Video software developer Gotuit Media has sued Microsoft, claiming that its Silverlight multimedia software infringes several of the company's patents.

Gotuit Media filed the suit on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, claiming that Silverlight infringes on three Gotuit patents, which cover ways of making videos searchable on the Internet.

Released last year, Silverlight is Microsoft's alternative to the Flash and QuickTime multimedia formats. Heavily promoted by Microsoft, it lets Windows users watch video or animated graphics through their browsers.

Gotuit sells software that lets users add text data to video clips, making it possible to search and sort through videos for the parts they want. The software has been used on several high-profile Web sites including those of Sports Illustrated and the National Hockey League.

In court filings, Gotuit says Silverlight infringes on its patents because it too gives users a way to enhance video with "metadata tags in order to enable video search and navigation and provide a personalized viewing experience."
"Microsoft has infringed and is still infringing the patents," Gotuit says in its complaint.

The company cites Microsoft's upcoming on-demand video coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on NBCOlympics.com as infringing behavior because this Web site uses Silverlight to tag video and make it searchable.
The suit seeks an injunction preventing Microsoft from using this technology and asks the court to award damages and legal fees.

Founded in 2000, Gotuit counts Motorola and venture capital firms Highland Capital Partners and Atlas Venture among its investors.

The Woburn, Massachusetts, company's outside counsel, Spencer Hosie, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Reached Thursday, a Microsoft representative was unable to comment on the suit.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

Research In Motion won a delay in a patent-infringement case filed by Visto regarding wireless e-mail technology.

The trial was scheduled to begin next Monday in Marshall, Texas, but the judge said a postponement was warranted until the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office re-examined the four disputed patents.

In the order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham said a delay until the patent review is complete "is more likely to streamline the issues for trial than it would in the usual case."

RIM had filed for the stay in April, and it has agreed not to use the information in the review when the trial is held. It also agreed not to file other requests with the Patent Office for new reviews.

Visto produces software for companies such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Sprint Nextel that competes with RIM's BlackBerry e-mail and calendar products.

In 2006, it filed a lawsuit claiming that RIM was using Visto's wireless e-mail technology without a license. Visto had asked for unspecified damages and for RIM's network to be shut down.

RIM denies it has infringed on Visto's patents, and it countersued to try and invalidate three of Visto's patents. The maker of the BlackBerry line of smartphones said that the disputed patents should not have been granted because they don't contain new inventions.

On Thursday, the Patent Office validated 21 of claims of a Visto patent that RIM had challenged. The patent involves technology for syncing e-mail between a LAN server and a mobile device. The patent, No. 7,039,679, was filed in 2003 and was granted in 2006.

Both companies are not strangers to the courtroom. Visto has been in similar patent disputes with Seven Networks and Microsoft, while RIM was ordered to pay NTP $612.5 million for infringement in 2006.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

William Gallion enters the Federal Courthouse in Covington, Ky., June 21, 2007. (Credit: AP/Ed Reinke)

This just in from Covington, Kentucky: After about six weeks of trial and 50 hours of jury deliberation, a mistrial was declared this afternoon in the trial of the two remaining Fen Phen defendants — Shirley Cunnigham and William Gallion. On Tuesday, the jury acquitted the third lawyer-defendant, Melbourne Mills.

“We were so hopeful that we were going to be acquitted,” Shirley Cunningham’s wife, Pat Cunningham, told the Law Blog this afternoon. “We do believe that after eight weeks of trial and eight days of deliberation there was plenty of reasonable doubt. I still maintain that the government did not prove its case. They gave away immunity like it was candy. And everything that was presented was refuted.” (Mrs. Cunningham, before her retirement, was a human resources administrator in the Nashville public school system. Now she owns and breeds race horses.)

Cunningham, Gallion and Mills were on trial in federal court for allegedly bilking their clients out of $65 million of a $200 million settlement over alleged injuries caused by the diet drug Fen Phen.



Shirley Cunningham Jr. enters the Federal Courthouse in Covington, Ky. , June 21, 2007. (Credit: AP/Ed Reinke)

A jury of seven women and five men told U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman they were “hopelessly deadlocked.” According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, lawyers for defendants Cunningham and Gallion immediately asked Judge Bertelsman to lower the bond of their clients, who have been at the Boone County jail since August. Cunningham’s bond is $45 million, and Gallion’s bond is $52 million.

