Patently-O Bits and Bytes No. 30

• Standard Setting & Patents: The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has overturned an FTC monopolization ruling against Rambus.  The FTC had found that Rambus deceptively failed to disclose its patentable DRAM technology to the JEDEC standard-setting body. On appeal, the DC court found no evidence of competitive harm and a lack of evidence that Rambus violated disclosure policies of the standard-setting body. File Attachment: rambusdecision.pdf.
• Markush Update: The PTO has proposed new Markush rules (limiting the use of Markush groups in claims). Recently, the office published a “supplementary notice” regarding the reasons for and impact of the rules. [LINK] The office has also posted comments received from the public. [LINK] The comments include a paper from Hal Wegner arguing that generic claim groupings have been the law since Ex parte Eagle was decided in 1870. [LINK]
• Mediation: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has an ongoing mediation program. In Q1 of 2008, the program completed 20 patent appeal mediations resulting in 9 settlements. (26 other mediations are still ongoing). [LINK]
• Blog Meister: Publisher & Author, Dr. Jeremy Phillips published an interesting article in the recent WIPO Magazine all about IP Blogging. Phillips heads the UK Patent Blog IP KAT. [Read the Article]
• Community Design: IP Kat has a recent article on a patent dispute involving spiky balls.
• Prevacid Patent: A Delaware District Court has upheld Takeda’s patents covering Prevacid. [Barkoff]