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The article discusses the effect of the mad patent disease and the role of the Patent Reform Act of 2009 and electronic engineers in curing it. It cites that a mad patent disease is a condition in which companies amassed patents but did little with them. It notes the fear of people on being charged with infringing patents or omitting art in patent application because of its emergence. Explanation on the function of the bill in limiting infringement and on the role of engineers is also offered.

The article reports on the patent reform efforts of the U.S. Congress, Supreme Court, and the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The PTO will hire several new patent examiners to cope with a backlog of patent applications. The proposed bill of Senators Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy aims to change the patent system from first-to-invent to first-to-file, limit damages and attorney fees in patent litigation, and limit court venues for patent cases.

Presents letters to the editor referencing articles and topics discussed in previous issues. "Decline and Fall?," which focused on the waning interest of the U.S. in science in general and computers in particular; "Patently Inferior," which discussed the patent condition for small businesses involved in proprietary software.

New Jersey-based voice/speech processing vendor iVoice is demanding retraction of ASR News' coverage of potential patent theft. Walt Tetschner produces ASR News and its accompanying e-newsletter, which tracks the latest developments in the speech recognition and text-to-speech marketplace. The issue involved iVoice filing for a patent on the Talking Pill Bottle, described in the patent application as "Methodology for Wirelessly Loading Over-the-Counter Medicine Containers With Voice Instructions Through Wireless Technology." INSET: ASR AA Challenge.

Focuses on the patenting process of computer industries in the U.S. Measures taken by Acacia Media Technologies to reprimand companies accessing digital video and audio over the Internet; Accounts on the lawsuits alleging patent infringement against 27 adult-entertainment companies; List of companies sending out patent-license solicitations. INSET: MADNESS IN METHODS? An eye on the U.S. Patent Office.

Reports on patents applied by software companies to protect their intellectual property. Patents applied by Shortpath Inc. for web portals regarding management of office buildings; Reasons given by companies to persue patents; Other methods to be used by companies to protect their intellectual property. INSETS: PROTECTION: Know the methods;TO-DO LIST: Five ways to protect your intellectual property.

Discusses the action taken by Nortel company to enforce patent portfolio in open architectures for board-level computers. Comments of several members of board-level computer makers on the licensing terms; Effects of Nortel's patent maneuvers in bus-board business; Companies that received patent-infringement letters from Nortel. INSET: Nortel pitches high-end telecom compute platform to sketical....

The article focuses on the patent system in the U.S. It states that the U.S. system draws on the 1623 Statute of Monopolies enacted by Parliament in England. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency that is part of the Department of Commerce that protects intellectual property. Two defenses against a charge of infringement are discussed.

The article discusses the efforts of RPX Corp. under John Amster to build an efficient market for information technology (IT) patents and protect its member companies from non-practicing patent acquirers. it notes that RPX, which buys patent rights that are considered as threats, has gained revenues to purchase patents for its members. Amster emphasizes that it also protects its members through its experts who monitor the secondary market for IT patents to gather early warning information.

The article focuses on the proposed patent reform in the U.S. It says that several companies agree with the reform for patent applications because of delays in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). It adds that even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce calls for the changes in the PTO. Despite the ways recommended by Q. Todd Dickinson, he says that the reform requires more money to expand and improve its staff, computers, and databases.

The article reports that U.S. courts and the Patent and Trademark Office express confusion and uncertainty over patent reform efforts. The House of Representatives legislative bill H.R.1908 aim to reduce patent suits. A table is presented that compares H.R.1908 and the Senate bill S.1145 in terms of provisions such as apportionment of damages, prior user rights, and enhanced rulemaking authority.

The article analyzes the efforts of Microsoft Corp. on patent claims against open source competitors in the U.S. It clarified that the other Linux users like those of Red Hat Inc. lack protection from patent claims. According to some, they are cross-licensing agreements with other technology companies like Novell Inc. Jim Zemlin, executive director of Linux Foundation stated, it has to be careful about what is starts because it does not know where it will end.

The article reports on the patent dispute between IBM Corp. and Amazon.Com Inc. It is inferred that IBM, as a patent holder, has donated 500 software patents to the open source community with a pledge that it would not enforce its license rights to the technologies. Protecting its intellectual property, it filed a patent infringement suit against an Internet retailer Amazon.Com Inc. because it claims that Amazon has built its business using IBM-developed technology and processes.

