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Category: Patent Litigation

Alice Decision

The Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit’s decision in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank holding that patents directed to schemes or methods of mitigating settlement risks

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The Highway Goes Global

Followers of our newsletter are familiar with the evolution of the Patent Prosecution Highway (“PPH”), from bilateral agreements providing for the acceleration of a patent

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The Neglected Design Patent?

When people talk about patents, they generally mean a “utility patent.”  To date, over 8 million utility patents have issued in the United States.  In

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Black Gold: Patent Battle Royale Moving From Silicon Valley to Midland, Texas? | Intellectual Property in the Oil & Gas Industry

We have all heard of the patent battles between tech giants Apple and Samsung.  It is easy to imagine the countless patents that protect the new iPhone and Galaxy smart phones.  However, intellectual property is not limited to the Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world.  A huge amount of intellectual property is being developed, and protected, in the oil field.  In fact, the next major patent dispute is more likely to involve a method of fracking than a processor on a smart phone.  The reason, in part, is that as “easy oil” reserves become more and more rare, oil and gas companies are developing incredible technological solutions in order to harness oil, which was previously believed unreachable.  In solving these complex problems, they are developing vast amounts of intellectual property.  Oil and gas companies of all sizes need to begin protecting their intellectual property because their competitors are.  Failing to protect intellectual property will place these companies at a huge competitive disadvantage in the long run.

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