RETURN to News Archive ================================================== Copyright(c) 1998-2003 GEN-ERIC Channel.  All rights reserved. GEN-ERIC Patent News Tuesday, October 7, 2003 ================================================== Use Quick Links to Access any Area of Interest Headlines News Patents of the Day Access Official Gazette and Notices Patents Available for Licensing Patent Employment Opportunities Printer Friendly Version ================================================== HEADLINES   (patents issued a few hours ago..) The Way Cool Patent of the Day goes to Yahoo! Inc. of Sunnyvale for a Search engine using sales and revenue to weight search results The Wacked Out Patent of the Day goes to an Independent Inventor from Hong Kong for a Method for manufacturing a pet mannequin for training pet trimming technicians     Index ================================================== NEWS Rambus to continue royalty quest after ruling http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5087282.html The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Infineon Technologies' appeal against memory chip maker Rambus, clearing the way for Rambus to prove that memory makers are violating its patents. With the ruling, Rambus will now go back to trial court to try to demonstrate that its intellectual property is being infringed in memory chips made by Infineon. The industry is watching the case closely because it will have a large impact on similar suits Rambus has filed against other memory makers, such as Hynix and Micron Technology, and could lead to billions of dollars in royalty payments. The Supreme Court's decision to opt out of hearing the case also effectively kills Infineon's fraud claims against Rambus.     Index ASM International Sues Applied Materials for Patent Infringement http://cws.huginonline.com/A/132090/PR/200310/919650_5.html ASM International N.V. (Nasdaq: ASMI and Euronext Amsterdam: ASM) and its subsidiary, ASM America, Inc., today announced that they have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, against Applied Materials, Inc. for patent infringement. The complaint alleges infringement of six of ASM's U.S. patents and seeks injunctive relief from manufacturing, selling, or distributing any infringing products. The complaint also seeks actual and enhanced damages for Applied's willful infringement.     Index Medtronic will ask Supreme Court to review $271 million patent case http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2003/09/29/daily53.html Medtronic Inc. will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court decision ordering the Fridley-based medical device to pay $271 million in damages for infringing on a patent held by the Cordis unit of Johnson & Johnson Inc. The case involved several obsolete models of Medtronic's coronary stents, the wire mesh tubes used to prop open clogged blood vessels. The stents concerned are no longer on the market.     Index ================================================== PATENTS OF THE DAY 6,631,372 Search engine using sales and revenue to weight search results Abstract:  A search engine selects one or more search hits from among a plurality of hits, wherein a hit is a reference to a page or a site, based on a user interest, comprising an input module for accepting a query from a user, the query representing an interest of the user; a tracking module for tracking the user's navigation through the plurality of pages, including at least a destination purchase page, the destination purchase page being a page from which the user makes a purchase; a sales module which records associations between purchases and queries where the associations are provided, at least in part by an output of the tracking module; and a search module, which takes as its inputs at least a query and sales associations of that query provided by the sales module, and which outputs one or more search hits based on at least the query and the sales associations of that query. In some systems, instead of using sales data to alter the weights of the search results, merchant bidding is used to alter the weights of the search results, or a combination of the two is used.     Index 6,629,872 Method for manufacturing a pet mannequin for training pet trimming technicians Abstract:  The invention provides a method for manufacturing a pet model, commonly referred to as a pet mannequin, here a dog mannequin, is implanted on a soft walled hollow molded dog body formed of a polyvinyl chloride molding solution, the soft walled hollow molded dog body including a torso, trunk and leg portions, the molded body and a head portion and a pair of ears are molded separately. The molded body and head portions are filled with a chaff packing. Precut lengths of hair-simulating wool yarn are implanted into the wall of the molded body using a crochet needle. Thereafter, the chaff packing is removed from the implanted body and head portions. Next, a hot charge of pre-mixed self-expansible liquid polyvinyl chloride resin and polymeric isocyanate foaming bubble solution is introduced into the implanted body and head portions and permitted to cool, fixing the implanted lengths of hair-simulating wool permanently from the inside the body and head portions, thereby hardening the body and head portions, leaving exterior portions of said lengths. The body and head portions are coupled together. The exterior wool yarn lengths are brushed to form a mass of soft longitudinal filaments constituting the dog mannequin as a practice vehicle for use by pet grooming trimmers shaping the dog form by shearing.     Index ================================================== ACCESS OFFICIAL GAZETTE AND NOTICES Access this week's Official Gazette http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week40/OG/index2.htm Excerpt from OG Notices Changes to USPTO Strategic Plan Notice of Reprimand     Index ================================================== PATENTS AVAILABLE FOR LICENSING to Learn More or to List a Patent Plug-and-play smart data cable The invention includes a smart, plug-and-play cable capable of transparently translating between two different communication protocols. The cables are "plug-and-play" such that two devices can be coupled together for communication without the requirement that the user perform any special set-up steps in order for it to work. To implement this plug-and-play functionality, the smart cable of the present invention determines which communication protocols are required at each of its ports, and selects, activates, enables, or downloads the appropriate communication protocol drivers to enable proper operation. Electric shaver having orbitally moving blades An electric shaver includes blades which while rotating around their own centers also orbit around another axis, thus providing that the blades sweep a large area. Implantable fuel cell This invention makes use of an electrostrictive material to increase the efficiency of a fuel cell as used for the production of power within a human.     Index ================================================== PATENT EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES to List a Job Patent Related Jobs from Monster Patent Related Jobs from www.IntelPropLaw.com     Index ================================================== GEN-ERIC Channel