“I think this case has a much larger agenda than was presented,” continued Mrs. Cunningham. “I don’t believe it was just about my husband and the defendants, but that plaintiffs’ lawyers are truly on trial. It’s a bad verdict for people who will not be able to afford representation. Because clearly if you look at this case, my husband and his partner were able to get their clients more money than they ever would’ve gotten in the national settlement.”

In a sign that Judge Bertelsman is up to date on fugitive news, he denied the defendants’ bond request, citing an earlier claim that the defendants posed a risk that they would move the allegedly ill-gotten gains offshore and flee to a country with no extradition treaty. Instead, Bertelsman ordered a retrial within 70 days.

“If the government decides to retry it — and it looks like they are — we’ll be back up here,” Cunningham’s lawyer, Tallahassee-based Stephen Dobson, told the Law Blog. “But from a defense standpoint, if the jury deliberated for eight days and can’t reach a verdict, it seems like that’s reasonable doubt in and of itself.

We placed a call to the U.S. Attorneys office in Kentucky and will let you know if we hear back.

Otherwise, have a fun and safe holiday weekend!

For many summer associates, this holiday weekend will mark the halfway point of their foray into law-firm life. Not enough billables logged — yet — to litigate a case or negotiate a deal. But, certainly, six weeks is plenty of time for the sharp students lining the halls of the country’s elite firms to glean something of what full-time employment is like.



Mark Harris, left, and Alec Guettel founded Axiom, a new breed of law firm.

Perhaps all the indicators are rosy. Or, perhaps, you’ve watched as your associate mentor is repeatedly pulled out of summer events to attend to a matter that he or she bemoans. Perhaps you’ve found yourself working for a partner whom you were told to avoid at all costs. And now you’re wondering, hmm, what are the alternatives to life at [firm name here]?

So please, tell us, Loyal Summer Associate LB Reader, what’s your takeaway? We ask because today we’re introducing a new column by the LB’s very own Ashby Jones. It’s called Legal Beat, and will appear, from time to time, in the WSJ’s Marketplace section. In Jones’s inaugural column, he looks at Axiom Global, an organization that offers a stable of some 220 “experienced and often-pedigreed attorneys to companies as needed, frequently at discounts to law-firm rates.”

Mark Harris, the 38-year-old law-firm veteran who co-founded Axiom, says he had his eureka moment when, as a young associate at Davis Polk, he glimpsed a client bill for a case he was working on. “It was only February, and already we’d billed an amount equal to my salary for the year,” he says. He soon realized that every dollar that he billed for the rest of the year would, in effect, either go to defray overhead expenses or into the pockets of the law firm’s partners. “The model seemed broken to me,” said Harris.

So Harris set out to attract law-firm-trained lawyers who were willing to relinquish prestige and partner tracks for temporary assignments with corporate clients. The lawyers are employed full-time by Axiom and receive benefits — but no pay — between assignments. They join Axiom to create time to explore alternative careers, or to spend more time with family. Robyn Rahbar, for an example, an eight-year Simpson Thacher vet, wanted to spend more time with her children and through Axiom currently works about 20 hours a week.

A Cravath alumn, Joe Risico, recently finished his first engagement at Axiom, a nine-month stint doing transactional work at Goldman Sachs. “I’d had my nose to the grindstone at Cravath for about five years,” says Mr. Risico, “I wanted to chill out and try something different.” The money at Axiom, according to Riscio, is comparable to what a sixth- or seventh-year attorney makes at Cravath — minus the hefty annual bonus.

Sound good, summers? Here’s the catch: Getting a job with Axiom isn’t necessarily easier than landing an associateship at Cravath. While Harris is confident that firms “are likely to continue making lawyers unhappy for years to come,” he also says that, despite the steady flow of associates in exile, it’s tough to find lawyers who fit Axiom’s bill. Harris says that, for every 100 lawyers who apply, Axiom hires one.

