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GEN-ERIC Patent News Tuesday, March 2,
2004
================================================== 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 Related
Opportunities
Printer Friendly Version ================================================== HEADLINES (patents issued a few hours
ago..) The Disappearing Email Patent of the Day
goes to an Independent Inventor from Salt Lake City for a Method for including a self-removing code in a self-removing email
message that contains an advertisement
The Where am I
Patent of the Day goes to an Independent Inventor from Illinois for a
System for underwater GPS navigation
Index ================================================== NEWS AT&T seeking $90 million
from Microsoft in patent suit http://www.tribnet.com/business/story/4784678p-4728039c.html AT&T
Corp., the nation's largest long-distance telephone company, asked a jury
Wednesday to award at least $90 million in damages from Microsoft Corp., as a
patent dispute over technology to speed Internet transmissions of human voices
went to trial. AT&T lawyer Stephen Neal told jurors that Microsoft didn't
pay royalties for using technology the phone company invented in 1981, when
researchers devised a way to send voices digitally without making them sound
like machines. The invention solved a problem that had stymied scientists for 50
years, Neal said.
Index Judge overturns jury's $8.9 million award against
Hallmark in patent case http://newstribune.com/articles/2004/02/27/business/0227040027.txt A
federal judge has overturned a jury's $8.9 million damage award in a patent
infringement suit against Hallmark Cards Inc. involving a machine that curls
ribbons. In September, the jury found that Hallmark infringed patents belonging
to a British company, Group One, and its owner, Fredric Goldstein. The jury also
found the Kansas City-based greeting-card maker acted willfully, which could
have tripled the damages in the case. But in an order signed last week, U.S.
District Judge Dean Whipple said the jury should have found in Hallmark's favor
because the patents in question are invalid and never should have been granted
by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Index Meridian Enterprises wins
$10.5M verdict against Carlson http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2004/03/01/daily12.html St.
Louis-based marketing firm Meridian Enterprises Inc. has been awarded $10.5
million by a jury in a patent infringement claim against Minneapolis-based
Carlson Marketing Group Inc. Meridian alleged Carlson Marketing Group infringed
on a patent for a card-based incentive program Meridian invented in the 1980s.
Carlson was found guilty of willfully infringing on the patent through its Trav
Pass, Global Rewards, VIP and Ready Rewards sales-incentive programs, which
allow salespeople of certain clients' firms to accumulate points as they reach
sales goals. Points are added to a type of credit card that the salespeople can
use to buy merchandise paid for by their employer.
Index ================================================== PATENTS OF THE DAY
6,701,347
Method for including a
self-removing code in a self-removing email message that contains an
advertisement
Abstract: Methods,
articles, signals, and systems are provided for providing unsolicited email
message originators with default control over message removal at a message
recipient's location, regardless of whether the unsolicited message has been
opened. For instance, a self-removing message is designated as such by the
message's originator, and a self-removal enhancement is added to conventional
message content such as advertising before the message is transmitted over a
computer network toward recipients. At a given recipient's location, the message
is automatically deleted without additional effort by the recipient, before or
after being displayed, according to the originator's instructions unless they
are overridden by the recipient. Thus, the burden of removing unsolicited email
messages is transferred from recipients to the message's originators.
Index
6,701,252
System for underwater GPS
navigation
Abstract: Provided
is a system that allows navigation by GPS while underwater by locating the
antenna above water and the display below water. In one embodiment, the GPS
antenna is attached to a tow-able buoy having a diver-down flag. In another
embodiment, the GPS antenna is carried by the diver and released to float to the
surface when the diver wishes to navigate. A preferred embodiment uses a
handheld computer to display GPS data, and can be expanded to also calculate and
display depth and decompression data, and to provide for further expansion and
integration to include other devices.
Index ================================================== ACCESS OFFICIAL GAZETTE AND
NOTICES Access this week's Official
Gazette http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week09/OG/index2.htm
Excerpt
from OG Notices
Requests for Ex Parte Reexamination Filed
Reissue Applications Filed
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 ================================================== EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES
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