LJN Newsletters

Part One of this article addressed 800 Adept, Inc. v. Murex Secs., Ltd. et al. and the required level of care that must be taken before issuing notice letters to potential infringers and the legal standard under which that care may later be judged. This second installment discusses Dominant Semiconductors Sdn. Bhd. v. OSRAM Gmbh.

The Third Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law is expected to bring the law into closer conformity with international standards, particularly commensurate with U.S. Patent contract and litigation practice, even though several changes such as the absolute novelty requirement still clearly reflect the influence of European Patent laws on the development of the Chinese Patent Law. The Third Amendment includes changes to patent application and enforcement processes, ownership rights, compulsory licensing rules, international exhaustion rights, penalties for patent infringement, prior art defenses, and exemptions, summarized in this article.

During the last two years, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has decided a series of cases that collectively explore what circumstances are sufficient, or insufficient, to establish declaratory judgment jurisdiction in the context of a patent dispute. Several of these decisions, which have put patentees at an increased risk for declaratory judgment lawsuits, are addressed in this article.

Who's going where; who's doing what.

Recent rulings of interest.

On March 31, the U.S. Supreme Court blinked in a long-running standoff with the Oregon Supreme Court over the handling of a punitive damages suit against Philip Morris brought by the widow of a smoker who died from lung cancer in 1997. The high court dismissed the case of Philip Morris v. Williams as "improvidently granted"in a one-sentence opinion.

New Jersey can pursue Exxon Mobil for natural resource damage done by two refineries prior to enactment of the state's Spill Compensation and Control Act, a Union County judge has ruled. This article explains the background.

The sophisticated user doctrine has become a prevalent defense nationwide in product liability actions involving failure-to-warn claims. This article expounds upon recent cases that help to entrench the sophisticated user doctrine in many states' case law, to a full or limited degree.