The article discusses issues concerning the product patents of several manufacturers. It was the real product of Patriot Scientific Corp., which spent nearly a decade trying unsuccessfully to establish a new microprocessor architecture. Patriot pared its operations to the bone once its strategies were clear and its portfolio was in place.

The article presents information about patent portfolios in the U.S. Among the technology companies with more than 50 U.S. patent awards in 2004, three Taiwanese companies ranked among the top 10 performers in percentage gains over their 2003 patent totals including Via Technologies Inc., Nanya Technology Corp. and AU Optronics Corp. BellSouth is one U.S. company that has benefited by taking the patent game more seriously, having formed an intellectual-property group in 1998. In 2002, the number of U.S. patent awards dipped for the first time in a decade, although applications increased overall.

This article focuses on the issue of intellectual property rights as faced by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM). A move by IBM Corp. last week toward a "patent commons" for software has rekindled a long-simmering debate about how best to manage intellectual property within the electronics industry. While IBM has come down on the side of patent pools, others think indemnification plans, prior-art repositories or even legislation are a better bet. So far, no route cleanly does it all. The news sparked hopes among some industry watchers that companies could collectively find a saner way of handling IP rights.

Reports that a patent granted to PalmChip Corp. covers the techniques used to implement on-chip computer processing unit (CPU) bus structures in nearly all modern system-on-chip designs in the U.S. On-chip interconnect structure for linking CPUs, memories and peripheral devices; Use of unidirectional buses with centralized memory controllers; Implications of the patent.

Focuses on an increase in the number of companies that are patenting their Internet applications. Major issue for information technology (IT) departments; Goal of attracting IT talent and venture capital; Britannica.com's plan to protect its database-search technology; Increase in Internet and software-related patent filings. INSET: COMPANIES BATTLE OVER PATENT CLAIMS.

Reports developments related to nanotechnology in the U.S. Increase in the number of companies with nanotechnology-related filings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; Launch of revolutionary golf ball by NanoDynamics; Production of new industrial coating with superior insulation protection and corrosion resistance by Industrial Nanotech.

The article presents a step-by-step guide to patent approval in the U.S. The first step is to check for the property rights to an invention. It is important to build a prototype before filing for an application which could help assure the presentability of the invention. Ways of locating patent similar to the product invented is presented in this article. A completed patent application packet includes application, declaration, letter of transmittal, check, small entity statement, and disclosure statement.

The article reports on the notoriety of Chinese manufacturers to imitate the designs of high-end branded manufacturers across the globe. It states that Linta URL president Giulio Tandura has found several imitated products being displayed at a leather goods exhibition in China. Accordingly, intellectual property lawyer Thomas Babel has explained about the lenient Chinese patent system that makes copying of innovations difficult to prove.

The article reports on the patent of technologies by companies, including Chicago, Illinois-based Ocean Tomo LLC and Smart Automotive System Engineering Inc., in order to market them as Intellectual Property (IP). Ocean Tomo has held two IP auctions, seeing increased success in both the amount of IP put up for sale and the amount bidders pay. President of Smart Automotive, Gary Burlak, indicated that his company is an IP developer.

Discusses the challenges facing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in meeting the demands of a high-technology era. All-time high annual patent filings; Examiners' effort to keep pace with complex, fast-moving fields ranging from genetics and microelectronics to nanotechnology and software; PTO funding for more examiners as well as new electronic search and examination tools; Rising backlog of pending patents and longer waiting times for patents to issue; Top U.S. patent recipients; Need for a stronger focus on patent quality.

In this article the author offers the insights of Gary Griswold, head of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, and author Pat Choate on the bill by the U.S. Congress on the Patent Reform Act of 2010. Griswold emphasizes that the leaders of patent reform in the Congress have successfully connected the differences in the key issues of the previous and present policy differences. Choate states that the bill challenges the validity of issued patents, and alters the federal rules on patency.