Over the last year, Loyal Law Blog readers have read a lot of bad news about Ave Maria School of Law. (Examples of professor and student defections and related lawsuits, as well as problems the school had selling naming rights to its new building can be found here, here, here and here )

Now we have a dash of good news about the Catholic law school that will soon move from Michigan to Florida. (Hat tip: ATL) The American Bar Association has told the school that it’s in compliance with a standard that requires the school “maintains conditions adequate to attract and retain competent faculty” and remains on the list of ABA-approved law schools, according to a school-wide email sent by acting Dean Eugene Milhizer. Last September then-Dean Bernard Dobranski received a letter from the ABA that said the group had “reason to believe” the school, which is set to move to Florida in 2009, isn’t in compliance with that standard.

How did the saga begin? In 2006 the ABA dispatched a fact-finder to the school, founded in 2000 by Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, after a then-majority of the faculty sent a formal complaint to the ABA alleging that Dobranski excluded them “from any meaningful role in deciding the propriety of a relocation,” intimidated faculty members into not openly opposing the relocation, and prevented faculty from participating in major parts of the school’s education program, among other things. Last year several dissident professors were either terminated or denied tenure, and then filed a lawsuit.

Ave Maria still needs to receive “acquiescence” from the ABA to retain its accreditation upon making the move to Naples, Florida, near Monaghan’s new Catholic town, also named Ave Maria.

The game of life is hard to play
I’m gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I’ll someday lay
So this is all I have to say. — from “Suicide is Painless,” by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman



Samuel Israel III, the former CEO of Bayou, arrives at Manhattan federal court for his sentencing, April 14, 2008. (Credit: Associated Press/ Louis Lanzano)


For Samuel Israel III there will be no parties in Namibia or beaches in São Tomé. In fact, Israel, the hedge-fund-CEO-turned-felon-turned- fugitive who disappeared on the day he was to report to prison for a 20-year sentence, apparently got no further than the next state. Israel has surrendered to police in Massachusetts, the Justice Department said this morning. Here’s the AP report.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, said that Israel, 48, is in federal custody.

On June 9, Israel’s SUV was found abandoned on a bridge in New York’s Westchester County with the words “suicide is painless” scrawled in the dust on the hood — about 90 minutes before he was to report to prison in Massachusetts. Israel’s girlfriend, Debra Ryan, was arrested late last month and charged with helping him flee authorities.

Israel was sentenced in April after pleading guilty in September 2005 to conspiracy, investment-adviser fraud and other charges in a scheme to defraud Bayou investors out of more than $400 million. Two other former Bayou execs, including former Bayou CFO Daniel Marino, also pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the matter. Marino is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Arkansas.

A number of technology heavyweights trying to reduce the risk of costly patent-infringement suits Monday launched a trust to try to buy those patents that they deem most important to their businesses.

Members of the Allied Security Trust include Cisco, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Sun Microsystems, Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, and Verizon Communications. The group is hoping to work together to reduce their exposure to lawsuits filed by nontechnology companies that buy patents in order to extract licensing fees from others, as well as suits filed by technology companies that buy and enforce patents.

While the trust is open to anyone who wants to join, the price tag limits membership to larger companies. While declining to give exact numbers, Allied Security Trust CFO Jonathan Brandl said the first year's initiation and annual fee would be "south of $500,000." In addition, each member has to put up $5 million, which is placed in escrow for patent purchases.

Patent litigation is on the rise, and the tech industry has asked Congress to reform the process of obtaining patents. Lawmakers, however, have yet to agree on how to implement patent reform to curb frivolous and expensive infringement suits.

While Congress struggles with the issue, the trust is an example of how the tech giants are proactively trying to find relief on their own. "The companies have founded one of many solutions to maintain some kind of freedom of operation and avoid the cost of tremendously costly patent lawsuits or assertions," Brandl told InformationWeek.

The trust's job is to go out and try to buy patents that its members have expressed interest. For example, if two or three members say they are interested in a particular patent, then the trust would offer to buy it from the patent holder, and the cost would be deducted from those companies' escrow accounts.

Purchased patents would be licensed to the interested trust members for the lifetime of the patent, which would then be sold or, if no one was interested in buying it, donated to a university or some other organization. Such used patents would have considerably less value in the marketplace.
The trust does not intent to hold any patents or to get into the licensing business, Brandl said. "The intent is to acquire licenses on a cost-share basis, not to hold on to them."

