Freescale Patent Holders Weren"t On Flight 370

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Freescale Patent Holders Weren"t On Flight 370

GAO releases tale of the tape on patent litigation

Cases from 2007 to 2011 show patent lawsuits increased by nearly 130 percent. | AP Photo

The world wants to blame so-called “patent trolls” for the lawsuits that have tied the intellectual property system into knots — but operating companies that make actual products are the ones running to the courthouse, government investigators have found.

“These data also show that companies that make products brought most of the lawsuits and that non-practicing entities brought about a fifth of all lawsuits,” the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday.

Continue Reading

That doesn’t mean that patent trolls — or patent monetization entities, as the GAO calls them — aren’t part of the problem, said Frank Rusco, GAO natural resources and environment-energy and science director.

“Although the companies filed the most suits, the PMEs tended to focus on software patents,” he explained to POLITICO. “That’s the space in which the PMEs operate.”

But Rusco said that focusing on patent trolls misses the bigger point.

“We think the focus on patent monetization entities is obscuring the bigger point, which is the quality of the patents themselves,” he explained.

The detailed analysis of 500 lawsuits from 2007 to 2011 shows that the number of overall defendants in patent infringement lawsuits increased by nearly 130 percent. The GAO found that there were 3,270 patent infringement lawsuits filed in 2011. That number was 2,491 in 2010 and 2,166 in 2000. Software-related patents accounted for about 89 percent of that increase, according to the GAO.

The report recommends that the Patent and Trademark Office consider examining trends in infringement litigation and consider linking that information to internal examinations as a way to improve patent quality and analysis. The PTO agreed with the GAO’s assessment.

“The USPTO currently uses information relating to cases involved in patent litigation, and agrees that it would be appropriate to consider making better use of such information by examining trends in patent infringement litigation,” the PTO wrote in its comments. “The USPTO also agrees that as part of its ongoing effort to improve the quality of issued patents and the patent examination process, it would be appropriate to consider linking trends in patent litigation to internal data on patent examination.”

Rusco noted that the nature of suits filed by patent trolls is different. Companies tend to file a single infringement lawsuit on one product, but patent-assertion entities sue a bunch of people at one time.

“They sue more people for a single patent,” he said. “They cast a wider net.”

Many suggest the increase in patent infringement lawsuits was caused by a rush to file suits before implementation of the America Invents Act, which made some significant changes to the law.

A coalition of industry and public interest groups seized on some the report’s findings and contended that an emphasis on the total number of lawsuits and who filed them misses the point.

Internet Association President Michael Beckerman said patent troll lawsuits are particularly pernicious because they hit people, tech start-ups and businesses outside the technology sector.

“We’re focused on the PAEs because of the increasing number of the suits, it’s a larger number of the defendants, but also it’s who the victims are, ” he explained. “It’s the PAEs that are going after the grocers, that are going after various retail entities. They’re going after restaurants and charities, in some of the most egregious cases, that are hurting non-tech, non-Internet companies across the country and are in fact hurting consumers.”

Russ Merbeth, chief policy counsel for Intellectual Ventures, said the report confirms that the company’s contention that patent-assertion entities aren’t the problem. The company holds about 70,000 patents.

“What it tells you that at this point in time there is a whole lot more litigation between operating companies than there is being brought by patent monetization entities,” Merbeth said. “The number of lawsuits relative to the number of patents out there has remained flat over time. … There’s just not the level of increase in patent litigation that critics of patent assertion entities would have you believe.”

While the GAO is critical of software patent quality, Merbeth contends that policy makers need to be careful that they don’t throw out the patent baby with the bathwater.

“It’s a bad idea to tar and feather all software patents as poorly defined or overly broad,” he said. “There may be a number of software patents out there that are lousy, low quality, and maybe those ended up in the hands of those who are doing unsavory things with them … but I don’t think the report should lead anyone to conclude that all software patents are bad or patenting software is a bad idea.”

POLITICO – Congress

GAO releases tale of the tape on patent litigation

GAO releases tale of the tape on patent litigation

Cases from 2007 to 2011 show patent lawsuits increased by nearly 130 percent. | AP Photo

The world wants to blame so-called “patent trolls” for the lawsuits that have tied the intellectual property system into knots — but operating companies that make actual products are the ones running to the courthouse, government investigators have found.

“These data also show that companies that make products brought most of the lawsuits and that non-practicing entities brought about a fifth of all lawsuits,” the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday.

Continue Reading

That doesn’t mean that patent trolls — or patent monetization entities, as the GAO calls them — aren’t part of the problem, said Frank Rusco, GAO natural resources and environment-energy and science director.

“Although the companies filed the most suits, the PMEs tended to focus on software patents,” he explained to POLITICO. “That’s the space in which the PMEs operate.”

