Anderson

Chinese acquisitions of companies abroad have been a contentious issue for at least a decade, with business and state security concerns often intertwined. The result has been that potential Chinese purchasers have received less than a cordial welcome in many circumstances. The question that was raised in a piece that appeared in last month’s The Economist (“Better than barbarians: Chinese acquisitions abroad”) is whether this is changing. The focus of the piece was on ChemChina and the manner by which it has expanded through foreign acquisitions (including most notably the deal to acquire the Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta for $43 billion dollars). The article speculated on the reasons for the increasing interest of Chinese companies to go abroad: (i) President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is an incentive to “park assets abroad” (but “there are easier and quieter ways to get yuan through China’s porous currency controls”); (ii) Investment opportunities are drying up ...

Wow!   Talk about a big day for U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California.   First, the Federal Circuit issues an opinion in the famous U.S. Apple v. Samsung case reversing the judgment of infringement of the 647 patent, and the judgment of no invalidity as to the 721 patent and the 172 patent.   That essentially knocks out the over $119,000,000 judgment.   Apple was awarded $98,690,625 for infringement of claim 9 of the 647 patent.   Apple was awarded $2,990,625 for infringement of the 721 patent and $17,943,750 for infringement of the 172 patent.   I found the obviousness discussion of the 721 patent particularly interesting.   I have to say that this is one of the cases where I think hindsight bias can play such a huge role with essentially a combination invention (but is it really a combination invention?).   The 721 patent covers the slide to lock feature of the iPhone.   Yes, it appears that the featu...

Israel as a high-tech and innovation powerhouse has been one of the leading economic success stories of the last two decades. Reference is frequently made to the number of lucrative exits by Israel start-ups and the disproportionate number of Israel-based companies that have been listed on the NASDAQ in New York. The tale of Israeli high tech became the centerpiece of an improbable 2009 bestseller by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Start-up Nation , which sought to account for the reasons why the country seemed to live and breathe innovation. The book reached canonical status among the entrepreneur community world-wide. This blogger remembers lecturing about the book in Singapore before more than one hundred people (“what there was to learn and not learn, from the book”); everyone in the audience seemed to have a copy of the book and know its contents nearly by heart. However, those closer to the Israeli hi-tech scene have been aware for some time that there have been cracks in the “s...

Like I am sure many, I was shocked to find out on Saturday that Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died.   I felt a number of conflicting emotions on hearing the news.   For one, I admired the general thrust of some of Justice Scalia’s intellectual property law opinions.   As co-blogger Neil Wilkof noted in an excellent post on the IPKat blog , the Walmart v. Samara Brothers opinion certainly stands out.   One of my favorite parts of the opinion is how Justice Scalia noted the argument of counsel essentially that shifting the analysis to a determination of whether something is product design or packaging would lead to difficult factual questions.   Justice Scalia, skillfully avoiding the consumer motivation trap in trademark law, simply basically says, “fine,” now we will presume product design in close cases.   I imagine him giving that famous Scalia gesture while creating that presumption and favoring competition over expansive and potentially vague intel...

In a fascinating story published by the Sacramento Bee authored by Cathie Anderson titled, “ UC Davis Cancer Researcher Weighs Risk of Leaving Campus Against Reward of Cutting-Edge Startup ,” Ms. Anderson discusses some of the pros and cons of leaving a researcher position at a public university to pursue a high level position at a startup.   The article discusses how Mr. Degregorio, a UC Davis researcher, has been involved in the development of promising drugs to address cancer in the immunotherapy field.    Mr. Degregorio is receiving pressure from his investors in the company and his research partners to completely disengage from the university and essentially work full-time for the startup.   Apparently, the pressure stems from a desire to have Mr. Degregorio fully invested in the startup and fully assuming the associated risk.   From Mr. Degregorio’s, who is 60 years old, position, he has apparently worked long enough to retire from UC Davis with a full p...

Our friend at Oxfirst , Roya Ghafele , has let us know about another timely webinar sponsored by Oxfirst.   Dr. Karachalios, Managing Director of IEEE , and Michael Lindsay , Partner at Dorsey LLP will present “Review of IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Patent Policy”.   The talk will cover: IEEE-SA's Attempt to Provide Greater Clarity in its Patent Policy was triggered by how the landscape was evolving (recommendations from regulators; observations by the courts; IEEE's own experiences). This led to IEEE's re-examination of its standards patent policy, and the resultant policy updates aim at providing greater clarity to all stakeholders.   Dr. Karachalios’ biography states: “Dr. Karachalios is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership and direction to IEEE-SA and for ensuring its consistent and positive differentiation as a standards body. Prior to that he served the EPO in various functions.”   Mr. Lindsay’s biography states: “Michael L...

In a long running patent dispute generally involving internet related processes, VirnetX has been awarded over $600,000,000 against Apple by an East Texas jury.   After reviewing the history concerning the patents in suit in Westlaw, I have to say that this is quite a convoluted matter.   It looks like the stakes are high, so all of the litigation and related activity is presumably justified.   PR Newswire notes that VirtnetX previously was awarded $358 million, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated that award.   Notably, the allegedly infringing technology was Apple’s “modified VPN On Demand, iMessage and FaceTime services.”   East Texas juries fail to disappoint.   Importantly, Professor Dennis Crouch at the Patently Obvious blog notes: "Interesting, after the huge verdict bump, the market cap for the company is $250.9M. That may be about right after paying for fees, costs, and taxes." (Hat tip to BNA and Professor Dennis Cro...