MediaTek and Qualcomm reached patent agreements

qualcomm.com / mediatek.com

Qualcomm and Mediatek made patent dispute agreements.

According to MediaTek’s press release, MediaTek and Qualcomm provide the following statement regarding their relationship and agreements between them.

-First, neither MediaTek nor Qualcomm has lodged any complaint against the other – formally, informally, or otherwise – to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), or any other government agency in any country. 

-Second, the patent agreements that MediaTek and Qualcomm entered into roughly four years ago have not been abolished, repealed, or terminated.  However, MediaTek and Qualcomm have recently agreed to amend those agreements in certain ways, as well as to suspend certain portions of those agreements.

These agreements don’t prohibit either Qualcomm or MediaTek from selling chipsets to any customer.  Also under the agreements, neither Qualcomm nor MediaTek has any patent rights of each other.

Click here to read original notice on MediaTek.

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Cadbury 'Black Forest' vs Whittaker's 'Berry Forest' trademark battle

cadbury.co.uk

whittakersworldwide.com

Food Magazine reported that Cadbury loses trademark battle with its rival company Whittaker’s from using and applying trademark the term ‘Berry Forest’. Cadbury claimed that the term resembled its ‘Black forest’. 

Cadbury registered their trademark ‘Black Forest’. They argued that it might confuse customers that two products are related. But the Intellectual Property Office ruled that the two names are  "sufficiently different" and ‘Berry Forest’ could be registered as a trademark.

"I find that, as a whole, the opposed mark is visually, aurally, and, most importantly, conceptually dissimilar to the opponent's registered mark," said Jennie Walden,assistant commissioner of Trademark, the article added.

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Facebook wants their real-time search patented

photo from flikr dullhunk

Facebook filed a patent titled “Real Time Content Searching in Social Network” which covers a method for receiving, identifying and indexing posts by users. According to SearchBlog, the patent was filed this week and the patent is still pending. The technology determines an identifier associated with user, post and term in the post.
 

The article added the details about this patent technology.

"The search or search results may also be filtered to only show results related to a particular connection or group of connections," according to the description of the patent filing. "A real time search engine compiles the post identifiers from matching posts in the user-term index query and uses the post identifiers to access the forward index and obtain the storage locations in the object stores for the posts."

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Interesting Advertisements!

ad.co.kr

Newspaper is one of good and effective advertising media. But the ads pages continued to decline and ZMG advertised for the ads in papers. There are people in funny costumes and they stand out among others in each photo as the ads stand out in papers.

ad.co.kr

OME has same concept on their detergent product advertising, ‘Dirt is good’.

Kids in the ads have each shadow with messed paints, play ground and dishes. The ad says our children need to play more and it leads to their dreams. What about the dirt on their clothes? OME detergent products can handle.

ad.co.kr

This is Education Achievement Authority (EAA)’s advertising to promote their education programs. The programs have different curriculums for each student’s interests and specialties. It shows their specialized and effective curriculums with different wings on each student and the copy above them ‘I can soar’.

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WIPS visited Guangdong Province's Intellectual Property Office

WIPS visited Guangdong Province’s intellectual property office.  Operations director Jing-young Lee, Senior Diretor, Dr. Allen Yeo and Taiwan Portal International Intellectual Property Group (PIIP) and representatives of his party of four people also visited.  The party secretary, deputy director Xianmin Ma hosted the delegation.

© Guangdong Government

Korean delegation introduced detailed description of the construction and user statement of WIPS, including prior art search, product features, patent databases, patent information services, education and training and other aspects of the characteristics and advantages, as well as government departments to cooperate with the multinational experiences.  WIPS also hoped to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Guangdong Province.

Secretary Ma briefed the guest about the development of Guangdong Provincial Intellectual Property profile. The Secretary presented the intellectual property services, patent information, patent examination and many conducted in-depth exchanged between Korea and Guangdong province. 

© Guangdong Government

He also stated that Korea has a lot of intellectual property services in advanced technology and high-end concept, which is precisely lacking in Guangdong and urgently needed. Guangdong has a huge market potential.  If Guangdong combines technology, management, personnel and other aspects of the advantages of Korea with Guangdong’s market, it will form a more powerful market competitiveness.

