• COMPANY

Free Enter Find v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Decided on 28.06.2010)

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board - Established as part of a series of accounting reform in the Serbanes Oxley Act Of 2002- Petitioner challenged the Board's Appointment as violating the Appointment Clause - District Court granted Summary Judgment to respondent -Whether Sarbanes-Oxley Act unconstitutional? - Whether the District Court had Jurisdiction?

Held, Sarbanes-Oxley Act empowers SEC to remove Board Members for 'good cause' but withdraws from the President any decision on whether that good cause exists. He can only review the determination. President is powerless to intervene except for 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.'

The District Court has Jurisdiction over these claims under 15 U.S.C. §78y. Any aggrieved party may challenge the Commissions' final order before the District Court.

• INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Bilski ET AL. v. Kappos, Under Secretary of Commerce For Intellectual Property And Director, Patent And Trademark Office

U.S. Supreme Court (Decided on 28.06. 2010)

Patent Application - Protection for claimed invention explaining how commodities buyers and sellers in the energy market can protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes - Patent examiner has rejected the application on the grounds that the invention is not implemented on a specific apparatus, merely manipulates an abstract idea, and solves a purely mathematical problem.

Held, instead that a claimed process is patent eligible if: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. Concluding that this "machine-or-transformation test" is the sole test for determining patent eligibility of a "process", the court applied the test and held that the application was not patent eligible. The judgment in reemphasizing that the "machine-or-transformation" test is not necessarily the sole test of patentability, the Court intends neither to de-emphasize the test's usefulness nor to suggest that many patentable processes lie beyond its reach.

Encyclopaedia Britannica v. Alpine

U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (Decided on 15.06.2010)

Patent infringement suit - patents relating to a multimedia database search system for retrieving textual and graphical information- District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants in declaring the patents invalid as anticipated by foreign patent application is affirmed as section 120 requires each application in the chain of priority to refer to the prior applications- The patents in suit cannot claim priority as the '955 application failed to specifically refer the earlier filed '917 application and did not claim priority to the '917 application -Whether the '955 application is entitled to claim?

Held, that § 120 requires each application in the chain of priority to refer to the prior applications. Because the '955 application failed to specifically reference the earlier filed '917 application, it is not entitled to the priority date of the '917 application under § 120. Because the '955 application did not claim priority to the '917 application, the patents in suit cannot claim priority to the '917 application through the '955 application. In light of our statutory interpretation, there remain no factual disputes regarding anticipation. Therefore, summary judgment was properly granted.

Penguin Group (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Buddha

U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, (Decided on 15.06.2010)

Copyright infringement - District Court dismissed action - Lack of personal jurisdiction under New York's Long-Arm Statute - The Second Circuit deemed the situs of injury of the case by determining long-arm jurisdiction and the location of the infringing action - Certified the Appeal - Whether jurisdiction was ultimately found to be appropriate in New York State?

Held, in copyright infringement case Court should invite and expand the jurisdiction as it deem appropriate for the purposes of determining long-arm jurisdiction under N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 302(a)(3)(ii), the location of the infringing action or the residence or location of the principal place of business of the copyright holder.