lawsuits in November.
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