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Valence Technology prevailed in today’s decision by the Opposition Board of the European Patent Office (EPO) to revoke the European Patent granted to the University of Texas (UT) relating to lithium metal phosphates. The decision revoking the Goodenough et. al. UT European Patent eliminates any risk that UT could assert the European Patent against Valence’s proprietary lithium iron magnesium phosphate cathode material, which is a critical material for the next generation of electric vehicle batteries.

Valence had initiated opposition proceedings in the EPO on July 27, 2005, against the grant of the European Patent held by the University of Texas alleging that it lacked novelty. As a result of today’s decision, European Patent number 0904607, originally issued to UT, has been revoked by the EPO in its entirety. The decision to revoke the patent can be appealed by UT.

“Today’s decision by the European Patent Office was an important one for our company,” said Robert L. Kanode, president and CEO of Valence Technology, Inc. “By revoking the European Patent, the cloud of any possible patent infringement claim under the UT European Patent has been removed affirming Valence’s unrestricted right to market its unique, patented lithium phosphate powder batteries in Europe. The decision will allow us to more fully pursue European OEMs, who are the world leaders in electric vehicles. We have already established the proven performance and supply capability for our innovative battery solutions, and now our unrestricted right to market our proprietary lithium phosphate based energy storage solutions in Europe has been confirmed.”

Wal-Mart has has reached a settlement of a wage and hour class action against Wal-Mart in Minnesota captioned Braun et al. v. Wal-Mart, Inc. et al.

The class includes approximately 100,000 current and former hourly associates who worked at Wal-Mart Stores and Sam’s Clubs locations in Minnesota from September 11, 1998 through November 14, 2008, and the settlement provides for payment by Wal-Mart of up to $54.25 million, including a substantial payment to the State of Minnesota. Also, as part of the settlement, Wal-Mart has agreed to maintain various electronic systems, surveys, and notices that will further compliance with wage and hour policies and Minnesota laws. The settlement is subject to approval by the trial court, and the exact amount paid to class members will depend on the court’s approval as well as on the number and amount of claims that are submitted by class members.

All parties believe this settlement is fair and reasonable for all concerned. “We are satisfied with this settlement, gratified that these hourly workers will now be paid after seven years of litigation, and happy that the State of Minnesota will receive the largest wage and hour civil penalty in its history,” said Justin Perl, of the Minneapolis law firm of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, co-lead counsel for the class. Wal-Mart spokesperson David Tovar added, “Wal-Mart is pleased that the court in Minnesota ruled in its favor on many claims. Our policies are to pay every associate for every hour worked and to make rest and meal breaks available for associates. Any manager who violates these policies is subject to discipline, up to and including termination. We remain committed to providing good jobs with real career opportunity to the 1.45 million U.S. associates who choose to work for Wal-Mart and serve our customers every day.”

FreePatentsOnline.com has launched an informational site, www.citepatents.com, to help bloggers, journalists and others easily reference patent information, and to provide a free patent search box for adding to websites with a single mouse click.

Due to an impartial, peer-reviewed nature, patents are an important, frequently cited source of highly detailed, accurate technical information. Patents are uniquely powerful in citation; any writer on the web who refers to a patent with a hyperlink is footnoting a highly-credible document.

“Across the international spectrum, tens of millions of patents now exist, going back hundreds of years,” said Erik Reeves, CEO of FreePatentsOnline. “It is a profoundly broad database of how things work, from every continent. Citing a patent with FPO is easy, because the FPO URL taxonomy is crystal clear.”

For example, RIM, the firm behind the BlackBerry, may have avoided its patent infringement lawsuit and settlement payment of $612.5 million to Annandale, Virginia-based NTP by simply searching CitePatents.com or FreePatentsOnline.com for an electronic mail system with RF communications to mobile processors patent. The result is http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6317592.html.

“I always reference FPO when I cite patents,” said Blaise Mouttet of the TinyTechIP blog. “They have the best interface and features in the inventions-database space, and as soon as they made their search capability available outside their site, I placed it on my blog right away, as a service to my readers.”

At CitePatents.com, the html behind the FPO SearchBox can be grabbed and placed on a website or blog. Also, CitePatents.com has information on the differences between patents and patent applications, patent numbering, and the taxonomy of a patent document.

I prefer to report about when patents are utilized properly as opposed to simply being the focus of lawsuits, and that is what occurred this past week.

Frontier Communications and Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., headquartered in Los Angeles, announced today the settlement of patent litigation between the parties. As part of the settlement, Frontier Communications Corporation has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for a nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications.

The patents held by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. cover a wide range of interactive technology including automated forms of: customer service, prescription refill services, securities trading, merchandising, prepaid services, telephone conferences, registration, home shopping, as well as functions involved in securing information from databases by telephone, interactive cable transactions, and various other uses of toll free and local numbers.

Ronald A. Katz stated, “We welcome Frontier Communications Corporation to the group of leading telecommunications companies who have purchased a license under this portfolio.”

Mr. Katz is the named inventor on a large number of patents primarily in the fields of telecommunications and computing. He also formed Telecredit, Inc., the nation’s first on-line real time credit and check cashing authorization system, and was awarded a patent as co-inventor of that technology.

When we talk about patents it is usually referencing a patent infringement lawsuit, however I thought (given the Holiday Season), that it would be great to talk about what happens when patents are utilized prior to a lawsuit!

