News

Microsoft announced that it’s joining the Open Invention Network (OIN), an open-source patent group launched in 2005 with the vision of serving as a “shared defensive patent pool with the mission to protect Linux”. In essence, this makes the company’s library over 60,000 patents open source and available to OIN members, via ZDNet.
OIN provides a license platform for Linux for around 2,400 companies — from individual developers to huge companies like Google and IBM — and all members get access to both OIN-owned patents and cross-licenses between other OIN licensees, royalty-free.
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has loosened its hold on patents. The company made a major change two years ago with its Azure IP Advantage Plan, to protect users from patent trolls. And earlier this year, it implemented a new policy saying companies that work with Microsoft on technology solutions could hold on to any patent rights that come out of that partnership.
Microsoft joining is a big step forward for both sides: OIN gets thousands of new patents from Microsoft, and Microsoft is really helping the open-source community that it has shunned in the past. There are exceptions to what Microsoft is making available — specifically, Windows desktop and desktop application code, which makes sense for many reasons — but otherwise, Microsoft is going open source.

Amazon has patented a new version of its virtual assistant Alexa which can automatically detect when you’re ill and offer to sell you medicine. To detect if you’re ill, the patent suggests that Alexa would analyze your speech, and suggest possible remedies.
For example, if the user is coughing and sneezing while speaking to Alexa, she may suggest buying throat sweets or chicken soup.
Adverts for sore throat products could be automatically played to people who sound like they have a sore throat, Amazon’s patent suggests.
The patent foresees in its futuristic version Alexa would listen out for if users are crying and then classify them as experiencing an “emotional abnormality.”
The company also described a way of targeting adverts towards different moods. The patent filing includes a scenario where a singer paid for adverts on Alexa for their new album which would only be played to tired or bored people.
The patent does not prove that the company is working on any of the features described since Amazon files patents that will not be sold by the company.
However, Amazon has been focusing on health care and medicine in recent years. In June the company announced the purchase of Pillpack, a US business which sends prescriptions in the post.

The European airline EasyJet filed a lawsuit against Netflix for the use of the word “easy”. This is because EasyGroup, the controlling company of EasyJet, has the trademark for the word in Europe, and now claims that Netflix is violating its trademark by distributing on the continent the original series “Easy”, an anthology starring among others by Orlando Bloom and Emily Ratajkowski.
According to the founder of EasyGroup, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the streaming platform has used its trademark arrogantly: “They should have consulted their European lawyers before using the name. We own the European brand [for] the word “easy” and a thousand other trademarks with the prefix “easy”, and we can not allow people to use it now as a brand name, “he says.
According to Netflix, the series is an “eclectic, star-studded anthology following diverse Chicagoans fumbling through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture.”
EasyJet claims the new Netflix show is using their trademark ‘as a brand name’ and ‘are doing it mostly with our colours and font’
Netflix, for its part, does not seem to be very concerned about the issue. In a statement sent to the Sunday Times, the company said its viewers know “the difference between a program they watch and a plane in which they fly.”

Vogue Magazine’s Parent Co. is Suing “Black Vogue” Founder for Trademark Infringement. The company Vogue and Condé Nast’s parent company, filed suit against 26-year old designer and activist Nareasha Willis in a New York federal court, alleging that the name of her collection too similar to the name of its 125-year old marquee magazine and as a result, is likely to cause confusion amongst consumers, and damage to its well-known and “highly acclaimed” Vogue trademarks.
Accordint to the complaint, Vogue trademark has been used for the past 125 years on magazines (as well as on a “wide variety of goods and services,” including “advertising and e-commerce services, software applications for content in the field of fashion, hand bags, tote bags, purses, luggage, wallets, body creams, scented candles, jigsaw puzzles, nightclub and restaurant services, clothing and jewelry”), and they argue that the designer Ms. Willis “has very recently begun using the trademark Black Vogue in commerce, for the purposes of selling apparel items.”
They also say that the Black Vogue mark “mirrors the well-known font and stylization of long registered Vogue trademark” and that “in selecting the trademark Black Vogue for her products, intends to create a link between herself and Vogue, creating the appearance that the company is affiliated with Willis’ products, or that the company has licensed or otherwise authorized her use of the Vogue trademark, when that that is not the case.”
Immediately upon learning of the designer’s trademark application in June, Vogue alleges that its legal team sent Willis a letter, “requesting that she cease her use of the infringing Black Vogue mark and abandon her pending trademark application.”

The court battle between Qualcomm and Apple has just won yet another chapter. The chip maker accuses the Cupertino company of stealing its wireless technology to provide it to Intel in order to increase the speed of the competitor’s modems.
According to a publication from The Verge, Qualcomm claims that for years Apple has stolen its confidential information and trade secrets through an “intricate plan” to improve the performance of solutions that do not have Qualcomm chipsets, including iPhones.
The site points out that in the action Qualcomm says that Intel engineers even complained to Apple at one point about not being able to open Qualcomm’s secret files they had received, so they created new documents using Qualcomm’s own tools.
The company does not specify a date, but the document submitted states that this alleged Apple practice would have started “for at least several years” and continues to this day. Among other things, the company is asking the courts for financial damages and punitive measures for Apple, in addition to wanting the company to be forced to stop using the Intel modems.
According to The Verge, Apple declined to comment on Qualcomm’s new allegations, pointing to the statement it issued in June last year that it was “taxing” its innovation and damaging the market overall.
In the past, Qualcomm had already made claims in this regard against Apple in a lawsuit in late 2017, but in a milder tone than the adopted in this new action.

