But U.S. patent law still gives TQP a six-year period when it can sue companies for prior infringement of the defunct patent.
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Nothing has even made it out of committee yet, so the actual passage of a patent reform bill still seems quite far off, but there is definite talk going on in Washington as to what patent reform would look like, and there seems to be enough common ground for some good to come of it.
Now consider our actual world: yes, there are still patent fights.
Dr Ben Ngubane, The minister for arts, culture and technology in the South African government, said that a model for the new patent law was still under development.
The company vowed to appeal against the dismissal of its lawsuit against Apple, and said a separate case regarding four alleged patent infringements was still pending in Mannheim.
Monsanto lost its U.S. Patent in 2000 and still has maintained a high level of Roundup sales.
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The idea is that when drugs are still on patent, drug companies will spend huge sums marketing even the tiniest benefit in order to increase market share.
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Today a federal New York judge ruled that the patent on Plavix is still valid and said Sanofi (Plavix's inventor) was entitled to an injunction to keep Apotex from launching a copycat.
Product A was about to go off-patent and become available as a generic, and we were trying to anticipate the effect this would have on sales of Product B, still on patent.
But pharmaceutical companies should still enjoy patent protection.
Worse, the company's chief asset--its nifty software--still has no patent or trademark protection (see radar graph).
Bristol-Myers says it still believes its patent is sound, and both companies say they are reviewing the judge's ruling.
Most countries still insist that any patent must be translated into their language to apply on their soil.
In order to guard against the generics, Forest is trying to switch patients from Celexa to Lexapro, which still has years of patent protection.
Although it will still hold an exclusive patent to sell seldafinil, the active compound in Viagra, until 2013 in the U.K., it lost a patent that prevented other companies from even selling similar drugs.
After waiting for years to obtain a patent, and enduring a difficult path of expensive examination, the patent owner would have to endure still more attacks, without the shield of the clear and convincing evidence standard for protection.
Qualcomm calms investors by saying that TD-SCDMA phones will still be subject to its patent-royalties program.
Patent applications filed before that date can still realize the benefits of the first-to-invent system.
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The companies are still embroiled in a major patent battle which has been playing out in Australia and across the globe.
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Samsung may have convinced Judge Koh to toss a few international handsets out of Apple's lawsuit, but the Korean firm still has Cupertino's patent licensing accusations to contend with.
It still faces the mother of all patent expirations next year, when Lipitor loses its protection.
Microsoft still makes more money from Android patent licensing than it does by selling licenses of Windows Phone OS to its hardware partners.
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But Apple still has until July to persuade the Patent Office that the smaller tablet differs sufficiently from its iconic sibling.
For example, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said if a new way was found to extract the ingredients of a cookie, a company still wouldn't be able to patent flour, eggs or salt.
While the exact mechanism responsible for this development is still unclear, the timing of the increase in patent cases against startups relative to the AIA strongly suggests a causal nexus.
The Graedons noted that while the active ingredient of the drug goes off patent, the pharmaceutical chemistry behind the extended delivery system may still be the intellectual property of the brand-name manufacturer.
Still, with Passbook waiting in the wings, the patent can't help but fuel speculation that Apple is getting more serious about an iPhone with near-field wireless in the future.
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One expert following the case says it could still take years before a final decision is made on this patent.
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Still, two recent appeals court decisions--one covering patent cases--make it easier for defendants to move cases out of the Eastern District.
Of course, there are still the necessary arguments over whether they are indeed violating the earlier patent.
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