News, Views and Muse

Detailed legislative history available for AIA

Thanks to Dennis Crouch in Patently-O for uncovering a useful legislative history of America Invents Act, written by Joe Matal, Judiciary Committee Counsel to Senator Jon Kyl, and recently in the Federal Circuit Bar Journal.  Absent judicial review, legislative history is the only way to determine with as much precision as possible Congressional intent.

While others monitor developments with gTLDs, Amazon makes a landgrab

.kindle and .amazon would have been the expected requests. But Amazon has applied for over 70 domain names from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).  (Google has applied for over 100). If they end up getting even some of these, we may see a different Amazon in the future.  Here are some of the coveted URLs:  .shop. .movie, .app … you get the idea.

NASA creates a technology transfer portal

NASA has created a Technology Transfer Portal to open up the agency's intellectual property assets to others via licenses, patents and other intellectual property agreements. To access NASA's Technology Transfer Portal, visit: http://technology.nasa.gov

Oracle agrees to accept “zero” damages and prepares an appeal

Oracle told a skeptical Judge William Alsup they agree to accept "zero" damages for the outstanding copyright infringement claims in its lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android. This takes care of all outstanding issues and clears the way for an Oracle appeal.

Anheuser-Busch files trademark registration applications for 42 airports

Clearly Anheuser-Busch/InBev sees growth in localizing its offerings.  Last July they filed trademark registration applications for 14 U.S. telephone area codes. Now they have filed applications for 42 U.S. Airports, suggesting it might not be long before, instead of an O’Doul’s or a Michelob, you might be able to order an O’Hare or a Midway in Chicago.