Judge Denies Jolie Attorneys' Fees

On June 7, 2013 California federal Dolly M. Gee denied Angelina Jolie’s request for $350,000 in attorneys’ fees. At the hearing Judge Gee said that the cases was not completely frivolous because it was a “very fact-intensive” analysis.

However, opposing counsel does not side with the judge. They believe that Braddock’s allegations damaged the reputation of Ms. Jolie.  He “accused people of stealing, of lying, of cheating, of capitalizing on someone else's intellectual property,” stated Harrison J. Dossick, lawyer representing Jolie.

In March, Judge Gee ruled that Braddock had failed to prove that his novel, “The Soul Shattering, “ has significant similarities to Jolie’s film, “In the Land of Blood and Honey.”

                        

Judge Gee allowed Braddock's lawyer, Dr. Dariush Adli, to withdraw from the case because he only agreed to represent Braddock during the trial court phase — not any appellate phase — of the litigation. Braddock is now representing himself in the case. 

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Red Soles On the Hot Seat Again

Christian Louboutin is back in court again defending their red sole mark against California-based, Charles Jourdan Fashion Footwear LLC.

Louboutin claims that Charles Jourdan infringes on his trademark by selling counterfeit versions of his shoes that display a red sole. The red sole on a Christian Louboutin shoe is the mark or status and quality in the fashion world.

“Defendants have knowingly and willfully manufactured, imported, distributed, offered for sale and sold various counterfeit versions of the Louboutin products, to wit, shoes bearing the red sole mark,” the complaint says.

Louboutin has been engaged in litigation over his red-soled shoes for years and most recently took on rival fashion house Yves Saint Laurent SAS. The court supported Louboutin's trademark, but only if the red sole was contrasted for a upper portion that is a different color; it does not support the trademark if the upper portion is also red.

Are You Ready to Consume Products From A Printer?

By Jennifer Wang for Entrepreneur.com


Here's a crazy idea: Combine 3-D printing and tissue engineering to "print" animal products and tackle some of the planet's biggest problems. Animal farming, after all, accounts for about half of all human-caused greenhouse gases, taking place on one-third of the available, non-frozen land on Earth. All to feed people's appetites for 300 million tons of meat a year.

Enter Gabor and Andras Forgacs, father-and-son founders of Modern Meadow, a company they started in 2011 that may very well be the model for the farm of the future.

Five years earlier they helped start Organovo, a firm that makes human tissues for pharmaceutical research and other medical applications, and was a commercial spinoff of Gabor's pioneering work at the University of Missouri in "bioprinting," which he describes as "extending biological structures in three dimensions." Modern Meadow's output is based in part on this work. On a basic level, the process involves using 3-D printing to deposit clumps of cells into patterns of tissue. The particles fuse post-printing--similar to cell development in embryos. Unlike Organovo's final products, which must be kept alive, Modern Meadow's postmortem animal tissues are simpler to build and faster to market.

Leather, a $60 billion trade globally, is first on the agenda. "What we build is skin, or hide, and we do this elaborate game to turn it into leather," explains Gabor, who serves as chief scientific officer of Modern Meadow, which is based in Columbia, Mo., and Moffett Field, Calif. A prototype material will debut later this year, so the company is currently focused on building out commercial relationships. "Our goal after that is to be able to do a limited production run and to incorporate [the leather] into fashion accessories and apparel in 2014," says Andras, CEO. "Then, it's all about scaling."

Interest has been resounding. Large manufacturers and designers of apparel and accessories--even automotive manufacturers--stand to benefit from a more efficient leather supply chain. For consumers, fabricated leather could alleviate environmental and animal-welfare concerns.

Meat is a longer-term project but should have similar financial blessings. On the research side the company has garnered equally keen interest, winning competitive grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and scoring funding from organizations like Peter Thiel's Breakout Labs. "The grants were approved and awarded with the speed of light," Gabor says, noting how extraordinary it is for research to be backed with such "glowing fanfare." To date, Modern Meadow has received $2 million in funding, an amount that should skyrocket as the company completes its prototypes and pursues further phases of grant funding from Small Business Innovation Research. "It illustrates where we stand," Gabor declares, "that what we are doing is timely, we have the right reputation, and it is of interest to society."



Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226697#ixzz2VOtQk5n6

Apple v. Samsung: Three Lessons From the Smartphone Patent Fight

By Paul M. Barrett for Businessweek

Ding, ding! Boxers, return to your corners. Samsung won the latest round in the never-ending smartphone Fight of the Century. The Korean Crusher did not, however, land a knock-out blow against the Cupertino Kid.

As Bloomberg News reports: “Apple Inc.’s first loss against Samsung Electronics Co. in a U.S. patent case could mean a ban on imports of some older devices including the iPhone 4. … With dozens of lawsuits spread across four continents in their battle for a greater share of the $293.9 billion market for smartphones, each side can now claim a victory in the U.S.”

Apart from giving Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (005930) loyalists the thrill of watching their favorite brand bash its rival, what can we learn from the latest round in the intellectual property slug-fest?

1. Launching a patent war can lead to backlash.

In a Bloomberg Businessweek story in March 2012, I observed:

By pushing the launch button on his legal ICBMs, [the late Apple founder and Chief Executive Officer Steve] Jobs bequeathed a significant risk to his successors. Apple may succeed in forcing competitors to deactivate a few phone features, or maybe even yank an entire model or two from a major market. But Apple has many rivals: If one falters, others will step in. Samsung’s website lists no fewer than 134 phone models. Apple, by contrast, has only two core products at issue in the patent war: the iPhone and iPad. Unlikely as it might seem, if a competing manufacturer manages to persuade a judge or a trade commission somewhere in the world that Apple has relied on a faulty patent for something important, the Cupertino (Calif.)-based juggernaut could suffer profound reputational damage and—more important to stakeholders—market-share erosion.

Assuming it survives on appeal, Tuesday’s decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission illustrates that Apple may have started a conflict it will come to regret.

2. This is still a battle between Apple and Google.

To see the complete top three reasons click here

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Patent Troll Buster

As a follow up to our post, Could This Be The End of Patent Trolls?, Vermont has become first state to pass its own law targeting trolls. Governor Peter Shumlin signed the bill allowing companies to sue patent owners that allege infringement in bad faith.

This legislation aimed at cracking down on the tactics of patent trolls would make significant changes to patent law. The bill would require that any patent infringement complaint to include 14 separate pieces of information that are not currently required. New pleading requirements would also follow suit, restricting discovery and creating a "loser pays" system.