Companies that make a business buying patents and then seeking licensing fees are often referred to as "patent trolls" in the industry. One case that sent shivers through the industry was patent-holding company NTP's suit against Research In Motion. The lawsuit threatened to shut down RIM's popular BlackBerry e-mail service, until RIM agreed in 2006 to pay NTP $612.5 million, four years after a federal jury had sided with NTP.

In a recent high-profile case, computer makers Acer, Apple, Dell, and HP were sued last week for violating four patents held by Saxon Innovations, an intellectual property licensing company.

The call for patent reform has gone beyond the tech industry. Companies in financial services and manufacturing also are seeking action from lawmakers, as well as legal scholars, economists, consumer and public interest organizations, and government institutions. Currently, the Patent Reform Act, a bill championed by Google and other tech companies, remains stalled in the Senate.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury

The European Commission has introduced a settlement procedure for cartels which will allow the Commission to settle cartel cases through a simplified procedure. Under this procedure, parties, having seen the evidence in the Commission file, choose to acknowledge their involvement in the cartel and their liability for it. In return for this acknowledgement, the Commission can reduce the fine imposed on the parties by 10%. Settlements aim to simplify the administrative proceedings and could reduce litigation before the European Courts in cartel cases. This will in turn free Commission resources to pursue other cases. The Commission has analysed the 51 contributions received during the public consultation launched on 26th October 2007 (see IP/07/1608) and has revised the package in consultation with the Member States' competition authorities. The legislative package consists of a Commission Regulation together with a Commission Notice (the "settlement notice") explaining the new system in detail. The settlements package will enter into force on the day of its publication in the EU Official Journal.
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes commented: "This new settlements procedure will reinforce deterrence by helping the Commission deal more quickly with cartel cases, freeing up resources to open new investigations. Companies which are convinced that the Commission can prove their involvement in a cartel, will also benefit from quicker decisions and a fine reduction.”

The Commission's ability to fight cartels hinges on the evidence gathered during its investigations. Parties found guilty of a cartel often do not go to court to contest the existence of a cartel or their involvement in it, but rather to reduce or avoid fines. This is particularly so in cases driven by leniency applications.

Under the new settlement procedure, the Commission neither negotiates nor bargains the use of evidence or the appropriate sanction, but can reward the parties’ cooperation to attain procedural economies. Such cooperation is different from the voluntary production of evidence to trigger or advance the Commission's investigation, which is already covered by the Leniency Notice (see IP/06/1705). Where both the settlement reduction and the leniency reduction are applicable, they are applied cumulatively. A decision finding an infringement of the antitrust rules and imposing fines pursuant to Regulation (EC) Nº 1/2003 is adopted, irrespective of whether the standard or the settlement procedure applies.

Parties have neither the right nor the duty to settle, but in cases where companies are convinced that the Commission could prove their involvement in a cartel, a settlement can be reached with the Commission on the scope and duration of the cartel, and the individual liability of the companies involved. To this end, parties will be informed about the envisaged objections and the evidence supporting them, and will be given the occasion to state their views, before formal objections are sent. If the parties chose to introduce a settlement submission, acknowledging the objections, the Commission's statement of objections (SO) would endorse the contents of the parties' submission and so could be much shorter than an SO issued without prior cooperation. Since parties will have been heard in anticipation of the "settlement" SO, other procedural steps can be simplified so that, following confirmation by the parties, the Commission can proceed swiftly to adopt a final decision after consulting Member States in the framework of the Advisory Committee, comprised of representatives of all Member States' competition authorities.

The Commission retains the possibility, until the final decision, to revert to the standard procedure. In addition, if no settlement was explored or reached, the standard procedure would apply by default.

The amendments to Commission Regulation (EC) nº 773/2004 on procedures for applying Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty accommodate the settlement option within the existing framework. Changes include:

The introduction of "settlement" variants in provisions including the initiation of proceedings, access to file and oral hearings.

Procedural flexibility through the possibility to choose a different sequence of procedural steps, moving some to before the adoption of the SO.

The Settlements Notice sets out the specifics of the new procedure and provides guidance for the legal and business community. Companies will be able to:
anticipate the type and extent of cooperation expected from them in order to settle andestimate the individual benefits of settling.

