It was announced that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the federal agency responsible for enforcement of federal drug laws, will take up the recommendation from the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS), and reschedule marijuana (cannabis) from the current Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Rescheduling will have major …
Category: technology
Ninth Circuit: No SHIFT+DELETE for Server Test
The issues where technology and intellectual property laws collide were discussed in the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Hunley v. Instagram, LLC,[1] decided on July 17, 2023. In Hunley, the Ninth Circuit re-affirmed the so-called Server Test limiting liability for copyright infringement. Facts Plaintiffs Alexis Hunley and Matthew Brauer both posted their photographic works on their …
U.S. Copyright Office Clarifies Registration of AI-Created Works
In order to clarify policy-related issues involving artificial intelligence and the copyright law issue of authorship, the U.S. Copyright Office, on March 16, 2023, commenced an AI initiative. Included in this initiative was new registration guidance (to be codified as 37 C.F.R. §202) aimed at assisting practitioners and industry members on protection of creative works …
Copyright Office Partially Cancels AI-Created Work
On February 21, 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office issued an unusual ruling partially cancelling the copyright registration originally issued in September 2022, essentially cancelling any part of the work made by an AI machine. A new registration will be re-issued as to the portions in which the human authorship was confirmed, including the selection, coordination, …
U.S. Patent No. D861,725 S1: CES Edition
U.S. Patent No. D861,725 S (‘725) issued on October 1, 2019, for “Display Screen with Animated Icon.” It was issued to inventors Hélène Park and Alan Bettes of San Francisco, California, and Sidney Paolo San Martín of Brooklyn, New York. The applicant/assignee is Google LLC of Mountain View, California. This patent is a design patent …
U.S. Patent No. 10,336,597 B2
U.S. Patent No. 10,336,597 B2 (‘597) issued on July 2, 2019, for “Capsule-Based Alcoholic Beverage Apparatus and Components Thereof.” It was issued to inventors Ross Franklin of Rancho Cucamonga, California, Ed Rosenthal of Oakland, California, and Rachel Franklin of Rancho Cucamonga, California. The applicant is ERS Holdings, LLC of Piedmont, California, and the assignee is …
TechPat: U.S. Patent No. 10,241,896 B2
The DreamForce 2019 conference will be held in San Francisco from November 19-22, 2019. To commemorate DreamForce, the blog will highlight a recently-issued Salesforce, Inc. patent. U.S. Patent No. 10,241,896 B2 (‘896), issued on March 26, 2019, for “Formation and Manipulation of Test Data in a Database System.” The inventor is Jameison Bear Martin of …
TechPat: U.S. Patent No. 10,313,638 B1: Halloween Edition
Halloween will be commemorated by a review of a creepy patent. U.S. Patent No. 10,313,638 B1 (‘638) issued on June 4, 2019, for “Image Creation Using Geo-Fence Data.” The inventors are Kalidas Yeturu of Chennai, India, and Howard Lee Huddleston, Jr., of Seattle, Washington. The applicant/assignee is Amazon Technologies, Inc., the e-commerce giant. Figure 1 …
NIST Seeking Comments on CRISPR Lexicon
On September 18, 2019, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Genome Editing Consortium (GEC) formally sought comments on genome editing, commonly called CRISPR, terminology in order to develop a standardized system of terms and definitions for the CRISPR research community. This is the first time the NIST has made overtures to develop a …
TechPat: Former Uber Self-Driving Leader Indicted for Trade Secrets Theft
The United States Attorney’s office in San Jose, California, recently indicted Uber Technologies, Inc.’s former autonomous driving car guru, Anthony Levandowski, with thirty-three counts of trade secrets theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§1832(a)-(d). The indictment was only released on August 27, 2019, after being unsealed by the federal district court judge presiding over the …