We rarely get the chance to make the case for protecting any form of intellectual property. Here is one from Mike Masnick at Techdirt. The Korean cell phone maker, LG, is peddling a phone called Black Cherry very close to RIM's BlackBerry link here. If people are as mindless about shopping for named goods as I, they could easily confuse them. That is the bottom-line case for trademarking--it's protection for the buyer.

Patent troll NTP (otherwise described as a patent-licensing company) has had its patent-infringement lawsuit against Sprint Nextel, AT&T, and Verizon put on hold until the Patent Office finishes its review of NTP's patents link here. It was previously determined that those patents, covering wireless e-mail transmission and reception, should not have been issued, but NTP appealed that finding and the review is still underway.

NTP's suit was a desperation measure, given the adverse first review of its patents, but it is still good news that it can't proceed for now because the defendants will incur no further costs for the moment and face no financial pressure to settle with NTP.

We wrote earlier about Fox TV issuing takedown notices to several Republican candidates who used clips from the last debate in their ads. The story gets more interesting now, since Fox has gone after Mitt Romney who had his lawyer reply that what he had done was fair use link here and here. Fox now counterclaims Romney's ad far exceeds fair use.

Will they go to court? That would be an interesting chance to reexamine the meaning of fair use. Stay tuned.

Why is that news? Because Procter & Gamble, maker of Folgers coffee, and Kraft, maker of Maxwell House, are suing one another for patent infringement link here and here. Each claims to have a patent on the can or some element of it.

Here is the actual patent: Patent #7,169,418 "A fresh packaging system for roast and ground coffee having a top load capacity of at least about 16 pounds (7.3 Kg) comprising a container with a closed bottom, an open top, and a body enclosing a perimeter between the bottom and the top. A protuberance is continuously disposed around the perimeter of the body proximate to the top and forms a ridge external to the body. A flexible closure is removeably attached and sealed to the protuberance so that the closure seals the interior volume of the container. The container bottom and container body are constructed from a material having a tensile modulus number ranging from at least about 35,000 to at least about 650,000 pounds per square inch (at least about 2,381 to at least about 44,230 atm)."

That isn't coffee you smell, its prior art.

Fair use is now an issue in the Republican nomination race link here. John McCain used several seconds of Fox News video of a campaign debate in one of his ads which should be all right under fair use, but he has been told to take it down for copyright violation. But two other candidates using similar footage have not been so treated. Where is the fair in this use? Does a copyright owner have the right to enforce it discriminatorily? Get me a lawyer. Better, get rid of copyright.

Stephen Spear previously posted on the invalidation of (most of the claims of) the infamous one-click patent. Credit goes to Peter Calveley, whose effort we previously mentioned (and I at least contributed to) here. Mainly though this flies in the face of what I was told was the "conventional wisdom among experts" that in fact this was a good patent.

Catherine Rampell reports another case of copyright overreach link here. This time a mother took a short video of her 13 month old bobbing in time with a song and put it on YouTube. Universal Music charged the song infringed its copyright and it was taken down, but now the mom is suing Universal for abusing copyright law. She makes a pretty reasonable argument to most of you who will read this--"The idea that putting a little video of your kid up on YouTube can mean you have to go to court, and maybe declare bankruptcy and lose your house, is just wrong,"

To be "fair and balanced," the article quotes Douglas Lichtman, a UCLA law professor who advises Viacom on copyright matters, "These companies are sending out 100,000 takedown notices, so of course once in a while there's going to be a fly caught in the ointment, Everyone's trying to be careful, though. They don't want the PR backlash that comes when they make a mistake." That of course is nonsense. The companies don't use any sense of what is reasonable or a significant violation. They don't want to spend the money to examine each of the violations and exercise good judgment. And most people fold, not wishing to bother pursuing the matter.

The article also suggests that another reason for takedowns is the desire to suppress criticism and cites an example among four other cases where the takedown notice was questionable. Another one involves copying a fashion design in the pattern of a fabric--extending copyright to protect fashion designs which are not patentable. Go to the article to read them.

Dean Baker has an interesting discussion of the general subject of exchanging of copyrighted material, keyed to the Jammie Thomas jury trial which awarded $222,000 to the recording companies for downloading 24 songs, with a long set of comments from readers link here. The one new thing to me was this: "The recording industry was apparently able to track down this crime by hiring a high tech sleuth who has software that can monitor the files that people place on their computers." Since when does the RIAA have the right to monitor our internet activity? Big Brother has been watching all of us with more or less legal authority and with the justification of the War on Terror, but since when does anyone else have the right to do so?

The US Patent Office has issued rejection guidelines. You can read them in the Federal Register link here or read K.C. Jones summary link here. Here is my attempt to boil it down. "Factual inquiries" remain the basis for deciding whether a proposed patent is obvious. "That is, patent examiners will continue to consider the scope and content of the prior art, the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art, the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, and objective evidence relevant to the issue of obviousness," according to John Doll, commissioner for patents. Patent examiners must explain their rejection of an application as being obvious. One basis is if the examiner identifies a prior art teaching, suggestion, or motivation, but such a basis is not essential to determining whether an invention is obvious. The guidelines include examples.

"RC2, whom you probably know as the company that makes the lead-tainted Thomas & Friends toys, has filed a lawsuit against rival Munchkin, INC for allegedly infringing on a spill-proof sippy cup patent link here." Munchkin says it has patents that are pending.

My sister is 63 and she was raised on sippy cups. Where does this end?