The Commission will publish the documents in the Official Journal in all official languages. The documents are also already available at EUROPA - European Commission - Competition

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

Well that was quick. This morning, a New York court threw out the remaining charges against former NYSE chief Dick Grasso. This afternoon, NY AG Andrew Cuomo said he won’t appeal. Voila! Case closed, Mr. Grasso!

We at LBHQ lumped the news together with some other government defeats in big Wall Street cases, and thought, hey, how about a vindication round-up! After all, beating the government ain’t easy, and, even if the below wins don’t amount to Frank Quattrone or Arthur Andersen (criminal stuff), they’re big wins nonetheless.



Dick Grasso: Earlier today, a New York appeals court tossed out a summary judgment decision that Grasso, ex-Big Board chairman, must return a portion of his $187.5 million comp package. The court also dismissed the two remaining causes of actions against Grasso and one against former NYSE director Ken Langone, saying Cuomo can no longer pursue the claims under the state?s not-for-profit law since the NYSE has become a for-profit company, NYSE Euronext Inc. Click here for the WSJ story. Grasso’s legal team included Mark Zauderer, Brendan Sullivan and Gerson Zweifach .

Knight Equity Markets: A couple weeks back, following a 14-day bench trial, a federal judge said the SEC failed to prove that former Knight Equity Markets CEO Kenneth Pasternak defrauded the firm?s clients. Charges were also dismissed against John Leighton, the former head of institutional sales at Knight Securities. New Jersey district court judge Joel Pisano ruled that witness testimony ?undermined? the SEC?s theory of the case. The SEC had alleged that Pasternak and others failed to execute customers? stock orders at the best price and made millions of dollars in ?excessive? comp from the trades. Pasternak’s legal team included James Wines, Howard Schiffman and Chris McLean at Dickstein Shapiro. Leighton was repped by Joel Davidson at Davidson & Grannum.



Hank Greenberg?: Okay, he doesn’t belong in this category yet, but his recent legal history is worth reciting.

The former CEO of AIG stepped down in 2005 as the company came under investigation for its accounting practices. Greenberg’s legal future looked uncertain, and still does. In 2006 AIG doled out $1.6 billion to settle allegations of accounting improprieties and other matters. Then NYAG Spitzer brought civil charges against Greenberg, but some were later dropped, and he’s still fighting the others.

Earlier this year, four former execs of General Re, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway, and one former AIG executive were convicted of inflating AIG’s reserves through fraudulent reinsurance deals. In that case, Greenberg was an unindicted co-conspirator, and the judge later issued a decision that said the government had presented ?sufficient evidence? for a jury to conclude that the AIG conspiracy started with a phone call by Greenberg. But he has not been charged. In May, the SEC sent Greenberg a so-called Wells notice, indicating that he may face civil charges for his alleged role in an effort to improperly boost AIG?s financials. So far, no charges have been filed.

The legal news is coming in fast and furious today. The latest: A New York appeals court has tossed out a summary judgment decision that ex-New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso must return a portion of his $187.5 million compensation package. Here’s a report from Dow Jones Newswires, and one from Bloomberg.

In a 3-1 decision, the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division also dismissed the two remaining causes of actions against Grasso and one against former NYSE director Ken Langone, saying New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo can no longer pursue the claims under the state’s not-for-profit law since the NYSE has become a for-profit company, NYSE Euronext Inc.

The “Supreme Court erred in concluding that the attorney general’s authority to maintain these causes of action against Messrs. Grasso and Langone was unaffected by the conversion of the exchange into a for-profit entity,” Appellate Division Justice James M. McGuire wrote for the majority.

The intermediate appeals court decision is the second major setback in a week for the state attorney general’s office as it attempts to force Grasso to return more than $112 million.

Last week the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, upheld an appellate division decision that the attorney general’s office couldn’t pursue four of six causes of action against Grasso. The remaining two were dismissed today.

“Unless it’s reversed on appeal, Grasso has won this particular lawsuit, because there’s nothing left,” said Bryan Cave lawyer Richard Schulman to Bloomberg. Schulman isn’t involved in the case.

The case was brought by former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2004, alleging Grasso’s pay was excessive for a not-for-profit company. Grasso, who left the NYSE in 2003 amid turmoil over his pay, has denied wrongdoing.