General Patent Corporation (GPC) announced today on behalf of its client, Digital Technology Licensing LLC (DTL), that it has licensed a key cell phone patent to Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB (Sony Ericsson).

DTL owns U.S. Patent No. 5,051,799 titled “Digital Output Transducer” (Patent), which is an essential patent for Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) codec and other cellular communication standards. The patented technology is also used to assure backward compatibility of cell phone handsets and base stations. Other applications of this patented technology include Bluetooth headsets.

“We are very pleased to grant a license to Sony Ericsson,” said Paul Lerner, GPC’s Sr. Vice President and General Counsel. “We will continue with our efforts to license this key patent and to vigorously enforce the intellectual property rights of our client,” he concluded.

Pioneer Corporation announced today that a jury in the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Texas has reached a verdict in favor of Pioneer Corporation in a patent infringement suit against Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. and two affiliated companies (“Samsung”). The jury awarded damages totaling US$59.3 million to Pioneer. Pioneer commenced this lawsuit in the fall of 2006, and claimed that plasma televisions manufactured by Samsung infringe two patents held by Pioneer concerning plasma display technology.

This significant decision in favor of Pioneer represents recognition of the strength of Pioneer’s intellectual property rights in the field of plasma displays. Pioneer released the world’s first 50” high-definition plasma television for consumer use in 1997, and the world’s first 50” full high definition plasma display for consumer use in 2006. Pioneer will continue its basic stance of protecting its intellectual property rights.

How valuable are patents?  Well just ask Carlson Wireless Technologies.  The company announced that they are receiving an unexpected amount of interest in their sale of three patents at The Ocean Tomo Live IP Auction in Chicago on October 30. US Patents 5,959,982; 6,693,890; and 5,745,480 are all directed to the field of telecommunication and will be offered as Lots 59, 60 and 61, respectively.

“We have had an unexpected number of inquiries into this sale which is very encouraging. This is an exciting time for the IP marketplace and Carlson Wireless,” said Jim Carlson, founder and CEO. “With WiMax, 3G and 4G markets holding their own in these uncertain times, interest in Intellectual Property (IP) like this seems to be increasing.” This assessment is buoyed by the very recent sale of wireless IP by Conexant Systems Inc. of Newport Beach CA for approximately $15 million.

“There are a lot of very cash rich institutions out there who are not interested in investing in equities at the moment, but which have money to burn. This presents the IP market with a tremendous opportunity,” writes Joff Wild recently in his IAM Magazine blog where he discusses the potential ups and downs of IP investment in the current financial climate. “We could be about to enter a defining period in the development of the IP market place.”

The broad application of the WiMax and 3G standards to these patents seems to be fueling the interest. A forward citation analysis found a long list of companies holding patents that cite one or more of the Carlson patents to be auctioned. This includes companies such as, Alcatel-Lucent, Broadcom Corporation, California Institute of Technology, Cisco Systems, Inc., CommScope Inc., DDi Corporation, DirecTV Group Inc., Honeywell International, Inc., International Business Machines Corp., L-3 Communications Corporation, LG Electronics, Inc., LM Ericsson Telephone Co., LSI Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Nokia Corporation, Nokia Siemens Networks Oy, Nortel Networks Corp., Phonex Corporation, QUALCOMM Incorporated, Qwest Communications International Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, Sprint Spectrum L.P., Summit Wireless, LLC, Tachyon Networks Incorporated and Texas Instruments Inc.

Louis Vuitton announced that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has awarded the company $3,000,000 in statutory damages and over $500,000 in attorney’s fees and expenses in its lawsuit against LY USA, Inc., Marco Leather Goods Ltd., Coco USA Ltd. and the principals Chong Lam and Joyce Chan (the “Defendants”) on a joint and several basis, for trademark counterfeiting.

In August of 2008, the Court granted Louis Vuitton’s motion for summary judgment and entered a permanent injunction, having found the Defendants liable for “willful and intentional” counterfeiting and infringement of five of Louis Vuitton’s trademarks. Here is one of the Defendants’ products found to be infringing by the Court and the manufacture and sale of which is now banned by the injunction:

In its October 3, 2008 ruling on the damages for counterfeiting, the Court stated that the Defendants’ failure to produce documents on sales and profits and their “many attempts to register marks closely derived from those of luxury brands…”…invites “an inference of a massive counterfeiting enterprise.” In justifying the size of the award, the Court found the goal of deterring similar conduct by others requires “a substantial award,” and that the Defendants have shown by their willfulness in obstructing the litigation, engaging in discovery abuses, and violating Louis Vuitton’s trademark rights that “a slight damage award is unlikely to deter them from continuing their illegal business.”

Nathalie Moulle-Berteaux, Intellectual Property Director of Louis Vuitton, said, “We are extremely pleased that the Court recognized both the importance of protecting what it called our ‘valuable’ and ‘famous’ trademarks, and the necessity of setting damages at a level that would serve as a deterrent against future illegal counterfeiting and infringement by these Defendants and other similar enterprises. The level of damages awarded by this Court should sound a clear warning to counterfeiters around the world that the U.S. legal system will impose serious financial consequences on those who bring their illegal products and actions to the U.S. Louis Vuitton is gratified by the U.S. Court’s support of our ongoing efforts to combat counterfeiting, and we hope that awareness of the substantial financial penalties at risk will stop current and potential counterfeiters in their tracks.”