Patent

Baltimore-based 180s Inc., whose flagship product are ear warmers that wrap around the head, is accusing a national retailer of stealing the patented design in a similar product it is selling in its stores. 180s filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against Brookstone Inc., a New Hampshire-based company. The Baltimore company is claiming that Brookstone's "Luxe" earmuffs infringe upon several of its patented designs. 180s is seeking monetary damages against Brookstone for allegedly violating the patents.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. - Louis D. Brandeis Just a few words and little thought separate yet another stronghold of the American economy from ruin. It doesn't have to be that way. The U.S. patent system has made America's biotech and pharmaceutical industries the envy of the world. This month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case posing the question: "Are human genes patentable?"

Researchers at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center have obtained a patent with applications for biological-agent detection technology, the research center reports. The patent, which was awarded Dec. 31, involves a new spectroscopic method for the diagnosis of DNA damage. The procedure can be implemented with equipment used to detect the presence of biological weapons on battlefields. "This patent represents the hard work and dedication of our employees," said Jim Zarzycki, technical director of the Edgewood center.

As the economy continues to flounder, many cities are looking for ways to replicate Silicon Valley's financial success. When seeking to catch the magic of those biggest successes - Apple, Google and Facebook - the word "innovation" gets thrown around frequently. And as intellectual property is taking on a larger and larger role in how companies do business in the Bay Area, many have equated innovation with patents. A recent Sun article about innovation in Baltimore and Maryland focused on just that.

DALLAS -- Texas Instruments Inc. claimed last week that on of its engineers was the first inventor of a computer that could be placed on a single microchip.The claim challenges a highly publicized patent awarded last July to an unknown California entrepreneur, Gilbert P. Hyatt.Although TI said it primarily wants to set the record straight, the winner of the legal battle could reap tens of millions of dollars in royalties from makers of products ranging from computer keyboards to videocassette recorders.

Nokia Corp. is broadening a legal dispute it already has with Apple Inc. over the iPhone, saying almost all of the company's other products also violate the Finnish phone maker's patents. Nokia said Tuesday that it has filed a complaint against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging Apple's iPhone, iPods and computers all violate Nokia's intellectual property rights. At issue are key features found in Apple products, including aspects of user interface, cameras, antenna and power management technologies, Nokia said.

Accelerated Payment Systems of Hunt Valley yesterday received a patent for a software system that allows businesses to collect payments from consumers over the phone without the use of credit cards.APS, a division of National Credit Management Corporation, calls its product "APS Checks." Here's how it works: A business lets customers make payments by providing a few key pieces of information, such as name, telephone number, a check number and the series of numbers on the bottom of the check.

Government backlogs are far too familiar to Americans. Many disabled Americans must wait years to receive benefits from the Social Security Administration. Piles of unanalyzed DNA evidence are delaying justice nationwide. And hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants are stuck in line for citizenship because of a backlog of "name checks" at the FBI. But one backlog might top them all. About 730,000 inventors are waiting for patents - the right to a 20-year monopoly on the production and sale of their inventions.

By defiantly licensing generic versions of patented medicines, Thailand late last year and Brazil a few weeks ago have severely tested global health policy and the global trade system itself. A functional system would strike a judicious balance between the interests of drug companies, whose patents compensate them for the large investments required to develop lifesaving medicines, and the imperative to make them available to the world's poor. Instead, today we have a dysfunctional battle between pharmaceutical giants and governments of developing countries, each side claiming to champion the world's health needs and accusing the other of exploitation.

A Beltsville company that is trying to develop a sugar substitute that can be easily used in baking took a step toward getting the product on the market yesterday by winning a key patent, but the company's chief executive said the product is still years from the market.Biospherics Inc. said it had won a patent for calcium tagatate, a compound it uses in a previously patented process for making D-Tagatose, an artificial sugar derived from whey, a dairy byproduct.The company's chief executive, Gilbert Levin, said the new patent helped intensify the company's talks with potential investors, which are major food companies that would add the sugar substitute to their products.

