Monday, February 11, 2013

(BN) Marvell, Dish, Youku Tudou, Boeing: Intellectual Property

(Bloomberg ) Carnegie Mellon University has filed papers requesting an increase of a $1.7 billion patent infringement damages award against Marvell Technology Group Ltd.

The school said in several filings yesterday the court should consider tripling the damages for willful infringement, Carnegie Mellon is also arguing that Marvell should pay ongoing royalties of as much as $1.50 for every chip sold after July 29, 2012, and Marvell should be ordered to stop selling chips that infringe the disputed patents.

"Marvell has been willfully infringing CMU's patents for more than a decade, and it and its founders have reaped enormous profits from this misconduct," the school said in a filing.

Marvell has pledged to challenge the verdict, which came down Dec. 26.

Carnegie Mellon filed suit in federal court in Pittsburgh in March 2009. It claimed that Marvell infringed two patents, issued in 2001 and 2002, that cover ways to detect data stored on a computer's hard-disk drive by filtering out noise or unwanted electrical signals. The school in court papers claimed that at least nine types of Marvell's circuits use its inventions.

The case is Carnegie Mellon University v. Marvell Technology Group Ltd., 09-cv-290, U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh).

Trademark

'This American Life' Warns That 'This American Whore' Infringes

Producers of "This American Life," a program broadcast on National Public Radio, have sent cease-and-desist notices to a San Francisco sex worker over her use of "This American Whore" for her podcasts, SF Weekly reported.

Siouxsie Q, who created the podcasts, said that in January she began getting warning e-mails from lawyers representing Chicago Public Radio and "This American Life" host Ira Glass, according to the newspaper.

She told SF Weekly that many who follow her on Twitter Inc.'s messaging service have told her that the name "This American Whore" is worth fighting for.

The newspaper reported that Apple Inc.'s iTunes music store began listing Siouxsie Q's podcasts as "This American W***e" even before she started receiving trademark-infringement warnings from Chicago Public Radio.

Dish 'Racecar' May Deliver Content to Pay-Television Subscribers

Dish Network Corp., the satellite pay-television service, has filed an application to register "racecar" as a trademark.

According to the database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Englewood, Colorado-based company said it plans to use the mark for modems, routers, the transmission of digital data and signals, satellite dishes, smartphones, and access to the Internet for use in wireless communications systems.

The application was filed Feb. 6 on Dish's behalf by Ian L. Saffer of Atlanta's Kilpatrick Stockton & Townsend LLP.

Ron Paul Asks WIPO for Control Over RonPaul.com Domain Name

Former U.S. presidential candidate Ron Paul has filed a trademark complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Arbitration and Mediation Center.

Paul is asking WIPO for control over the RonPaul.Org and RonPaul.Com Internet domain names. According to his Feb. 7 filing, the names were registered in bad faith and he didn't authorize them. He said the sites are being used to sell "Ron Paul" merchandise that competes with his merchandise sales.

He said in his filing that an offer was made to sell him the domain names for $848,000, "an exorbitant amount of money." So far he hasn't filed any other legal action with respect to the domain names, according to his petition.

The operators of the websites sent Paul a letter telling him they secured the domain names "to make sure they would not fall into enemy hands." They said their sites were part of their grassroots support for the candidate and that they had "put our lives on hold and invested 4.5 years of our life into you."

The website operators said they have T-shirt designs and social media accounts linked to the domain names, and if they are forced to give them up, "such an abrupt change would lead to chaos on the Internet and -- at least temporarily -- disrupt the message of liberty."

Copyright

Youku Tudou Says Xunlei's Infringement Suit is Publicity Grab

Youku Tudou Inc., China's biggest online video site, has responded to copyright infringement claims made by a Chinese competitor, The Next Web news site reported.

Xunlei Ltd. is claiming that Youku Tudou has on its site 13 movies and television programs to which it has no right, according to Next Web.

Beijing-based Youku Tudou said it has agreements with all the major content producers and characterized Xunlei's infringement claims as a quest for publicity, according to Next Web.

The infringement case hasn't yet been accepted by the court, which is in recess for the Chinese New Year celebrations, Next Web reported.

Retraction Watch Says It's Accused of Infringing Own Copyrights

A website that tracks scientific papers that have been retracted said it's received 10 takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act over posts about Anil Potti, a cancer researcher who has had 19 papers retracted. The takedown notices went to San Francisco's Automattic Inc., which owns the WordPress service that hosts the blog.

Retraction Watch said all of the requests came from a single source, NewsBulet.In, which, according to its takedown requests, claims to be "a famous news firm in India."

According to Retraction Watch, the content about the researcher that the Indian source claims is infringing does appear on the NewsBulet.In website.

"If you click on any of the NewsBulet.In URLs provided in the takedown notice, you will indeed find the text -- and images -- from ten of our posts about Anil Potti. But as will be abundantly clear to anyone who does so that our text was placed on NewsBulet.In, not the other way around," Retraction Watch said in a blog posting.

Retraction Watch said that NewsBulet.In has it backwards. "NewsBulet.In is violating our copyright; we are not violating theirs," according to Retraction Watch's posting.

Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Columbia, Entro Settle Trade Secrets Dispute for $1.1 Million

Columbia Industries Inc., a maker of equipment and machinery used in oil and gas fields, settled a trade secrets case it brought against competitor Entro Industries.

Entro, based in Hillsboro, Oregon, as is Columbia, was accused of trade-secret theft, breach of fiduciary duty, and unjust enrichment. The suit was filed in February 2012 in Oregon state court.

According to a Columbia statement, it accepted a $1.1 million payment from Entro to settle the dispute.

In its statement, Entro said that the suit was dismissed in its entirety by a Washington County, Oregon, court. The settlement "allows Entro to put the claimant's issues behind us and to move ahead," company President Shawn Smith said in the statement. He said the court didn't place any restriction on "on what we can do for current and future customers." Smith was a co-defendant with his company in the suit.

Iran Claims to Be Producing Clones of Boeing-Built Drone

Iran claims it has produced copies of the U.S. ScanEagle drones, according to Fars News Agency of Iran.

The Iranian drones are based on a ScanEagle built by the Boeing Co. and captured by that country's military forces, according to Fars.

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, told Fars that the cloned Boeing drone is now in production, and photos of the production line have been released.

Previously the Iranian military shot down a US RQ-170 drone made by Lockheed Martin Corp., Fars reported.

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