On August 13, 2008, GraphOn Corporation filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google Inc., alleging four of Google’s services infringe on four of its patents related to maintaining an automated and network-accessible database. The case has been filed in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

The complaint names Google’s Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites and YouTube services as allegedly infringing methods. GraphOn seeks a permanent injunction and unspecified compensation.

Earlier this year, GraphOn asserted patent rights in these same patents against multiple parties, including Classified Ventures, IAC/Interactive Corp. LLC, Match.com, LCC, Yahoo! Inc., Harmony.com and CareerBuilder, LLC.

This suit also comes approximately one year after GraphOn accused Juniper Networks of infringing patents, and almost three years after GraphOn filed against AutoTrader.com Inc., alleging the company infringed two of the patents involved in the most recent lawsuit.

In July 2008, a jury ruled in a patent infringement lawsuit that McAfee Inc.’s IntruShield network security appliances willfully infringed on DeepNines Inc.’s patent, awarding the company $18 million in past and future damages.

McAfee said it plans to move to overturn the verdict. The District Court judge agreed that the jury’s finding of willfulness was not supported by the facts.

On July 15, 2008, Implicit Networks, Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against International Business Machines Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP America Inc. and Adobe Systems Incorporated, alleging the companies infringed on two patents relating to computer-server software for increasing the speed of security functions.

Implicit seeks compensation through a royalty payment but is not seeking an injunction. Allegedly infringing products include IBM’s WebSphere Application Server, Oracle’s Application Server, SAP’s NetWeaver and Adobe’s JRun and ColdFusion software.

The patent infringement lawsuit comes five months after Implicit sued Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp., Nvidia Corp., RealNetworks Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Raza Microelectronics Inc. over a different patent.

On June 26, 2008, Saxon Innovations, LLC filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, Inc., Acer, Inc., Dell, Inc., Gateway, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., alleging the companies violated several of its patents related to wireless communications. The patents relate to various aspects of wireless communications, including privacy, a clock generator for shutdown mode, disability interrupt masks, and key pad monitors.

Saxon Innovations LLC is a licensing company for intellectual property related to various technologies including communications and computers.

In June 2008, Typhoon Touch Technologies expanded its patent infringement lawsuit against Dell, Inc. to include Apple, Toshiba, Palm and several other companies, claiming they infringed on its patents relating to touch screen technology.

Typhoon holds two patents (U.S. Patent 5,379,057 and U.S. Patent 5,675,362) both entitled “Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computer Screen Employing Same.” The company claims devices having touchscreen interfaces, like certain phones, PDAs and personal computers may be impacted by the patents.

The patent infringement lawsuit was originally filed against Dell in December 2007. The company previously reached out-of-court settlements with Motion Computing and Electovaya, and said the case could extend to millions of other devices currently on the market.

On May 20, 2008, Man & Machine Inc. filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Apple Inc., CBS Corporation and CBS Operations Inc., seeking an injunction against Apple’s use of the mark MIGHTY MOUSE on computer mouse products.

Man & Machine, a 20-employee company based in Maryland, said it developed and sold its computer mouse by 2004, more than a year before Apple began selling a similar device with the same name, in August 2005.

The lawsuit also seeks an invalidation of the Apple-CBS licensing agreement, and a declaration that Man & Machine’s use of the mark does not dilute CBS’ mark.

CBS’ subsidiary already owns the mark in reference to clothing and toys, but filed a computer-related trademark application for the mark in 2007. Man & Machine is also opposing CBS’ application to trademark “Mighty Mouse” for this use.

A federal jury awarded Cornell University $184 million in a patent infringement lawsuit against Hewlett Packard Company. In the intellectual property lawsuit, Cornell alleged Hewlett Packard infringed its patent related to increased computer speed, which was invented by Professor Hwa Torng, in the 1980’s. Hewlett Packard has said it plans to appeal the verdict.

The Cornell professor’s invention was believed to have increased the efficiency and speed of computer processors significantly, and plaintiffs said Hewlett Packard received more than $36 billion in profits from using the professor’s invention without permission. The invention is still being used in modern computers.

Vice president for Cornell University communications said the verdict may make the case a fundamental one for all universities in terms of protecting intellectual property.

On March 12, 2008, ZapMedia Services Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, Inc., claiming the computer manufacturer used its media distribution inventions without its permission.

ZapMedia owns two patents entitled “System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal synchronized by said user devices” and “System and method for distributing media assets to user devices and managing user rights of the media assets.” The patents involve the technology surrounding Apple’s iPod, iTunes, and iTunes store structure.

After filing for the first patent in 2000, ZapMedia said it extended its idea to several corporations, including Apple. The company said Apple then announced its similar system without asking for permission from ZapMedia.

