For this week, I found an interesting article discussing the Licensing Executive Society (LES) conference being held in Moscow. It is interesting to realize there is a global group dedicated to dealing with intellectual property and patent issues.
Primarily, this conference brings to mind the issue of licensing. It seems that licensing is a huge general trend that people have been moving towards recently. Rather than suffering the costs of litigation, licensing appears to be a compromise to minimize the number of patent disputes. I am not certain though converging to licensing is always the best idea. However, it seems great to have open communications between patent attorneys, judges and the WIPO (world international property organization) director.
Even in other cases, there are efforts to ensure fair competition and help regulate the patent system. However, it will be interesting to learn if any progress can be made through improving the patent process with all of these high officials here. Again, the issue is that the parties involved in this conference has different perspectives and thoughts on patent disputes. For example, Chief Judge Randall Rader has been involved in cases distinguishing patent ownership from copyrights (Federal Circuits: Author post).
Even with the judicial court hammering down on false advertising and patent ownership, it does not prevent patent trolling or endless patent litigation today. However, it was pointed out that lawyer Hess was present at this LES conference who was responsible for helping Microsoft circumvent the Motorola appeal. Hess provided very clear arguments for non-experts to understand in the Microsoft case. Perhaps this style that Hess provides might be necessary to bring up in this conference as a standard for patent litigation.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/03/licensing-executives-society-wants-to.html
http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/03/7182.html
Interesting that the international location for the patent licensing conference would be held in Moscow. I would have thought that the U.S. or Asia would be more common, as these are the regions I have heard where most of the patent conflicts occur (though this could simply be my availability bias kicking in.) Regardless, I am a full proponent of patent licensing; sharing is caring — especially if you can make a profit.
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