Law and Innovation

Here is a link to my latest guest blog post for the IPKat  on forthcoming patent litigation which should be of the greatest interest to fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory IP licence enthusiasts in Europe: http://ipkitten.blogspot.nl/2015/06/a-prelude-to-patent-litigation-ericsson.html Happy reading!

Fresh and interesting  article from the famous IPWatchdog website  about the meaning of 'patent trolls'; who can be considered as one, and how should we stop them. "With the enormous media focus on the so-called problem of patent trolls one might start to think that any patent owner can easily stand up to and take on industry giants to obtain lottery like winnings. Not so fast! The great irony is that if you want a larger entity to fold like a cheap suit and settle quickly you would be better off filing a frivolous patent infringement lawsuit using a dubious patent. You see, the great irony is this: Only when large entities get sued on completely frivolous patent claims do they settle right away. Now I’m not advocating that course of action, rather just observing the truth of the matter asserted.   On the other hand, if you have a strong patent that covers real technology, perhaps pioneering technology, and there are substantial damages, the tech giants ...

Last Monday, on August 26, 2013, the Microsoft Corporation v. Motorola Mobility (a wholly-owned Google subsidiary) breach-of-FRAND-contract trial kicked off in Seattle  [1] . It’s already the second trial in this case; a first trial took place in November 2010  [2] . The  federal jury in Seattle has already rendered a verdict on this case,  and Microsoft has won again.  Even though a case between two giants is always exciting, this article will just deal with the meanings of technical legal terms surrounding this case, such as standards-essential patent (SEP), Standard-Developing Organizations   (SDO) and FRAND/RAND terms  [3] ; terms which also have significant interest and impact in the smartphone patent wars. As we all know, the economic role of intellectual property rights , more precisely patents, is very significant. The patent system promotes innovation and economic growth by providing incentives to inventors to apply their knowledg...