RETURN to News Archive ================================================== Copyright(c) 1998-2004 GEN-ERIC Channel.  All rights reserved. GEN-ERIC Patent News Tuesday, July 20, 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 You are There Patent of the Day goes to Microsoft Corporation of Redmond for Landmark-based location of users The Super String Patent of the Day goes to Gibson Guitar Corp. of Nashville for a Hydrophobic polymer string treatment     Index ================================================== NEWS Philips sues Gillette for toothbrush-patent infringement http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/07/14/financial1613EDT0246.DTL Royal Philips Electronics has accused Gillette Co. of violating patents for its electric toothbrush technology, Philips said Wednesday. Philips, the Dutch electronics and technology conglomerate, uses the technology in its Sonicare electric toothbrushes, which use microprocessors to direct bristle movement. Boston-based Gillette sells its power toothbrushes under the Oral-B brand. "We are confident that our Oral-B products don't infringe any Phillips patents," Gillette responded.     Index Telcordia Pockets Patent Payment http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=56299 Yesterday, Marconi Corp. announced, as part of its trading update, that it was to pay a lump sum of $21 million to Telcordia to settle a long-running patent infringement dispute. The payments had been set to be made over a three-year period and amount to $23.5 million, but the parties settled on a slightly smaller but immediate payment. "It was marginally in our favor to do it this way, and these days we have the cash to make that sort of choice," says a Marconi spokesman. That cash position has come from Marconi's strategy of selling off its "non-core assets" to pay off its debts. Although the British vendor didn't provide any further detail yesterday, the infringement is one it inherited when it acquired Fore Systems in 1999, and relates to a Telcordia technology known as Dynamic TDM, or DTDM, designed to allow the transmission of data and TDM traffic from a single platform.     Index Court Upholds $134.5 Million Verdict Against Nellcor for Infringement of Masimo's Patents http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-16-2004/0002211648&EDATE= Masimo Corporation today announced that the District Court for the Central District of California upheld a jury verdict against Tyco's Nellcor division of $134.5 million for infringement of Masimo's patents. In doing so, the Court upheld jury findings of infringement for two Masimo patents, with 15 patent claims. The Court also sustained the jury verdict that Masimo did not infringe a Nellcor patent. The court reversed the jury's finding that the infringement was willful and did not grant an injunction against Nellcor. Further proceedings will determine the additional compensation due Masimo for its losses due to continued infringement. The jury finding of willful infringement would have allowed the court to increase the jury damages award.     Index ================================================== PATENTS OF THE DAY 6,766,245 Landmark-based location of users Abstract:  Humans identify location and directions based on visual cues, such as landmarks, rather than a precise coordinate grid. A database of landmarks can be used to determine the location of a user who can merely describe their location in the same manner they would to any human contact. The location of the user can be determined based on the landmarks described in the input, and the areas from which all of those landmarks are visible. Various databases can be used, including text-based and three-dimensional. Similarly, various mechanisms can be used to determine the user's location, including hierarchical approaches, query optimization approaches, and visibility percentage approaches. Ultimately, the user's location can be determined without the need for expensive, dedicated infrastructure, without compromising the user's security, and without subjecting the user to system outages.     Index 6,765,136 Hydrophobic polymer string treatment Abstract:  A hydrophobic polymer is adhesively coated on the surfaces of the wound string within its interstitial voids, while the exterior surfaces remain uncoated. The polymer is applied by soaking the string in a liquid polymeric solution to flow the solution into the interstitial voids. The string is removed from the bath and the residual solution is removed from the exterior surface of the string using a resilient scraper. The string is hung to dry for 8 hours in a clean room environment at ambient temperatures and, more preferably, maintained at a temperature of between 20.degree. C. and 25.degree. C. Alternatively, the string is treated by a combination of heat and drying.     Index ================================================== ACCESS OFFICIAL GAZETTE AND NOTICES Access this week's Official Gazette http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week29/OG/index2.htm Excerpt from OG Notices Requests for Ex Parte Reexamination Filed Registration to Practice     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 to List a Job Patent Related Jobs from Monster Patent Related Jobs from www.IntelPropLaw.com     Index ================================================== GEN-ERIC Channel