Intellectual Property

Wanda Clancy appears resigned to the idea of losing Tom Clancy, the best-selling author and her husband since 1969.Letting go of the name Tom Clancy is another issue. And who gets custody of his literary alter ego, Jack Ryan?Like any pair of divorcing multimillionaires, the Clancys have to divide real estate, stocks, savings accounts, investments and consumer goods, including the Sherman tank that Mrs. Clancy famously gave her husband several years ago.But, if Mrs. Clancy's lawyers prevail, a judge will have to determine if there's a value to Clancy's name, which sells not only the Jack Ryan novels that made him a rich man, but volumes of military non-fiction books, his "Op-Center" series, young adult books and computer games.

In a move aimed at landing more high-technology legal work, Venable, Baetjer and Howard LLP said yesterday that it will absorb the Washington-based intellectual property law firm of Spencer & Frank.The addition of Spencer & Frank's 15 lawyers on Oct. 1 will almost double Venable's intellectual property contingent of 20 lawyers, pushing the firm's total roster to 301.James L. Shea, Venable's managing partner, said information technology firms and biotechnology firms stretching from Northern Virginia to Baltimore increasingly require more protection of intellectual property.

Rick Minogue had a good idea but nowhere to take it.In 1995 Minogue, a Cockeysville-based house painter who also dabbled in songwriting, designed an ergonomic keyboard -- intended to ease the stress of computer use. But he found out after meeting with several lawyers that it would cost about $10,000 to seek a patent to protect his invention.Max Oppenheimer, then a partner at the Baltimore law firm of Venable, Baetjer and Howard, had a proposition. Overseeing the project, he would assign the legal work to students in his intellectual property law clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore.

Two years ago, SnakeLight snared a $100 million market to become Black & Decker Corp.'s most successful product ever.Newscasts told of shortages of the flexible flashlight. Oklahoma City bombing rescue workers ordered them. Television's David Letterman joked that he gave his mother one for Christmas.Now in its third holiday season, SnakeLight faces a problem that befalls every runaway hit. The novelty's gone.That means that SnakeLight has not only lost its cachet, but that it faces another inevitability - copycats who want to seize its flexible flashlight franchise.

NEITHER CHINA nor the United States can afford a trade war. These two giant powers may resort to bluster and brinksmanship, as they did in the run-up to a predictable agreement curbing China's massive piracy of U.S. film, recording and software copyrights. But their relationship is too important to permit a full-scale trade war.Much the same can be said about Washington's annual threats -- abandoned again yesterday in the House -- to China's access to the U.S. market by denying it "most-favored nation" (MFN)

Billions of dollars and the commercial future of the Internet are on the line as Clinton administration officials, media and technology executives and consumer advocates meet in Geneva today to discuss a stack of controversial proposals for overhauling copyright law.In the first government-level meeting in decades of the World Intellectual Property Organization, participants hope to update international law for the digital age. Cyberspace is widely seen...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Since the end of the apartheid era, visits by Queen Elizabeth, Pope John Paul II and Mick Jagger have signaled South Africa's return to the international arena.Now another name can be added to that list: Ronald McDonald.The hamburger clown made his debut last week at the opening of South Africa's first McDonald's restaurant, hours after the company won a court order barring a local competitor from using its trademarked golden arches, names and logo.The local company had opened outlets in Johannesburg and Durban under the name "MacDonald's" -- with the extra a. In addition to the subtly different name, it offered a burger called a Big Mac as well as something called a Little Mac.But a South African court ruled Friday that the local company could not use the symbols of McDonald's at least until another hearing Dec. 3.The United States had already placed South Africa on a "watch list" of countries for failing to protect intellectual property, since a lower court had ruled that the locals could "borrow" the hamburger trademarks.

The explosive initial sale of stock in Netscape Inc. and the controversy over Microsoft's plan to package Internet software with its Windows 95 have turned Internet mania into a factor in investment markets. But is it time yet to think of the Internet as a source of investment opportunities? Or are there problems, such as privacy and intellectual property protection, that could slow or limit its impact?Mary McCaffreyTechnology analyst Alex. Brown & SonsThe Internet has been around in one form or another for decades, but for a long time it was the province of governments and academics.

WASHINGTON -- Endorsing a first, tentative step toward modernizing the nation's intellectual property laws, the entertainment and information industries yesterday welcomed a draft recommendation from the Clinton administration on extending the copyright law to cover on-line services and other corners of cyberspace.Record companies, film studios and book publishers have been increasingly concerned about illegal copies of musical recordings and texts being exchanged over electronic networks.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration backed away yesterday from citing China for pirating American movies, music and computer software after top officials decided in a flurry of meetings and phone calls that launching a new trade action could complicate already touchy relations with Beijing."

