Chapter 6: Patents Questions and Case Problem: #4 This answer should be a combination of 2 or more paragraphs long and supported (and cited) with information from the text and other outside resources. Use additional resources that is in the picture. 206 Part 2: Intellectual Property: Business Assets in the Information Age Intimidator golf club line. The Intimidator line includes drivers and fairway woods that use what Spalding refers to as "titanium insert technology.” Antonious saw several Spalding In- timidator metal wood-type golf clubs in retail stores. He purchased one of the Intimidator dri- 30 Imagine you are a defendant. Can you think of any prior art that might invalidate this patent? Remember that both lack of novelty and obvious- ness are potential theories of invalidity. The '450 patent was filed on April 28, 2000. 2. Continuing from Question 1, suppose you were unable to think of prior art that might invalidate the Netflix '450 patent, or that the judge found that the prior art you presented did not render the invention either anticipated or obvious. Present an argument that the patent should be invalid because it does not claim patentable subject matter. 3. The chapter noted that Friendster has obtained a number of social networking patents that it could potentially assert against other social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Suppose you are corporate counsel at one of these two com- panies and you expect that you may eventually be sued by Friendster. In addition to contesting the validity or enforceability of the Friendster patents, what are some of your other options:81 4. Mr. Antonious is the owner of U.S. Patent No. 5,482,279 (“the ’279 patent"), which is directed to an improved perimeter weighting structure for metal golf club heads. Spalding sells the vers and cut open the club head. After inspecting the interior of the club head, Antonious con- cluded that Spalding's club infringed his 279 patent. What are Antonious's legal options282 5. Ethical Consideration: If you found excerpted claim 26 from the 298 patent in Hyperphrase Technologies v. Google difficult to understand, you are not alone. Critics note that patents are often drafted deliberately to obfuscate the inven- tion claimed and to provide as little information as possible, making relevant patents both difficult for businesses to find and challenging to deci- pher. Why might businesses prefer to make their patents difficult to locate and understand? If you were a CEO of a business, would you instruct your patent department to try to draft patent applica- tions as clearly as possible, or as opaquely as possible? Why? Additional Resources U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, http://www. uspto.gov World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), http://www.wipo.int Google Patent Search, http://www.google.com/patents David Orozco & James Conley, Shape of Things to James Besson & Michael Meurer, Patent Failure (2008) Adam B. Jaffe & Josh Lerner, Innovation and its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress (2004) . Come, WALL. ST. J., May 12, 2008, available at, http:// online.wsj.com/article/SB121018802603674487.html ntockhuster, 2006 WL 2458717 (N.D. Cal
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