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Competent advice of counsel is strong evidence to ward off a finding of willfulness. However, incompetent advice of counsel may be worse than no advice at all. Knorr-Bremse stands for the proposition that an accused’s failure to obtain an infringement opinion or its exercise of the attorney-client privilege concerning that opinion may not be used as an adverse inference of willful infringement. But an incompetent infringement opinion, if the privilege is waived, may be offered by the plaintiff as prima facie evidence as willful disregard of the patent holder’s rights…
Continue Reading Incompetent Legal Advice: Evidence of Willful Infringement

By Scott Cameron

It was just a simple discovery tool, used by the Department of Justice in defense of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. It hasn’t gotten much attention. In fact, for several months, it got no attention at all. But it’s starting to. So, what is “it?”

On August 25, 2005, Alberto Gonzales, U.S. Attorney General, issued a subpoena to Google, Inc., the online search engine used by millions every day to navigate the Internet. In this subpoena, the Attorney General demanded that Google, who was not a party in the case, produce “1. All URL’s that are available to be located through a query on your company’s search engine as of July 31, 2005,” and “2. All queries that have been entered on your company’s search engine between June 1, 2005, and July 31, 2005.” In essence, the Department of Justice was asking Google to produce the Internet, and a list of all searches on the Internet for two months.
Continue Reading The Attorney General’s Google Search Comes Up Empty – So Far…Is Your Online Privacy At Stake?

By Scott Hervey

Just how valuable are baseball statistics? Apparently very valuable. In fact, baseball statistics are so valuable that CBC Distribution and Marketing, which has run the CDM Fantasy Sports leagues since 1992, has decided to sue Major League Baseball and challenge its copyright claim over player statistics. CBC agues that baseball statistics become historical facts as soon as a game is over, and that it shouldn’t have to pay for the right to use them. Major League Baseball claims that intellectual property law makes it illegal for fantasy leagues to commercially exploit the statistical profiles of its players.
Continue Reading Fantasy Sports League Brings On the Heat In Challenging MLB’s Ownership Of Player Statistics

By Dale Campbell

Last week the United States Supreme Court denied the petition filed by the maker of the Blackberry seeking to overturn adverse rulings that the popular hand held email device violated patents owned by NTP, Inc., an East Coast based intellectual property holding company. The Supreme Court’s denial puts the Blackberry one step closer to enforcement of an issued permanent injunction.
Continue Reading Will Your Blackberry Go Dark?

By Audrey Millemann

Amazon.com was recently in the news again. This time, it is defending its “1-click system” from accusations of patent infringement. The issue before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals was one of first impression: whether a single patent claim could cover both a system and a method. The answer, according to the court, is no.
Continue Reading In the Patent World, One Claim Equals One Class