The article reports that Microchip Technology Inc. benefited from the mistake of Silicon Storage Technology Inc. (SST) to accept the offer of Prophet Equity LLC in November 2009. It states that Microchip will only pay 95 million dollars to SST out of the 275 million dollars transaction value since the former has 182 million dollars in cash on the latter's accounts. Moreover, Microchip will gain entry to new markets along with valuable patents and industry consolidation if it win the deal.

The article focuses on the claim of researchers at Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI, Troy, N.Y.) that vendors of light emitting diodes (LEDs) will have to consider licensing their patent-pending material to remain competitive. It notes that researchers say that technology advances could expand their use and that more LEDs are increasingly used for solid-state lighting. Comments form Fred Schubert of RPI's Smart Lighting Engineering Center are included.

The article evaluates the subscription patent service from Startup RPX Corp.

The article focuses on Harvard University researchers' demonstration of a plasmonic collimator that uses grooves etched directly into the semiconductor laser facet. Adopting the technique would let semiconductor lasers be downsized to a bare die without a lens. Harvard has applied a patent on the process. The university researchers and their counterparts at Hamamatsu Photonics hope to demonstrate electrically controlled polarization at laser beams for use in spintronics and quantum computing.

The article reports that Allied Security Trust I, which is a group of 11 high-technology companies, may point the way for the creation of more patent pools. The group wants to bring down the rising costs involved with patent litigation. This is accomplished by purchasing important patents as they come on the market.

The article describes the patents for phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) that Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Intel Corp., and Ovonyx applied for with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A PCRAM's memory cell is based on an element of phase-change material derived from chalcogenides. Patents from these companies describe solutions to PCRAM's technological challenges.

The article reports on the move of the U.S. Supreme Court to reshape the intellectual property legislation intended for the information technology industry. The initiative to modify the patent system aims to develop a more iterative and collaborative global business. It is also in response to the existing patent cases involving technology companies such as Verizon Communications Inc.'s lawsuit against Vonage and International Business Machine Corp.'s against Amazon.com Inc.

The article cites key findings from an annual report by the Patent and Trademark Office in fiscal year 2006 regarding delays in the granting of patents to new processors in the U.S. It includes a description of the process that goes with the evaluation of new processor technologies and the granting of patents for them.

The article reports that the changes to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE)patent protection did not resolve an electronic design automation (EDA) standards dispute on intellectual property concerns. The IEEE updated their policy in response to intellectual property disputes regarding the setting of standards. The new policy will require patent holders to disclose information they have on patents that are essential to the standard.

The article reports that intellectual property (IP) right providers are concerning the competitive ambitions of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC). TSMC, the foundry giant, is planning to expand its portfolios of internally developed semi-conductor intellectual property and "proven"third-party IP. TSMC has expanded its hard-W portfolio and libraries, memory compilers, phase-locked loops and standard cells.

The article reports on the plan of widening group of electronic companies in the U.S. to consolidate data center networks around an enhanced version of Ethernet that could support Fibre Channel. The plan is also expected to narrow the growth opportunities for Internet small computer system interface and Infiniband. However, some electronic companies have been cited to hinder the implementation of the concept, including the patent application of Cisco Systems Inc.

The article reports that Mentor Graphics Corp. has become entangled in the patent suit between Magma Design Automation Inc. and Synopsys Inc. Mentor received a subpoena from Synopsys demanding documents related to Mentor's request to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine two Magma patents under dispute.

The article reports on the proposals of the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (PTO) to limit the number of claims in a patent and the number of continuations that can be filed on an existing application. The PTO also would like to open the door to receiving information on prior art from third parties. It also reports on the suggestions of companies and inventors on how to solve the budget problems of the PTO. Then it reports on the counterproposal of the American Intellectual Property Law Association to change the reward system for patent examiners.

The article reports on the challenges of open-source code that involves patents in the U.S. Though not used against open-source users, International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are filing thousands of patents annually. According the vice president of SourceLabs Inc., The main thing to do next is to step up a patent fight. SourceLabs is a company which integrates open-source code stacks.

This article reports that Room Temperature Superconductors Inc. holds two U.S. patents on the technology of room temperature superconductivity and has product plans for using it. The company believes that polypropylene can behave as a superconductor at room temperature. In the industrial form of polypropylene, the side chains attached to the molecule's carbon backbone are arranged in a regular pattern. This geometry promotes a type of crystalline packing that makes the polymer very strong. In the atactic form, which can be produced by using too much catalyst when the polymer is forming, the side chains are arranged in a totally random pattern. CEO Mark Goldes first heard about the compound in 1991, when he saw an abstract of a paper by Grigorov claiming the demonstration of superconduction at room temperature in a polymer.