The intellectual property lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

On May 5, 2008, Ruckus Wireless filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Rayspan Corporation and its customer, NetGear. Ruckus develops industrial Wi-Fi systems, including Wi-Fi antenna arrays which are the subject of the asserted patents. The lawsuit alleges that Rayspan’s antenna solutions infringe two Ruckus patents and that NetGear’s wireless router products that incorporate the solutions area also infringing.

Rayspan has denied any infringement and stated it will vigorously defend against the claims. Ruckus designs, develops and markets industrial-strength Wi-Fi systems. It has over 70 intelligent antenna or wireless technology patents granted or pending worldwide.

On May 20, 2008, it was announced that the patent infringement lawsuit filed against Razorsight Corp. by rival TEOCO Corp. was settled for $4.5 million. The settlement was agreed upon nearly 9 months after the intellectual property lawsuit was filed. The suit involved technology related to billing software for invoice processing by telecommunication carriers.

Razorsight’s founder, Sundeep Sanghavi, left TEOCO to start the company. Aspects of the settlement include barring Razorsight from using TEOCO’s intellectual property in the future and the removal of TEOCO’s computer software from Razorsight’s products by September 1, 2008. The company must also submit an audit to ensure it is no longer utilizing TEOCO’s software.

Disc Link Corp. is owner of a patent for an Information Distribution System which relates to products capable of retrieving ….. After a re-examination in the US Patent Office, the patent was found valid and enforceable. Disk Link alleges patent infringement claims against several defendants including, MindJet, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Website Pros, Raxco Software, Serif Inc. and Smith Micro Softwaer Inc. Disk Link further claims that defendants Raxco and Smith Micro were aware of Disk Link’s patent and knowingly and willfully infringed the Disk Link patent.

Aloft Media, LLC of Longview, Texas filed two patent infringement suits against Microsoft in the Eastern District of Texas related to two computer software products. One suit alleges infringement of US Patent Number 7,305,625 entitled “Data Networking System and Method for Interfacing a User.” The other suit seeks damages for patent infringement under US Patent Number 6,901,393 entitled “System, Method and Computer Program Product for a Customer-Centric Collaborative Protocol.” It is alleged that the ‘625 patent relates to Microsoft’s MSN Explorer and Microsoft Windows Live, and that the ‘393 patent relates to the Microsoft Dynamics product .

After a slight stall last week, the U.S. House of Representatives on September 7, 2007 passed the Patent Reform Act, HR 1908, with a vote of 220 to 175. On September 10, 2007, the Bill passed to the U.S. Senate for review where it is expected to undergo further debate and editing and result in a different version.

U.S. Patent Office data reveals that North Carolina ranked 15th out of 20 states named in the nation in the number of patents issued to the State’s residence during fiscal year 2006, ending September 30, 2006.

North Carolina residents were issued 2,172 patents during that period. California residents received the greatest number of patents, numbering 23,579, followed by Texas as the second with 6,345 residents obtaining patents.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has revised the Rules of practice in patent examinations in what it states is an attempt to make examination of patent applications in the Patent Office more effective and efficient. The Rule changes require a patent application to give justification for filing a continuing application for a third or subsequent continuing application. The justification will need to demonstrate why the amendment, argument or evidence could not have been submitted in the previously filed applications.

Patent applications having patentably indistinct claims may be required to be contained in one application unless good reason can be shown for the need for multiple copending applications.

Additionally, the Rules require that if an application contains more than five independent claims, or more than twenty-five total claims, the applicant must submit an examination support document covering all the claims.

The Rules changes shall be effective on November 1, 2007, and can impact applications already filed with the Patent Office.

In September 2004, a California jury awarded Immersion Corporation $82 million in patent infringement damages from Sony for alleged infringement of technology related to game controllers for Sony’s PlayStation and Play Station 2. With interest, costs and a compulsory license, and future license fees, damages mounted to an additional $22.5 million through 2009.

Immersion is a software development company located in San Jose, California that employs more than 140 people. Sony, an audio-visual electronics and information technology company, employs over 163,000 people worldwide and reports 2007 sales earnings of $70.3 billion.

David Colvin is owner of z4 Technologies, a privately-held company and owner of two patents related to preventing the unauthorized use of software. In 2004, z4 asserted the two patents against software goliaths Microsoft Corporation and Autodesk by filing a patent infringement suit in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.

In April 2006, the jury returned its verdict after deliberating continually for 19 hours, finding both Microsoft Corporation and Autodesk Inc., liable for patent infringement. The jury attributed $115M of the $133M verdict to Microsoft and $18M to Autodesk.

Microsoft, a software company headquartered in Redman, Washington, employs nearly 77,000 people worldwide. According to its website, Microsoft’s 2006 revenue was reported as $44.28 billion.

Autodesk, a computer software company of San Rafael, California, employs almost 5,000 people, and reported 2006 revenue topping $1.5 billion.