Samsung filed in South Korea in March last year the patent application “Electronic apparatus for inputting braille and operating method thereof”. The patent, self-descriptive, describes a method for blind people to input text through braille, using the rotating bezel on a smartwatch.
It enables braille input by allowing the user to control the input position in the six-point braille character by rotating the bezel. The patent is surprising to go beyond the market’s trend to invest in voice-based interaction models to make products and services more accessible to people with disabilities. As it seems the company is exploring other approaches as well.
No other major brand is currently offering a bezel-based navigation option on its smartwatches. Samsung’s rotatable bezel is considered useful and convenient by many users since the smartwatch screens are very small. Using the same mechanism for innovative features like the braille input will make it more unique and desirable. Despite the fact that ideas like these may not be Moneymakers for the company, it is encouraging to see that Samsung is trying to make its latest gadgets more accessible to users.
It is not clear yet if Samsung is planning to incorporate this technology into its future smartwatches since not all patents turn into commercial products.

Facebook has begun a new chapter in the legal battle with BlackBerry. The first legal confrontation between the two companies started in March 2018, when the mobile device maker accused Facebook and Whatsapp of copying the messaging technology originally used by BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
Now it is Facebook’s turn to accuse the manufacturer of infringing its patents.
According to the Bloomberg publication, Facebook has filed a lawsuit against BlackBerry for infringement of at least 6 patents, including technology related to voice messages.
Other allegations claim that BlackBerry would also have copied specific graphics display technologies and a system that performs the centralization of tracking data and analyzes obtained through GPS. So far, neither company has come out on the case.

The Brazilian PTO published on September 4, 2018, the Rule #224/2018 implementing the second phase of PPH Pilot program with the National Institute of Industrial Property of Chile (INAPI), the National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina (INPI-AR), the Colombian Superintendence of lndustry and Commerce (SIC), the Ecuadorian Institute of Intellectual Property (IEPI),the National Directorate of Intellectual Property (DINAPI), the Peruvian Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) and the National Institute of Industrial Property of Uruguay (NCPA), named PPH PROSUL Pilot Project.
To be accepted on the PROSUL PPH Pilot Program, the application must:
i) Have been filed for more than 18 months or published by the WIPO (when applicable);
ii) Have the corresponding technical exam duly paid;
iii) Have to belong to patent families whose earliest application has been filed at a Patent Office from any of PROSUL countries or, in case of a PCT application, any of these offices was the receiving office.
iv) Have the favorable opinion from any of the PROSUL Institutes, clearly indicating which claims to meet the requirements of novelty, inventive step, and industrial applicability.
In the case of divided patent applications, they must request priority procedure to all of them.
The participation of the application in the PROSUL PPH Pilot Program shall be requested by any or all the applicants.
The priority examination request can be filed up to June 30, 2019.
Amongst other documents requested by Rule #224/2018, the applicant must submit with the application, documents proving that the application meets the requirements and a table including the correspondences between the BR application claims and the PROSUL allowed claims and a copy of non-patentary prior art documents.
The program will be extended until all eligible applications are decided.
The BPTO will evaluate the applications according to its request date, and applications that do not meet the requirements will either be given the opportunity to correct any irregularity, case in which the BPTO will issue an office action which must be replied to within 60 days, or be denied participation in the PPH Pilot Program, case in which it will return to the regular line of examination.
The original Portuguese version of Rule #224/2018 is available here

The BPTO published on August 21, 2018, the Rule #223/2018 implementing the PPH Pilot program with the DKPTO, that intends to speed up the examination of pending Brazilian applications with an application from the same nature allowed by the DKPTO.
The Program will accept applications belonging to patent families whose earliest application has been filed at the BPTO or the DKPTO or, in case of a PCT application, the BPTO or DKPTO was the receiving office.
The program will accept applications from the technical field of “Engineering, illumination, heating, guns and explosion”. The application must be classified under the IPC code F#, with the exception of drug-related applications (A61K) which are not allowed in this program.
To be accepted on the BPTO-DKPTO PPH Pilot Program, the application must:
i) Have been filed for more than 18 months or published by the WIPO (when applicable);
ii) Have the corresponding technical exam duly paid; (in case of divided patent applications, they must request priority procedure to all of them);
The participation of the application in the BPTO-DKIPO PPH Pilot Program shall be requested by any or all the applicants.
The BPTO-DKPTO PPH Pilot Program starts on September 01, 2018 and will receive applications up to August 31, 2020. Each applicant can only file one patent application per month, except during the last month of the project, when there will be no limit of the number of applications per applicant. The project is limited to 100 applications accepted into the BPTO-UKIPO PPH program per year (limit of 200 accepted applications during the entire program).
Amongst other documents requested by Rule #223/2018, the applicant must submit with the application, documents proving that the application meets the requirements and a table including the correspondences between the BR application claims and the DK allowed claims and a copy of non-patentary prior art documents.
The BPTO will evaluate the applications according to its request date, and applications that do not meet the requirements will either be given the opportunity to correct any irregularity, case in which the BPTO will issue an office action which must be replied to within 60 days, or be denied participation in the PPH Pilot Program, case in which it will return to the regular line of examination.
The original Portuguese version of Rule #223/2018 is available here.

The South Korean manufacturer Hyundai registered the new generation of the three-door Veloster hatch in Brazil through the Brazilian Patents and Trademarks Office (BPTO).