This just in: The Rhode Island Supreme Court has overturned the landmark verdict against three former lead paint producers Tuesday. The decision, which was unanimous and reversed the lone victory to date against the lead paint industry, represents a major setback for communities that want the companies to decontaminate hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings. Here’s an early story from the AP.

In 2006, a jury found Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings LLC liable for creating a “public nuisance” by manufacturing and selling a toxic product.

But earlier today, the court said the state’s lawsuit should have been dismissed at the outset. It said that while lead paint was a public health problem in Rhode Island, it wasn’t the companies’ responsibility to clean it up because they had no control over how the paint was used.

“Our hearts go out to those children whose lives forever have been changed by the poisonous presence of lead,” Chief Justice Frank Williams wrote in the opinion. “But, however grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm.”
A lawyer for Sherwin-Williams called the ruling a “victory for common sense.”

Jack McConnell, a lawyer for the state, would not immediately comment.

Computer makers Acer, Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard were sued last week for allegedly violating four patents held by Saxon Innovations, an intellectual property licensing company based in Tyler, Texas.

The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, which has long been seen as a plaintiff-friendly venue by patent litigators

Saxon claims that Acer, Apple, Dell, and HP have violated its "Wireless Communications Privacy Method and System" patent (5,592,555) and its "Clock Generator Capable of Shut-Down Mode and Clock Generation Method" patent (5,502,689). It claims Apple, Dell, and HP have violated its "Apparatus and Method for Disabling Interrupt Masks In Processors or the Like" patent (5,530,597). And it claims HP has violated its "Keypad Monitor With Keypad Activity-Based Activation" patent (5,235,635).

HP is one of several companies to form a group called Allied Security Trust to pool patents as a means of mutual defense against patent claims, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal. The group also includes Google, Cisco, Ericsson, Telefon AB L.M., and Verizon Communications.

In its public policy blog last September, Google noted that a "growing chorus of business leaders and companies spanning the technology, financial services, and traditional manufacturing industries [have] joined with legal scholars, economists, consumer and public interest organizations, government institutions and major editorial boards in calling for patent reform."

At present, the Patent Reform Act, a piece of legislation championed by Google and other tech companies, remains stalled in the Senate. Opponents of the bill claim that the legislation favors large patent holders over small ones and that it would limit the statutory damage awards arising from patent infringement.

A paper published last November, "Patents, Thickets and the Financing of Early-Stage Firms: Evidence from the Software Industry," claims there's a statistically significant correlation between patents and the success of startup software companies. "Firms that have higher numbers of patents and patent applications pending are more likely to receive funding from outside investors, and more likely to subsequently 'exit' from the entrepreneurial phase through IPO or acquisition," the paper says.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

Domestic pharma major Cipla has received product patents for new forms of two blockbuster drugs—Osemaprazole and Alendronate—from the Indian authorities. While the company’s patent on Osemaprazole is a modified form of Astrazeneca’s blockbuster drug marketed under the brand name Nexium, Alendronate is one of the best-selling drug of Merck sold under the brand name Fosamax.

Nexium, the world’s second-largest selling drug, has annual sales of around $5.2 billion while Fosamax recorded sales of $3 billion in 2007. Fosamax’s patent expired in February this year while Nexium’s patent expires in 2014.

When contacted, Cipla joint MD Amar Lulla said, “These are novel formulations with a significant thereupatic advantages than though it uses the same chemical. We plan to launch the drug globally.” The company has sought patents globally through an application with the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filing. If a company files a patent application with the PCT, its application will automatically go to all TRIPS compliant countries.

Cipla also got the patent in India through its PCT application. According to the Indian patent office website, the Mumbai patent office granted in April this year.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

While things are looking up for Huzaifa Parhat, another Gitmo resident, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, got some tough news today when the Pentagon said it’s charging Nashiri with “organizing and directing” the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and will seek the death penalty.



The damage sustained on the port side of the USS Cole after a bomb exploded on Oct. 12, 2000, during a refueling operation in the port of Aden, Yemen. (Credit: Associated Press/U.S. Navy)


According to Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser to the U.S. military tribunal, the charges, which still must be approved by a Defense Department official who oversees military tribunals, include conspiracy to violate laws of war, murder, treachery, terrorism, destruction of property and intentionally causing serious bodily injury.

