AmiCOUR IP Group News and Opinions

Welcome to the AmiCOUR IP Blog.  We invite your comments.  Past Issues.

May 17, 2011 - The holy grail of new LED replacement bulbs is light output equivalent to a 100 Watt incandescent bulb.  OSRAM SYLVANIA today announced it has hit the mark with a 2700 degree color temperature, dimmable long life bulb which uses only 14 Watts. The new LED bulbs consume a fraction of the power used by the incandescent bulbs they replace and about half the power used by equivalent output compact fluorescents.  LED bulbs make economic sense, too. With an expected life of 15 years (some claiming a 25 year life), assuming daily usage above 6 hours, and prices dropping in the face of competition, consumers can obtain a present value of their future savings of between $5 and $10 for every dollar they invest to replace incandescent bulbs.  Lowes stores recently offered 40W equivalent output replacement A19 LED bulbs consuming 7.5 Watts for a breakthrough price of $9.95, and others will soon follow.

May 4, 2011 - The Supreme Court has upheld the Federal Arbitration Act as capable of pre-emption of state law protecting consumers from potentially unfair and restrictive arbitration clauses in contracts.  In AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, the Justices overturned both the Federal Court and Court of Appeals rulings protecting the class action rights of a California couple who purchased a cell phone and disputed the contract alleging false advertising. Arbitration has been widely criticized for not living up to promises of being lower in cost and faster than the court system; and, more recently, come under fire for so-called "blacklisting" pressures on arbitrators. The allegations claim that so-called neutrals who rule against a member of a specific industry group are eliminated as candidates for future lucrative arbitrator assignments. With an increasing number of service providers, brokerage firms, and software providers invoking arbitration clauses, intellectual property disputes can be inadvertently locked into mandatory arbitration clauses, forcing them outside of the Federal Court system, and at times into demonstrably biased tribunals. One solution, of course, is to assign the IP to another, contractually unencumbered legal entity before filing.

May 2, 2011 - Court documents filed late last month re-affirm continuing settlement discussions in the IP fraud suit filed by Alzheimer drug provider Comentis against Purdue University's Purdue Research Foundation.  After Purdue attorneys failed to convince a Federal judge to dismiss all of the complaints filed against the technology transfer group and its professor, in the face of a looming deadline, the parties jointly requested an extension of time for Comentis to file revised "actual fraud" and "constructive fraud" portions in order to cure specific deficiencies in the way those two complaints were originally submitted. Local media near Purdue have not reported on the year-old lawsuit, nor has the University's own public relations department, despite growing rumors about the matter. The ongoing settlement discussions and a planned Chicago meeting were given as explanation in support of the joint stipulated motion for an extension of time.   May 17 update - Talks reportedly took place, but no PACER documents have been filed. May 24 Update: The most recent court documents include judicial acceptance of another mutually agreed extension of time until June 30 for Comentis to re-file its counts 7 and 8 claims.