Omid Khalifeh, Author at Omni Legal Group Blog

Welcome Summer!

Summertime is upon us and people everywhere are getting ready to hit the beach. Pack up your picnic lunches, your volleyballs, your beach towels, but don’t forget your chair! Beach chairs make it so much more comfortable to sit in the sand and watch the waves roll in. You can get a beach chair that reclines, one that sits high, one that sits low, or one that lies flat so you can get an even tan. Today’s patent is from an early beach chair. This one featured a footrest and a built in shade. This patent doesn’t look all that different from chairs you can purchase today!

NO EMBRYO NEEDED: Cellular Dynamics Enhances Stem Cell Methodologies

The search to painlessly generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) is heating up, and Cellular Dynamics International, Inc. is on the leading edge. The USPTO recently published Cellular Dynamics’ patent application for “Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Small Volumes of Peripheral Blood,” which generally discloses methods for increasing the overall process efficiency of reprogramming peripheral blood cells into iPS cells.

In a nutshell, pluripotent stem cells can produce any type of cell, whereas tissue stem cells can only produce cells of that tissue type. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent cells, but as they generally do not exist in the human body after the person is five days old, working with these cells presents ethical and scarcity concerns. Tissue stem cells, on the other hand, are plentiful but only generate cells within a particular tissue line. For example, dermal fibroblasts can differentiate into any skin cell and hematopoietic progenitor cells can differentiate into any blood cell, but neither can differentiate into muscle tissue cells. Naturally, scientists tried, and succeeded, in converting these cells into pluripotent stem cells, by inducing them into that condition, hence the name. As scientists must start from something, obtaining hematopoietic progenitor cells from blood draws is much less painful to the patient than obtaining dermal fibroblasts from a skin biopsy, and hence hematopoietic progenitor cells are preferable starting materials from which to make iPS cells.

Generally speaking, when hematopoietic progenitor cells are expanded (multiplied in a lab setting), they have a tendency to differentiate (configure into a specific type of cell), which makes them less likely to accept reprogramming into iPS cells. The Cellular Dynamics researchers, however, found a way to avoid such a result, thereby allowing the researchers to harvest more hematopoietic progenitor cells from a smaller volume of blood. While beyond the scope of this article, interested readers are encouraged to discover the conditions that brought about this result via U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0088818 A1. Using, essentially, a combination of conditions, inhibitors, and medium composition, the researchers were able to both expand the hematopoietic progenitor cells while still achieving reprogramming success using known reprogramming techniques (introducing exogenous episomal genetic elements or exogenous RNA genetic elements that express iPS reprogramming factors into the expanded hematopoietic progenitor cells).

More iPS cells mean more breakthroughs, and this patent application may accelerate that process as well.

NEWS

During April 2017, Omni Legal Group filed it’s 500th trademark application in the United States Trademark Office. Trademarks are identifiers of source that are intended to prevent consumer confusion and they protect a brand’s logo and name. In addition to our 500+ US filings, we have registered marks all over the world including places such as Australia, China and the European Union. Our clients work in a wide variety of industries including fashion designers, software developers, doctors, musicians, contractors, and chefs to name a few. Trademarks are one of the most important pieces of intellectual property that a business can own and all business owners should review their brand and products to determine if they are protected. If not, we would love to make sure that your brand is strong and secure.

Selma and the Intellectual Property involving Dr. King’s famed speeches.

Best Picture Oscar Nominee, Selma is a a cinematic portrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legendary march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in support of the Voter Right’s Act of 1965. Despite the film’s many accolades, history buffs have been quick to raise criticism for its technically inaccurate portrayals of King’s famous speeches. In an effort to avoid violating the copyrights held by King’s estate – which have been reportedly licensed to DreamWorks and Warner Bros. for use in an upcoming film – director Ava DuVernay chose instead to paraphrase Dr. King’s works. The commentary surrounding this decision has run the gamut from enthusiastically supporting the King estate’s exercise of its rights, to decrying the copyright system for failing to make such socially important content available for free dissemination. It is easy to be swept up by the emotion displayed on both sides of the spectrum, especially when King’s work has had such a profound effect in shaping the social and political climate we face today. Still, it is important to put the copyrights at issue into perspective.