Seventeen American sailors were killed and dozens wounded when the Navy destroyer was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden as it refueled. Nashiri is also accused of a role in the Oct. 6, 2002, suicide attack on the Limburg, a French oil tanker, Hartmann said. The attack killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.

Last year, at a Gitmo hearing, Nashiri confessed to helping plot the Cole bombing only because he was tortured by U.S. interrogators. The CIA conceded that Nashiri was among terrorist suspects subjected to waterboarding in 2002 and 2003.

“We will look at the evidence, all of the evidence that is associated with the case,” Hartmann said. “While there has been an admission that there was waterboarding, there may well be other evidence in the case. That’s not . . . necessarily the only part of evidence in the case.”

The term may be over, but Justice Scalia’s media tour rumbles on. Last week, in an interview with the Telegraph, Justice Scalia, asked yet again about the 2000 election fiasco, explained:

• Richard Nixon, when he lost to [John F.] Kennedy [in 1960] thought that the election had been stolen in Chicago, which was very likely true with the system at the time. But he did not even think about bringing a court challenge. That was his prerogative. So you know if you don’t like it, don’t blame it on me. I didn’t bring it into the courts. Mr. Gore brought it into the courts. So if you don’t like the courts getting involved talk to Mr. Gore.

Scalia told the Telegraph that that he regretted that the Supreme Court had become involved. “But I don’t know how we could have avoided it. . . So I have no regrets about taking the case and I think our decision in the case was absolutely right. But if you ask me ‘Am I sorry it all happened?’ Of course I am sorry it happened. There was no way that we were going to come out of it smelling like a rose.”

Scalia also reiterated his feeling, expressed in other interviews, that too many of the best minds in the U.S. are wasting away in law. “I think that any system that requires that many of the country’s best minds, and they are the best minds, is too complex,” he said. “If you look at the figures, where does the top of the class in college go to? It goes into law. They don’t go into teaching. Now I love the law, there is nothing I would rather do. But it doesn’t produce anything.”

After securing geographical indication (GI) for Darjeeling tea in Europe, the Tea Board is now gearing up to protect the intellectual property right (IPR) of the famed beverage.

Tea Board Chairman Basudeb Banerjee said at the annual general meeting of Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) here that protection of IPR was necessary for Darjeeling tea.

He said the Tea Board had taken initiatives in the past for it and the industry should now come forward in terms of funding needed.
"Government funding cannot go for long," he said.

For US, Tea Board would take the certificate trade mark route for protecting the IPR for Darjeeling tea.

After Darjeeling tea, Tea Board was now going ahead for securing GI for Assam and Nilgiri orthodox teas. Banerjee sounded caution about the emergence of small growers in Darjeeling.

He said although the problem had not assumed the proportion it had done in the Dooars plains, this issue had to be carefully managed.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

SAP has agreed to pay i2 Technologies, maker of supply chain management software, $83.3 million to settle a patent claim i2 brought against the enterprise software maker.

The Dallas company had sued SAP in 2006, claiming that it had infringed on a number of its patents.

The settlement was reached on June 23, according to an SEC filing by i2.
The brief filing states that SAP and i2 will license each other certain patents, on condition of the payment to i2, and dismisses the existing legal proceedings between the companies with prejudice, meaning another suit cannot be brought on the same matter.

An SAP spokesman confirmed the settlement but did not provide additional commentary or information beyond that contained in the filing.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a bioweapons expert who was under scrutiny for the 2001 anthrax attacks, defended himself during a news conference outside his lawyer


This just in from the AP: The DOJ has agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement with former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, whom the government wrongly implicated in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

In 2002, the FBI and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft described Hatfill, a former Army scientist, as a “person of interest” in the investigation into the post 9/11 anthrax attacks, which killed five people, sickened 17, and to this day remain unresolved. Hatfill sued the government for violating his privacy by leaking information to the press. In a statement Friday, his lawyers said: “As an innocent man, and as our fellow citizen, Steven Hatfill deserved far better.”

Could this be good news for Toni Locy? Back in March, Judge Reggie Walton, a D.C. district court judge, held Locy, 48, a former USA Today reporter, in contempt in this case for refusing to name her sources for a story she wrote about Hatfill’s possible role in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Click here, here and here for past LB coverage.

