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 …
Collecting Royalties Indicative of Authorship, not Work for Hire
On August 21, 2019, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in an interesting example of what is deemed “work for hire,” as defined by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §201(b), in Morricone Music Inc. v. Bixio Music Group Ltd..[1] Ennio Morricone is the late Italian composer of several musical film scores, which …
CannabIP: U.S. Patent No. 10,334,796 B2
U.S. Patent No. 10,334,796 B1 issued on July 2, 2019, for “Methods and Systems of Cultivation,” to inventors Eric Speidell and Kyle Speidel of Denver, Colorado. The applicant/assignee is MJ Brain Bank, LLC, of Denver, Colorado. Figure 2 illustrates the basic algorithm of the claimed invention: This is a utility patent, specified in 35 …
PlantIP: PVPs for Hemp Currently Processed by PVPO
Patent, copyright, and trademark are the three most common and well-known IPs. However, there are many other IPs. Three types of IPs protecting new plant varieties, or plant breeder’s rights, are utility patents, plant patents under 35 U.S.C. §161, and plant variety protection certificates under 7 U.S.C. §2321. Utility patents are issued for new plant …
CannabIP: U.S. Patent No. 10,279,000 B1
U.S. Patent No. 10,279,000 B1 (‘000) issued on May 7, 2019, for “Method for Treating Cannabis Induced Anxiety.” It was issued to inventor Mark Hetherington, of Saskatoon, Canada and Jason Green, of Birch Hills, Canada. The applicantassignee is Canopy Growth Corporation, of Smith Falls, Canada. The specification discloses several embodiments focused around treatment of anxiety …
Garage Door Tech Not Patent-Eligible
On August 21, 2019, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in The Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Techtronic Inds. Co.,[1] that Chamberlain’s U.S. Patent No. 7,224,275 (‘275) directed to wireless communications technology for operating a movable barrier (i.e., garage door opener) was patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101. The ‘275 patent is …
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 …
Fed Circuit Watch: Claim Construction Before Patent-Eligibility Analysis
There have been several patent-eligibility rulings by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this year, but on August 16, 2019, the Fed Circuit held that claim construction in-dispute must be resolved before patent-eligibility under 35 U.S.C. §101 can be analyzed, in MyMail, Ltd. v. ooVoo, LLC.[1] The somewhat circuitous procedural aspects of this …
CannabIP: U.S. Patent No. 10,258,601 B1
U.S. Patent No. 10,258,601 B1 (‘601) issued on April 16, 2019, for “Vaporizable Cannabinoid Compositions.” It was issued to applicant/inventor Stephen C. Perry, of Norwood, Massachusetts. The specification discloses the composition of the vaporizable cannabis solution disclosed as comprising various Markush groups, including different formulations of the Cannabis plant, cannabinoids, bioactive ingredients, cannabinomimetics, and fatty …
Fed Circuit Watch: Valuable Contribution Is Not Necessarily Patent-Eligible
In a strange ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on July 29, 2019, although publicly released on August 9, 2019, in Genetic Veterinary Scis., Inc. v. Laboklin GmbH & Co KG,[1] the Fed Circuit found that in spite of the claimed invention’s “valuable contribution” to the veterinary sciences, it remained outside …