NEWS Intellectual Ventures wins second lawsuit against Motorola
US licensing company Intellectual Ventures (IV) has succeeded in another patent lawsuit against Motorola, a week aſter it claimed victory against the company. On March 30, the US District Court for
the District of Delaware ruled that Motorola’s Lapdock product infringed US patent 7,120,462, owned by IV. Te patent at the centre of the dispute covers
the design for connecting a mobile device with an electronic docking station. Damages will be determined at a later date. Te ruling follows a similar decision from the
Delaware court on March 25 that went in favour of IV. In that judgment, Motorola was found to have
infringed a patent covering multimedia text messaging technology. Melissa Finocchio, chief litigation counsel at IV,
said: “We are grateful for the time and effort each of the juries put into these trials, and for their decisions upholding these important property rights.” Te two companies are also
awaiting
confirmation of a trial date to decide another patent infringement claim, which the licensing company filed in June 2013. Tat case, in which IV asserted seven
of its patents, is set to be heard at the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Motorola did not respond to a request for
comment.
Japanese artists oppose TPP copyright proposals Documents that showed proposals put forward
A group of Japanese artists and digital rights parties has publicly opposed proposals to extend the term of
the country’s copyright
protection. Te group has issued a statement that says it is
“deeply concerned” about leaked documents from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which suggest that copyright protection for artistic works will be extended to ‘life plus 70 years’ in Japan. Currently copyright protection is for ‘life plus
50 years’. Te TPP is a trade deal between a number of
nations that have borders on the Pacific Ocean, including the US, Australia and Japan. Some have criticised the TPP negotiations
for allegedly lacking transparency. Te Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF), a
group which promotes civil liberties in the digital world, said the TPP is a “secretive, multinational trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive IP laws”.
by countries participating in negotiations were leaked to the public by journalistic organisation Wikileaks in October last year. It was the second time documents had been released by Wikileaks aſter previous versions were leaked in 2013. Representatives from rights groups the
Movements for the Internet Archive Users, Creative Commons and thinkC were among the organisations to jointly host a public forum to discuss the leaked documents. Under the name Japan Forum for the
Intellectual Property Aspects and Transparency of TPP, the event was streamed online for the public to see. Te EFF claimed that 15,000 people watched the discussion. In a statement following the meeting, on
March 12, a spokesperson for the group of artists and digital rights parties said: “Tere have been reports that among the negotiating parties of the TPP, the biggest bone of contention has been the provisions on IP rights, such as copyright.
14 World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2015
“Te leaked US proposal indicates that there
might be provisions that could severely hinder the development of an information society. “We are deeply concerned about this situation
in which important decisions for our nation’s culture and society are being made behind closed doors,” the spokesperson added. One lawyer told WIPR the proposals could be
good for artists but said he is concerned about the lack of public debate around the TPP negotiations. Kensaku Takase, partner at law firm Baker
& McKenzie in Tokyo, said: “Having Japan’s copyright terms aligned with
other major
economies is not in itself a bad thing. “It is difficult to envisage the extent of the real
life consequences of changes to such a term, but the fact that issues such as the extension of the copyright term are not open to public debate is real. “It does mean these IP issues are getting put in
the mix of other trade issues on the TPP agenda, which the Japanese government needs to contend with,” he added.
www.worldipreview.com
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