The article provides information on a proprietary business process method for determining a project's agility score proposed by David Hecksel, senior Java architect at Sun Microsystems. His patent is more of a blueprint for an application than for enforcing the use of agile practices. In the panel discussion he moderated at Software Development West conference 2005, a lively discussion of agility ensued among his panelists. The question-and-answer portion ranged far and deep, with unexpected tangents from audience ad experts into gender issues, people skills and software development versus university-taught computer science. But Hecksel also plugged his own patterns, peer reviewed by the Pattern Languages of Programming group founded by Ward Cunningham. The patterns cover methodology, methodology selection, team composition and management. But beyond the patterns, Hecksel's seeking a patent for a System and Method for Software Methodology Evaluation and Selection. It seems Sun is wading into business-method patent territory. Hecksel has also defined the Hecksel Agility Index, which appears in the as-yet-unapproved patent application as an Agility score determined by the project's people, process and technology.

The article focuses on top 10 growth leaders in U.S. patent awards for the year 2003-2004. Nanya Technology Corp.'s invention provides a leakage control circuit in MOS transistors, particularly for turning off MOS transistors in a DRAM. Molex's innovation includes high-speed mezzanine connector with conductive housing. Via Technologies Inc.'s patent covers a method and computer system for accessing initialization data stored in a boot ROM's memory space. BellSouth Intellectual Property's innovation includes fixed-broadband wireless data access service which provides shared wideband packet-switched data transport for high-speed data access.

This article reports that Intersil Corp. is among a number of vendors that have expanded their operational amplifier lines in recent months. The company says its new EL5367 triple amplifier breaks the 1-GHz barrier. Providing an optimal slew rate, the high-speed operational amplifier utilizes a proprietary, patent pending custom architecture architecture to isolate its triple amplifier.

Reports that the World Wide Web Consortium has asked U.S. federal officials to revoke a patent that threatens substantial economic and technical damage to the Web. Technology covered by the patent that enables a browser to call programs over the Internet to display streaming audio, video, advanced graphics and other content within a Web page; Impact of the patent to creators of Web pages and applications; Intellectual property protection.

Reports on the truce negotiated by Intel Corp. and Taiwan-based Via Technologies Inc. over a series of patent disputes. Pentium 4-based chip set license for Via Technologies; Elimination of Intel's risk of losing a patent fight relating to its processor business; History of the case.

Reports that Tensilica Corp. has claimed broad protection on the automatic generation of central processing unit hardware and compatible software development tools from an architectural description, based on two patents it received from the U.S. Patent Office. Likelihood of a debate between Tensilica and archrival ARC International PLC about the breadth of the patents.

Reports that LG Electronics' patent partners Hong Chang-Woo, An Jong-Hoe and Yeh Sang-Kuk are advising aspiring engineers to get over their fear of failure in patent development. Application of the patented 1xEV-DV-related forward-link packet data transmission technology in the company's prototyped mixed voice/Internet mobile phones and basestations; Success in creating and applying for patents; An's ongoing work on a signal-standardization patent for cdma2000 Technical Specification Group.

Reports on the plan of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to streamline its operations to reduce patent examinations. Details on the patent office's strategic plan; Total number of backlogged patent applications at PTO; Estimated number of electrical engineers being planned by the patent office to hire in 2002.

Reports on the efforts of Intel Corp. to protect its software with IA-64 architecture patents. Patents acquired by Intel; History of Intel's efforts to fend off software architecture cloners; Significance of Intel's strategy.

Focuses on the aid of public and private agencies to engineering innovators. Use of patent for protection of an innovation; Production of invention; Application of Murphy's law to inventing.

Offers excerpts from the European Patent Office's (EPO) 1994 Annual Report. Problems surrounding software patents; European Commission's requirements for a worldwide information and telecommunications infrastructure; Software piracy; Number of patents granted by the EPO for software-related inventions; Criteria used by national patent offices; Article 52 EPC.