Walton issued a contempt order fining Locy $500 a day for seven days, $1,000 a day for the following seven days, and $5,000 a day for the seven days after that if she continued to refuse to cooperate. He also barred USA Today, or any other individual or news organization, from helping Locy — now a West Virginia University journalism prof — pay the fines. Last we heard, just hours before the fines were going to begin accruing, the D.C. Court of Appeals rang the bell, ordering that Locy didn’t have to pay the fines while her lawyers fought Walton’s contempt ruling.

According to the AP, on Friday Locy said: “I hope this means that this ordeal is over and that I can get on with my life.” She said: “I am pleased that Dr. Hatfill’s lawyers are now saying they no longer need my testimony, but I don’t know if my appeal is moot or if the contempt order against me will be lifted because I don’t have anything at this point from the Court of Appeals or Judge Walton that says I’m in the clear.”

We have a bit more on Dickie Scruggs’s sentencing hearing — where he was ordered this morning to serve five years and pay a $250,000 fine for his role in a judicial-bribery scheme.

The AP reports that U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. called Scruggs’s conduct “reprehensible.” “Scruggs appeared to nearly faint as the federal judge scolded him for his conduct. Some people in the courtroom gasped as Scruggs started to sway side to side and his attorney grabbed his arm to steady him. He had to be seated before the sentence was read,” the AP reports.

“I could not be more ashamed where I am today, mixed up in a judicial bribery scheme,” Scruggs told the judge.

Scruggs must report to prison by Aug. 4 and pay the fine in one lump sum within 30 days.

The famed plaintiffs pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to bribe Mississippi judge Henry Lackey in a fee-dispute with other lawyers concerning proceeds from litigation related to Hurricane Katrina. Five years was the maximum sentence Scruggs could have received. He had argued for a lesser sentence, in the 2 1/2-year range.

What with the striking down of handgun bans and millionaire’s amendments, the LB neglected to mention yesterday’s tech-legal news from the West Coast. San Jose district judge James Ware tossed out an appeal by ConnectU, a small social networking site, to reopen a settlement it struck with Facebook.



ConnectU founders Tyler Winklevoss (left) Cameron Winklevoss (right) and Divya Narendra pose following a news conference in Boston, July 25, 2007. (Credit: Associated Press/Charles Krupa)


Zuckerberg?s former Harvard classmates — ConnectU founders Divya Narendra and the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — sued Facebook last year, accusing Zuckerburg of stealing their idea when they were all budding overachievers eager to break out of Cambridge. Through mediation, the parties settled for an undisclosed amount of cash and Facebook stock in February. But the ConnectU founders tried to reopen the settlement recently, citing new evidence and accusing Facebook of lying about the value of the company’s common stock. Click here for reports from the NYT and the San Fran Chron.

But for our purposes, the Facebook-ConnectU spat is somewhat less interesting than the dust-up between ConnectU and its Quinn Emanuel lawyers, alluded to in Judge Ware’s ruling and highlighted in this Recorder story. Ware shot down ConnectU’s arguments that Facebook had cheapened the stock portion of the settlement by deliberately concealing Facebook’s true value. Ware wrote that ConnectU had been represented by “reputable counsel” — referring to lawyers at Quinn Emanuel — and could’ve done more due diligence or asked for more assurances during negotiations, but decided not to.

In a statement issued yesterday, Facebook claimed that the dispute over the settlement wasn’t about fraud; it was about ConnectU and its lawyers at Quinn Emanuel. “We were disappointed that we had to litigate the settlement, as we believed we were caught in the middle of a fee dispute between ConnectU’s founders and its former counsel,” the statement read.

Quinn Emanuel’s John Quinn, who was uninvolved in the representation, declined to comment to the Recorder on Facebook’s statement, and ConnectU did not return e-mails seeking comment about the apparent falling out and Ware’s ruling. A spokeswoman from Boies, Schiller & Flexner — which is now representing ConnectU — declined comment. Neel Chatterjee, who led the Orrick team representing Facebook, also declined to comment.

According to the Recorder, ConnectU fired Quinn Emanuel in late April, amid doubts over the February settlement. At the same time, Quinn Emanuel filed a lien against anything ConnectU got from Facebook, to cover its fees and costs.