The Baltimore area has a ton of research. But patents on that research? Not so much. A new report from the Brookings Institution shows that the metro area's level of patenting remained basically flat over the last decade, while the U.S. as a whole saw a 60 percent spike in patent grants. Per capita, our region's number of patent applications from 2007 to 2011 ranked 116th among metro areas -- far and away below the powerhouses like San Jose and San Francisco. Why care? Brookings, a Washington think tank, says patent-heavy areas have lower unemployment and other economic pluses.

Dr. Luis Diaz is an oncologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, a researcher with patented findings and the co-founder of a small, fast-expanding company. "We've grown from no employees to one employee to four employees and now we have 12," said Diaz, chief medical officer of the Baltimore-based Personal Genome Diagnostics. The Baltimore region is a top performer in research but is merely middling when it comes to patenting innovations, a critical next step in the progression Diaz made to job creation.

Every time a woman is tested for gene mutations linked to significantly higher rates of breast and ovarian cancer, her blood is sent to a lab in Utah. That's because Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics Inc. owns the patents to the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutations, giving it control over all research and testing done nationwide. The company charges thousands of dollars for each set of results. The patents have become the subject of a legal fight that could soon head to the U.S. Supreme Court and have sparked a broader discussion about the fast-evolving field of genomics and so-called personalized medicine, in which treatments are tailored based on a patient's genetic makeup.

A bunch of new patent applications from Bank of America reveal that the company's R&D lab has been working on new mobile technologies that would enable smartphone users to analyze their environment with their smartphone's video camera ; recognize the objects around them, including those with embedded sensors; and generate automatic budgeting and wish lists . The North Carolina banking powerhouse is known within the banking industry for...

The Cordish Companies this afternoon blasted Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposed legislation to expand gambling in Maryland as "patently unfair" to the existing casino operators. Joe Weinberg, the Managing Partner at the Cordish Cos., said the firm has spent more than half a billion dollars building the state's largest casino adjacent to the Arundel Mills mall. His Maryland Live casino opened in June, and has made roughly a million dollars a day -- two thirds of which goes to the state.

Boy Scouts from around the Baltimore area gathered in Annapolis last week to witness a historic event involving the state's transfer of ownership to part of the Broad Creek Memorial Scout Reservation in northern Harford County. At a Board of Public Works meeting in the Governor's Reception Room in the State House, under a portrait of George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, Gov. Martin O'Malley signed an actual sheepskin land patent, granting 19.014 acres of previously state-owned land at Broad Creek to the Baltimore Area Council, Boy Scouts of America.

NEW YORK -- IBM Corp. sued Amazon.com Inc. yesterday, claiming that the Internet retailer's Web sites violate IBM's patents involving online commerce. International Business Machines said the patented technologies are fundamental to the way Amazon does business, including storing data, advertising and product recommendations. IBM is seeking royalties on billions of dollars in revenues. "IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," said John E. Kelly III, senior vice president of IBM Technology and Intellectual Property.

Information Resource Engineering Inc. said yesterday that it has received a patent on its new secure portable modem, a product the company said will promote telecommuting by making it easier for stay-at-home workers to affordably scramble transmissions to their offices."

The Baltimore Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America has won approval from state officials to buy 19 acres in Harford County to expand the Broad Creek Memorial Scout Reservation through an unusual method known as a land patent. After conducting a public hearing this spring, the state's Commissioner of Land Patents Edward Papenfuse ruled that the land had never been deeded to a private owner and that the scouts had the right to purchase it. His decision marks the first time since 2002 that a private entity has received approval to secure a land patent from the state, after proving that no one else owns the land it wants.

Millennial Media was hit with a federal lawsuit in Delaware on Thursday by a competitor claiming that the Baltimore mobile advertising company infringed on three of its patents. The lawsuit came a week after Millennial went public, raising $152 million in what was widely considered a successful offering in the technology sector. New York City-based Augme Technologies Inc. is suing Millennial based on its holding of patents pertaining to the "providing of targeted content over the Internet.