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will.i.am vs. Pharrell, still fighting for 'I.Am'

Google search

Last June, Pharrell was sued by will.i.am over ‘I.AM’ and he asked a judge to protect his right to use the ‘I.AM’ moniker. (click here to read more). After Pharrell's asking, will.i.am countersued for Pharrell's copy history. He claimed that Pharrell has been copied many other intellectual properties for his business.

According to Hollywood Reporter, will.i.am's attorney gave some examples and one of the examples was the record label named Star Trak Entertainment. 

To read more examples and their comments, click here

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A delegation of WIPS visited SCUT Law School

A delegation of WIPS and Mr. Kuochou Huang-Joe, alliance operation officer of Taiwan PIIP Group company visited South China University of Technology (SCUT) Law School/IP Institute on last May 21st.

© SCUT

The vice dean of the school, professor Li Liangcheng, professor Yan, professr Yang, and Dr. Wan discuessed with the delgation of WIPS interms of the use of patnet retrieval software, collaboratie education program and IP professional training.

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BusBuddy app developer Wins patent battle against a 'Patent troll'

BusBuddy from itunes

According to CBC News, a Canadian mobile app developer, Larry Dunkelman, has won a patent lawsuit against Dovden Investments Inc.

BusBuddy is a bus tracking application with GPS data of buses so users can see when their bus comes.  Dovden filed a suit in May claiming that Larry infringed vehicle tracking technology. Larry Dunkelman was not only one who was sued by Dovden. The company had 42 lawsuits in Canada including 32 in last year.

BusBuddy from itunes

Geoff North, Dunkelman’s lawyer who had 3 patent suits against Dovden said that he wonders about these patent troll’s lawsuits against individuals like Larry. "We need to stop this situation from occurring because we need to be able to have people like Larry develop good things for people instead of suing people for doing so," he said to CBC News. 

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Sarah Palin sued for using 9/11 photo on her Facebook

Photo Credit Tom Hannigan

Sarah Palin, US politician, has been sued by a newspaper for copyright infringement, New York Daily News reported. 

The newpaper publisher in New Jersey claimed that she used a photograph from September 11 without its permission. It was filed that Sarah posted the photo on website and Facebook and they sued Sarah Palin and her political action committee. The newspaper publisher asks the court to stop SarahPAC from using the picture and it also seeks damages.

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Dyson vs. Samsung, Dyson says it's 'cynical rip-off'

Dyson's DC39 / Samsung's Motion Sync VC77F70LHCD

British manufacturer Dyson is suing Samsung. It claims that Samsung “ripped off” its vacuum technology which is patented. According to Reuters, James Dyson, the company founder said thay "This looks like a cynical rip off by the giant Korean company Samsung," 

Dyson said in the statement that Samsung’s Motion Sync vacuum cleaner used their steering mechanism patent which is filed in 2009.  It took 3 years to develop the technology and their DC37 and DC39 models were the world’s first cylinder vacuums with a ball steering mechanism.

Samsung responded that they will take all necessary measures, including legal action, to protect their technological innovation against Dyson's claims.

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Nintendo can sell its Wii Controllers in US.

nintendo.com

Nintendo can keep selling its Wii technology in U.S. It was accused violating patent rights and the U.S ITC has ruled that it did not.

According to Bloomberg, Creative Kingdoms sued Nintendo in 2011 for infringing its patents related to motion technology.  Creative Kingdoms developed magic wands and they claimed that their motion sensor patents of magic wands were violated by nintendo’s Wii controllers. But the ITC has ruled that Nintendo did not violate the technology which is patented by Creative kingdom and rejected their request to block imports of Nintendo’s Wii gaming consoles and remote controls.