But Rusco said that focusing on patent trolls misses the bigger point.

“We think the focus on patent monetization entities is obscuring the bigger point, which is the quality of the patents themselves,” he explained.

The detailed analysis of 500 lawsuits from 2007 to 2011 shows that the number of overall defendants in patent infringement lawsuits increased by nearly 130 percent. The GAO found that there were 3,270 patent infringement lawsuits filed in 2011. That number was 2,491 in 2010 and 2,166 in 2000. Software-related patents accounted for about 89 percent of that increase, according to the GAO.

The report recommends that the Patent and Trademark Office consider examining trends in infringement litigation and consider linking that information to internal examinations as a way to improve patent quality and analysis. The PTO agreed with the GAO’s assessment.

“The USPTO currently uses information relating to cases involved in patent litigation, and agrees that it would be appropriate to consider making better use of such information by examining trends in patent infringement litigation,” the PTO wrote in its comments. “The USPTO also agrees that as part of its ongoing effort to improve the quality of issued patents and the patent examination process, it would be appropriate to consider linking trends in patent litigation to internal data on patent examination.”

Rusco noted that the nature of suits filed by patent trolls is different. Companies tend to file a single infringement lawsuit on one product, but patent-assertion entities sue a bunch of people at one time.

“They sue more people for a single patent,” he said. “They cast a wider net.”

Many suggest the increase in patent infringement lawsuits was caused by a rush to file suits before implementation of the America Invents Act, which made some significant changes to the law.

A coalition of industry and public interest groups seized on some the report’s findings and contended that an emphasis on the total number of lawsuits and who filed them misses the point.

Internet Association President Michael Beckerman said patent troll lawsuits are particularly pernicious because they hit people, tech start-ups and businesses outside the technology sector.

“We’re focused on the PAEs because of the increasing number of the suits, it’s a larger number of the defendants, but also it’s who the victims are, ” he explained. “It’s the PAEs that are going after the grocers, that are going after various retail entities. They’re going after restaurants and charities, in some of the most egregious cases, that are hurting non-tech, non-Internet companies across the country and are in fact hurting consumers.”

Russ Merbeth, chief policy counsel for Intellectual Ventures, said the report confirms that the company’s contention that patent-assertion entities aren’t the problem. The company holds about 70,000 patents.

“What it tells you that at this point in time there is a whole lot more litigation between operating companies than there is being brought by patent monetization entities,” Merbeth said. “The number of lawsuits relative to the number of patents out there has remained flat over time. … There’s just not the level of increase in patent litigation that critics of patent assertion entities would have you believe.”

While the GAO is critical of software patent quality, Merbeth contends that policy makers need to be careful that they don’t throw out the patent baby with the bathwater.

“It’s a bad idea to tar and feather all software patents as poorly defined or overly broad,” he said. “There may be a number of software patents out there that are lousy, low quality, and maybe those ended up in the hands of those who are doing unsavory things with them … but I don’t think the report should lead anyone to conclude that all software patents are bad or patenting software is a bad idea.”

POLITICO – Congress

GAO releases tale of the tape on patent litigation

Patent confirms that aspartame is the excrement of GM bacteria

(NaturalNews) In 1999, The Independent published an article entitled “World’s top sweetener is made with GM bacteria,” which revealed that Monsanto was knowingly adding aspartame to soft drinks in the United States – and that aspartame is made from GM bacteria. This report, which remains one of the earliest disclosures on aspartame in a mainstream newspaper, received little attention after its publication – possibly because its implications were underestimated at the time – and it has long been forgotten.

Since 1999, the world has become a little more attentive to Monsanto and aspartame, but ignorance still abounds about the latter’s genesis. While more and more people are starting to awaken to aspartame’s destructive effects on our health, do they know how it is actually made? Fortunately, a 1981 patent for aspartame production, once confined to the drawers of patent offices, is now available online for everyone to see – and it confirms everything that Monsanto was happy to tell us in 1999 before their meteoric growth necessitated greater prudence.

The patent, which is entitled Process for producing aspartame and is credited to Bahl, Rose, and White, summarizes the process as follows:

“The artificial sweetener aspartame, a dipeptide with the formula Asp-Phe-me, is produced using a cloned micrcorganism [sic]. A DNA which codes for a large stable peptide comprised of the repeating amino acid sequence (Asp-Phe)n is inserted into a cloning vehicle which in turn is introduced into a suitable host microorganism. The host microorganism is cultured and the large peptide containing the repeating Asp-Phe sequence is harvested therefrom. The free carboxyl group of the large peptide is benzylated and then hydrolysed to benzyl Asp-Phe dipeptides. This dipeptide is methylated and then debenzylated to form aspartame.”