Federal lawmakers are considering a measure that would drastically weaken the U.S. patent system. But rather than overhaul the system that has fostered more than 200 years of technological breakthroughs, lawmakers ought to devote their energies to strengthening U.S. patents against the threats posed by foreign counterfeiters. The Patent Reform Act, which made it through the House late last year, is expected to be voted on in the Senate within the next few weeks. It's no coincidence that the only Maryland representative to vote against it - Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett - is also the only one who has invented and patented products.

Microsoft has given up its nine-year fight against antitrust regulators in Europe, saying yesterday that it would not challenge a court judgment from last month and would share technical information with rivals on terms the software giant had long resisted. European regulators and some software groups in Europe hailed the deal as a breakthrough opening the door to freer competition, especially in the market for the server software that powers corporate data centers and the Internet. The agreement was struck in Europe, but it will have consequences worldwide because the terms for licensing Microsoft's intellectual property will be extended to competitors in the United States and in other markets.

Robert A. Spar, a partner at Saul Ewing in Baltimore, is committed to helping his law firm increase its stable of patent attorneys. That means invoking headhunters, placing ads in Philadelphia and Washington publications and sending a five-member team to scout at Bio, an international trade convention recently held in Boston. He'd like to find enough specialized attorneys to nearly double the firm's life science practice, which now employs 35. Good luck. Competition is fierce, because legal offices across the country are trying to do precisely the same thing.

JEFFREY LAWRENCE BRANDT, 52, Intellectual Property Visionary and Expert, President of JLB Consulting, Inc. of Ridgefield, CT, Dies. Jeffrey L. Brandt, a Philadelphia, PA native and long-time resident of Ridgefield, CT, is credited with being responsible for the issuance of one of the most influential and successful "business method patents" in history, the "Priceline.com Patent". His expertise in the intellectual patent field, particularly in patent process and patent portfolio management, patent strategy for startup companies, and specializing in controversial and cutting-edge "business method patents", is unparalleled.

CHICAGO -- Ridvan Tatargil's factory makes pillows, comforters and duvets destined for the homes of customers willing to pay more for bed furnishings than some might pay for a car. But Tatargil, who grew from a one-person shop with 300 employees on Chicago's West Side, says he faces a growing concern: knockoffs. Many U.S. businesses are seeing their products, including golf clubs, backpacks and sunglasses, duplicated cheaply in foreign factories and sold here at a fraction of the price of the real thing.

WASHINGTON -- Compared to the global warming and abortion cases set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, yesterday's arguments in MedImmune Inc. v. Genentech Inc. seem easy to dismiss as insignificant. The case involves two biotechnology companies in a legal spat over a patent. And while that patent protects technology used to manufacture monoclonal antibodies - an increasingly important substance in the drug-making world - it's not the sort of thing discussed in the neighborhood coffeeshop.

It might have been honor. It might have been fear. Or even self-interest. Possibly, all motivated PepsiCo officials to turn in those who tried to sell the company a secret new beverage recipe belonging to archrival Coca-Cola Co. Whatever the company's reasons, several experts in business ethics and intellectual property say they are not surprised that Pepsi didn't take the bait. Many say they would expect other large companies to refuse if offered their chief competitor's trade secrets.

Maryland: Technology Digene leaders get stock incentives In what appears to be an effort to keep its management staff from following the chief executive out the door, Digene Corp. of Gaithersburg has awarded restricted stock units to five senior executives "for the purpose of providing retention incentive compensation," according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. Digene also promoted a vice president of sales and marketing to senior vice president and agreed that he could retain his position for two years or receive compensation if a change in control occurs.

Three years ago, Jill A. Stelfox filed three applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One was granted six months ago. Two are still pending. For some industries, that time frame might not be so bad, but in Stelfox's world of wireless technology, it's rotten. "Technology changes too quickly," said Stelfox, who in 2003 co-founded a Herndon, Va., company called Defywire Inc., which creates mobile tracking and information transmission systems. "There's got to be a way to speed up the process."

Ma Gray? That's how the nation's phone system might have been known had Alexander Graham Bell's lawyer stopped for brunch on the way to the U.S. patent office on Feb. 14, 1876. Just hours after the inventor's attorney submitted Bell's telephone patent application that Valentine's Day, a comparable idea came in from Elisha Gray, who wrote of plans to "transmit the tones of the human voice ... so that actual conversations can be carried on by persons at long distances apart." But he was too late.