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Interesting advertisement with creative idea

ad.co.kr

Hands have lots of bacteria. This anti-bacteria lotion advertising by Johnson’s baby says that lots of bacteria are living in our hands, and we need to use Johnson’s anti-bacteria baby lotion. It’s interesting how it describes bacteria on hands with buildings they formed.

ad.co.kr

This is a coffee ad by Deli Mart. A rooster is in a cup holder and it is crowing loudly. It looks like the rooster wakes up people from sleep just like morning coffee does. This ad shows their story in a simple way with funny looking rooster.

ad.co.kr

This interesting campaign is by Traid Fashion Company in UK. The company sells second-hand clothing and it promotes its vintage products with classic statues wearing vintage clothes. These statues make the ad more funny and interesting.

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Eli Lilly Sues Canada On Drug Patents

lilly.com

Eli Lilly, a global drug manufacture company in Indiana is suing Canada government and asking to $500 million in damages.

In Lilly’s complaint, they claimed that Canada began using too higher standard of patent to reduce its best seller drugs’ patent period. According to Indystar, Lilly accuses Canadian courts of using “arbitrary and subjective” standards to strip patent protection from Lilly drugs to treat schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder.  

This patent case involves the Lilly drugs Straterra and Zyprexa, which have been used by hundreds of thousands of Canadian patients since the 1990s, Indystar added.

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Sony, Universal, Warner, ABKCO sued SiriusXM for unpaid royalties.

siriusxm.com

Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Warner Music Group and ABKCO filed lawsuit against SiriusXM. According toBillboard, the companies are suing SiriusXM for artists’ royalties for the recordings before 1972 which was unpaid. These major recording companies are seeking for damages and punitive damages. 

In a statement supplied by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Steve Cropper, a songwriter and also a guitarist, said, "It's an outrage that SiriusXM, a multi-billion [dollar] company making a big profit based partly on the popularity of its oldies channels is refusing to pay any artists like me one penny. That's not right and that needs to be changed.", article added.

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Nicki Minaj's hit song 'Starship' copyright violation dispute

Nicki Minaj 'Starship' MV

Nicki Minaj has been sued by an artist who didn’t use his real name in Chicago. This mysterious man, Clive Tanaka, claimed that Nicki and her team copied his music ‘New Chicago’ from 2011. He is an underground artist who has never performed in public, Chicago Tribune reported.  

Tanaka said that Nicki and her collaboration team for the song 'Starship' would have been aware of his song since it had been used in multiple TV ads in Sweden,  and had hundreds of thousands of Youtube plays. 

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YMCA Copyrights is back to Victor Willis, It took 35 years.

Victor Willis, a member of disco group Village People, wrote the lyrics of ‘YMCA’ and he reclaimed his copyrights for 33 songs he wrote. 

According to The New York Times, American copyright legislation which effected in 1978 allows songwriters and composers to reclaim their rights.  After 35 years, the music company’s rights are expired, songwriters can recapture their songs' right. 

Record companies had been kept claiming that they have contract expiration rights against the copyright legislation. Willis had legal dispute for years and finally he gets the rights for his 33 song this year, except ‘Macho Man’ which is wrote before 1978.

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Samsung sued by Dyson Technology

According to BBC News on September 10th, British vacuum manufacturer Dyson launched legal action against Samsung for its company’s steering technology infringement.  The company filed the suits on August 29th in London. 

VS.

Dyson alleged that Samsung infringed Dyson’s patent on a steering mechanism for cylinder cleaners. Based on BBC News, Dyson had issued proceedings in the High Court in England, but has not said whether it wished to block the sale of Samsung’s product or impose a license fee.

Click here for the original article from BBC News.

Converse Inc files patent and trademark lawsuit on Chuck Taylor

converse.com

The company filed a lawsuit in Boston against a small online retailer from Jamaica.

According to The Boston Globe, the company claims that the sneakers by Autonomie have similar design to Chuck Taylor All-Stars and they shared a number of design characteristics with Chuck Taylor sneakers, such as the pattern on the soles, rubber covering the toes, and details in the rubber trim around the bottom of the shoes.

autonomieproject.com

Autonomie, which is selling “organic sweatshop-free and vegan” products, in the United States and Canada, had been selling the shoes products since 2007.

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