This scientific jargon obfuscates (perhaps deliberately) a truly disturbing process:

1.) ‘Cloned microorganisms’ (which the patent later reveals to be genetically modified E. coli) are cultivated in tanks whose environments are tailored to help them thrive.

2.) The well-fed E. coli cultures defecate the proteins that contain the aspartic acid-phenylalanine amino acid segment needed to make aspartame.

3.) The proteins containing the Asp-Phe segments are ‘harvested’ (i.e. lab assistants collect the bacteria’s feces).

4.) The feces are then treated. This includes a process of methylation (adding an excess of the toxic alcohol, methanol, to the protected dipeptide).

While common sense dictates that this abomination doesn’t belong anywhere near our bodies, the patent’s authors made no secret about their belief that aspartame constitutes a safe and nutritious sweetener:

“Aspartame is not only sweeter than sucrose, but is preferable as a food to sucrose. While sucrose can provide the body with little more than energy, aspartame is composed of amino acids, the building blocks of body proteins, and like other proteins is broken down by the digestive enzymes in the stomach to its constituent amino acids thus providing nutritive value. [...] For these reasons, aspartame holds significant promise in replacing sugar as a sweetener.”

So there we have it: An official document that not only reveals the shocking truth behind aspartame production, but also freely admits that it was intended for mass consumption as a sucrose substitute. Therefore, the next time someone claims that your reservations about this sweetener are unfounded, direct them to this patent – the truth behind aspartame is now in plain view.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.independent.co.uk

http://www.freepatentsonline.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

About the author:
Michael Ravensthorpe is an independent writer whose research interests include nutrition, alternative medicine, and bushcraft. He is the creator of the website Spiritfoods, through which he promotes the world’s healthiest foods, whether they be established superfruits such as mangosteen or lesser-known health supplements like blackstrap molasses.

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Patent confirms that aspartame is the excrement of GM bacteria

Top court: You can"t patent human genes

NBC’s Pete Williams shares details on the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that says human genes cannot be patented, but Synthetic DNA is patentable.

By Pete Williams and Erin McClam, NBC News

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that natural human genes cannot be patented by companies, but it said that synthetically produced genetic material can — a mixed ruling for the biotechnology industry.

A naturally occurring piece of DNA is “a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated,” the court said.

The case centered on a Salt Lake City company called Myriad Genetics that was granted patents for isolating two human genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, that indicate a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The company now markets tests for those genes.

BRCA1 is the gene carried by actress Angelina Jolie, who determined after a test that she was at higher risk of developing breast cancer and chose to have a double mastectomy.

Mladen Antonov / AFP – Getty Images, file

A woman holds a banner demanding a ban on human-gene patents during a protest outside the Supreme Court in April.

The court said that Myriad had found something important and useful, but it ruled that “groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery” does not by itself guarantee a patent.

The opinion was written by Justice Clarence Thomas.

On Wall Street, investors in Myriad seemed pleased. The company’s stock shot up 7 percent in the minutes after the Supreme Court decision came down.

The justices had wrestled with whether Myriad’s work was a product of invention or nature. The biotechnology industry warned that a ruling against the company would threaten billions of dollars in investment.

The government has already granted patents on 4,000 human genes, mostly to companies and universities.

An oral argument in April was so deeply technical — introns, exons and messenger RNA were all discussed in detail — that justices and lawyers alike had to grope for everyday analogies.

Gregory Castanias, a lawyer for Myriad, likened the isolation of genes to the creation of a baseball bat, which “doesn’t exist until it’s isolated from a tree.”

“But that’s still the product of human invention,” he said, “to decide where to begin the bat and where to end the bat.”

Doctors and scientists who challenged the patents said that their research had been hindered. The lawyer arguing for them said that Myriad deserved credit for unlocking the secrets of genes — just not a patent.

“One way to address the question presented by this case is: What exactly did Myriad invent?” asked the lawyer, Christopher Hansen of the American Civil Liberties Union. “And the answer is nothing.”

Justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum seemed concerned about whether companies like Myriad would scale back investment in research if they were not rewarded with patents.

“What does Myriad get out of this deal?” Justice Elena Kagan wondered. “Why shouldn’t we worry that Myriad or companies like it will just say, well, you know, we’re not going to do this work anymore?

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, representing the Obama administration, argued that manipulating a gene into something new might qualify for patent protection, but that isolating what’s already there should not.

The administration has supported the compromise position — allowing patents for synthetically produced genetic material but not natural genes themselves.

The case challenged seven Myriad patents that are set to expire in 2015.

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 13, 2013 10:32 AM EDT

Top court: You can"t patent human genes