The Blackberry Case

In case you are behind the times, here is a very nice summary of the Blackberry litigation, courtesy of IEEE Spectrum Online.

Jurassic Park

This article states:

The US Patent Office issued Patent # 6,872,552, "A Method of Reconstituting nucleic Acid Molecules" today to Burt D. Ensley, Ph.D, Chairman of MatrixDesign, and CEO of DermaPlus, Inc. The patent covers methods for recovering and reconstituting genes from "degraded" DNA samples, and could allow scientists to reassemble everything from prehistoric, extinct animals to unsolved crime scenes.

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By reconstituting nucleic acid molecules that have been degraded but still contain useful information scientists at MatrixDesign are able to create a template from which to multiply the genetic material. That process is repeated until the genetic material is substantially representative -- at microscopic levels -- of the species from which the degraded sample was obtained.

Is eBay Safe?

Hmm...this article indicates that things might not be going well for MercExchange in re-exam. But again, who knows what the real story is until all is said and done.

Is This The Same Re-exam?

I suppose it all depends on how you spin it. Can you determine who really "lost" in this re-exam?

Visto, whose patent was challenged, announced:

Visto Corporation, a leading global provider of secure push email, today announced that the United States Patent & Trademark Office has upheld a majority of the claims contained within Visto's U.S. Patent No. 6,085,192 in the re-examination of that patent requested by Seven Networks, Inc. After considering Seven's request and assessing the merits of the patent, the Patent Office determined in its first office action that at least 15 of the patent's 25 claims are valid. This includes the claims at issue in Visto's ongoing patent infringement litigation against Seven in federal district court in Marshall, Texas.

And Seven, the opposing party announced:

Today, SEVEN announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") rejected the base claims of Visto Corporation's US Patent 6,085,192. After conducting its review, the PTO found that all of the independent claims of the '192 Patent were unpatentable in view of prior art references asserted by SEVEN.

BioPay Sues Pay By Touch

A press release today announced that

Biometric payments leader BioPay®, LLC today announced that it has filed suit against Solidus Networks, Inc. d/b/a Pay By Touch, and Indivos Corporation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. BioPay's lawsuit, filed January 18, 2005, involves patents on the use of biometric technology in point-of-sale transactions. BioPay asks the court to declare patents held by Pay By Touch to be invalid and also asks the court to declare that BioPay has not infringed on Pay By Touch's patents.