Prize of $24M to 12 scientists WSJ

ByBizMan

Breakthrough Prize awards $24 million to 12 scientific researchers. This is in the WSJ article …  via @WSJ … By  GEORGIA WELLS  Updated Dec. 4, 2016 8:11 p.m. ETCategories from Genetics to Black holes. Big players from FB to Alphabet/GOOG were on site to promote these awards and recognition. Very cool.It is unclear if these prizes are attached to business engines or incubators. However, with that level of notoriety, and the prize money, these winners should be able…

China’s Patent-Lawsuit Profile Grows – Troll Tolls Too – WSJ

ByBizMan

China’s Patent-Lawsuit Profile Grows – WSJ: China as a focal point of Intellectual Property, in the patent office and in the courts. This law suit by WiLAN is interesting to see how the “assertion” of patents can move and shift. Here’s a little background on WiLAN from Wikipedia. As you can see the company originally developed stuff so it would not be categorized as a Non-Practicing Entity (NPE), or Patent Troll in the ungracious term…

Toll of the Patent Troll

ByBizMan

The Wall Street Journal has a great article about Patent Trolls and the Toll the cost on an innocent economy. Here’s the excellent WSJ Article: America’s Biggest Filer of Patent Suits Wants You to Know It Invented Shipping Notification, By RUTH SIMON and  LORETTA CHAO, Updated Oct. 27, 2016 1:11 p.m. ET. Small(er) companies are targeted by a non-practicing entity (NPE), sometimes ungraciously referred to as a Patent Troll. IPZine previously discussed Patent Trolls in…

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Readying a Patent Portfolio for Sale

ByBizMan

In years gone by, companies with extensive patent portfolios were loathe to sell these assets, strongly preferring to license them.  These Patent Licensing Agreements (PLA) came in several flavors, most had some form of royalty payments for the licensor and the fundamental was that ownership of the patents remained with the original owner, i.e., the company granted the patent(s). While not totally different today, much has changed in the disposition of thousands of US patents. …

Maria Pallante out of Copyright. Unified IP?

ByBizMan

Maria Pallante: out of Copyright Office Great article by Dennis Crouch over at Patently-O. (But then aren’t they all great over there.) Apparently Pallante is out as Chief of the Copyright office. And the clamor is up as to why we don’t have a unified IP at the patent and trademark office, kind of a US PTOC. (I guess that would be pronounced Pea-Talk, or PeeTalk, if you wanted to talk dirty.) Back in 2012,…

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Photographer Files $1 Billion Suit Against Getty for Licensing Her Public Domain Images

ByBizMan

Photographer Files $1 Billion Suit Against Getty for Licensing Her Public Domain Images [UPDATED] – Hyperallergic: Wow. Getty was selling public domain photos to everyone, including the photog herself. Getty was notifying people with the images that they must pay money to keep using them (on their own web sites, etc.). So the copyright owner, Carol Highsmith, gets a $120 bill for using her own picture on her own web site. Highsmith had donated the…