April 2010 Edition
In This Issue:
Welcome Message
Welcome to the April 2010 edition of the
Innovation e-Review.
This month’s feature article, “Patent Licensing in the Display Industry: A Primer”, by
Song Jung and
Adrian Mollo, partners at
McKenna, Long & Aldridge LLP, sheds light on the rationale behind licensing and explores some licensing considerations in the display industry.
This month's issue also highlights
Diffinity Genomics, a biotechnology company based in Rochester, NY that has developed technology for the quick and easy purification of nucleic acids. With a pipette tip containing this technology, a user simply aspirates the solution containing the DNA – and after one minute, the tip dispenses purified DNA ready for further analysis.
Our Research Spotlight for April,
The Paper Battery Company, has designed a commercially viable nanocomposite energy storage device that is thin, flexible, scalable and can be cut to fit. In addition to its many potential applications, such as portable devices, medical equipment and integration with solar photovoltaics, this device can be molded to fit the body structures of electric cars and used as building-integrated structural sheeting for massive scaling of energy storage on the grid.
The next webcast in our
Lab-to-Market series, ‘Starting a New Business: What Form Should it Take?’, will be aired on April 14, from 12 to 1 pm. Attorney
James Sonneborn, Esq. of Green & Seifter PLLC will be presenting on considerations for entrepreneurs forming a business to commercialize new technology. To register, please click
here.
Also worth noting, on April 6, in a momentous net neutrality case, the FCC's claim that Comcast could not block BitTorrent data and manage Internet traffic was shot down in a federal court of appeals. Click
here to read the decision.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to contact us at
nysstlc@law.syr.edu. Thank you.
Feature Article: Patent Licensing in the Display Industry: A Primer
by Song Jung and Adiran Mollo
Originally published in Information Display 2/10 and reprinted here with permissions by The Society for Information Display. The display industry is a good model for a discussion of patent license agreements. First, the industry has multiple categories of companies, each with different, and often divergent, business interests. As discussed below, those interest may vary for a number of reasons, including both business concerns (e.g., the natural disinclination to enforce patents against potential customers) and legal issues (e.g., the fact that the new patent exhaustion doctrine limits the ability of a patent owner to implement a multi-tiered licensing program). Further, the electronics and display industries are very competitive.
More…
Intellectual Property News: Future Uncertain for Gene Patents after Ruling
by John Amandolare
A ruling in New York’s Southern District Federal Court on March 29 has invalidated 7 patents related to genes being studied in cancer research, and the potential repercussions, if upheld upon appeal, could cause thousands of patented human genes to be invalidated.
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Intellectual Property News: Patent Act's Written Description Confirmed
by Amy Kim
On March 22, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its
en banc decision regarding Ariad Pharmaceutical’s (“Ariad”) patent infringement case against Eli Lilly & Co. (“Lilly”), and although the decision followed current patent case law, it provided patent applicants and defendants of infringement suits with a more detailed understanding of the Patent Act’s written description requirement.
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Intellectual Property News: US Patent Reform Act of 2010
by Erin Lawless
The Patent Reform Act of 2010 has arrived – albeit in the form of an Amendment to S. 515 – with an estimated cost of about $3 million. Currently, critics agree that the Act seems to establish a simpler, more transparent system to patent law; but what remains unclear is how the Act will pan out.
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Company Spotlight: Diffinity Genomics
by Amy Kim
In Rochester, NY, a biotechnology company named
Diffinity Genomics has developed technology for purifying nucleic acids via a quick and easy method. This technology can be placed inside a pipette tip, allowing the user to simply aspirate the solution containing the DNA and then mix the solution by pipetting for approximately one minute while the impurities to be removed bind to the DiffinityTM technology inside. The tip then dispenses purified DNA ready for further analysis. There are many uses for the resulting solution – sequencing, cloning, in vitro transcription, to name a few. Purification of DNA is necessary for effective analysis, since failure to remove impurities often interferes with the analysis and can lead to inaccurate results.
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Industry News: WIPO Criticizes ICANN's Stance on Cybersquatting
by Amy Kim
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently proposed a Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PDDRP) that would provide trademark holders the right to initiate proceedings against registry operators who have acted in bad faith. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) criticized ICANN’s proposal as weakening WIPO’s original proposal.
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Industry News: NY Broadband Council Plans Access for All New Yorkers
by Erin Lawless
On March 15, the NYS Broadband Development and Deployment Council held a quarterly meeting to review the status of broadband accessibility in New York and to address ways in which the State could incorporate the federal broadband stimulus programs.
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Industry News: Congress Hears Call for Manufacturing Innovation
by Erin Lawless
On March 17, industry experts testified in a hearing to the House Committee on Science and Technology. The resounding call was for a shift in priorities toward innovation and advanced manufacturing so that U.S. manufacturers can keep up with foreign competition.
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Research Spotlight: Paper Battery Co. Revolutionizes Energy Storage
by John Amandolare
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have discovered paper as a candidate for the future of advanced energy storage, and their successful spin-off is driving battery technology and integrated energy storage to new frontiers.
The Paper Battery Company has used this initial research concept and designed a commercially viable nanocomposite energy storage device in a print-formed sheet architecture capable of incorporating any electrochemical device technology. The faster recharge and much longer cycle life of the Paper Company’s supercapacitor technology enables structural integration of these sheets, so that energy storage can now be scaled with a vanishing footprint.
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Grants and Funding Opportunities
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