Frustrating though it may be to lack unfettered access to King’s speeches, the court of public opinion is not be the body that determines which art and which technology should be protected by the law. Indeed, the copyright and patent laws that govern such things have been put in place precisely in order to ensure that the often artful and intangible objects of our creation are indiscriminately provided with some manner of protection in the same way that our personal property is.

The issue here is not resolved by arguing that King’s speeches are so important that performing them verbatim should fall within the realm of allowable, license-free “fair use.” Indeed, had DuVernay proposed using King’s speeches for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, using the his words without a license would arguably be allowable. Instead, DuVernay would have used the work to draw a profit for herself and her associates through a wildly successful feature film. And it is precisely this unlicensed commercialization of his copyrighted works that King’s estate has consistently fought against with support from the courts.

‘I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT BRAIN- WORK. WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO LIVE FOR? – SHERLOCK HOLMES

The famous literary detective Sherlock Holmes experienced a renaissance when new breath was given to him by Robert Downey, Dr. in the Guy Richie films and, more recently, in the television shows Sherlock and Elementary. Since then, the copyright status of Detective Holmes has become a subject of much debate and, inearly 2013, scholar Leslie Klinger brought suit a to determine who indeed owned
these rights.

In a suit brought against the estate of the detectives creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Klinger asked the courts to rule that the characters and other elements featured in 46 short stories and 4 novels (published from 1887 through 1922) are now in the public domain. A ruling in his favor would leave him, and others, free to sell their own adaptations of the Sherlock universe without any need to seek licenses from the Doyle estate.

The Supreme Court laid the issue to rest once and for all and Klinger got just what he wanted. On November 3, 2014, the Supreme Court did so by refusing to

because their features had been changed in later stories. Accordingly, any copyrights covering the elements of the Sherlock Holmes stories written prior to 1923 are now expired.

grant an appeal by the Doyle estate and by upholding a decision by the 7th Circuit. This decision held copyright protection in Conan Doyle’s characters, many of which are now more than 125 years old, could not be extended simply.

We’re curious to know which Sherlock stories would you like to reimagine?

Copyright Law: FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT…

The Beastie Boys are threatening to take legal action over a video set to their 1986 song “Girls.” This video depicts children building a Rube Goldberg-type machine and replaces lyrics such as “Girls — to do the dishes/ Girls — to clean up my room/” with the less offensive “Girls – to build the spaceship/ Girls — to code the new app.”

The video’s creator is claiming protection under the copyright doctrine of parody which is a form of fair use while attorney’s for the Beastie Boys assert the video is a “big problem” that has a “very significant impact.”

Share your views on this David and Goliath type copyright battle below.

Are the Days of Patent Trolling Numbered?

Patent trolling has long been on the minds of law makers seeking to put an end to this practice. Reform seems closer today than ever before as the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte released a discussion draft aimed at preventing abusive patent troll litigation.The Chair has indicated he will hold a hearing and committee vote on this new piece of legislation very soon. The new law sets its sites on adding more hurdles before patent trolls to shield inventors from unscrupulous tactics that may stifle innovation.

Google Expands Searchable Patents beyond the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Google has made it even easier for pro se inventors to conduct their own patent searches. The search giant has released information about their expanded database of patents beyond the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Now users can research patents in agencies including China, Germany, Canada, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This resource can be accessed at patents.google.com. This a good place for inventors to start learning about what patent applications look like before seeking the advice of a patent professional.

Biotech Patent Law

The Supreme Court upheld Monsanto Co.’s patent infringement claim against an Indiana farmer who violated the company’s patents on weed killer resistant soybean seeds (Bowman v. Monsanto Co.). The decision came down as a unanimous vote Monday (5.13.2013). In their defense, the farmer’s argued cheap soybeans bought from a grain elevator were not covered by the Monsanto patents. Today, more than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” seeds.

Yet another chapter in the ongoing discussion involving gene patents, the Monsanto case was been closely watched by researchers and businesses holding patents on DNA molecules, nanotechnologies and other self-replicating technologies. Ever since the landmark holding in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, which held anything under the son made by man was patentable, the High Court has set a precedent of siding with the patent holder. Voice your opinion on this patent law issue below. And, as always, if you have any patent, trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property related questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at our Los Angeles or Beverly Hills Office by calling (310) 276-6664.

Software & Technology Patent Law

In an ongoing patent lawsuit between technology giants Microsoft and Google, Microsoft gains ground. A federal judge has ruled Microsoft owes less than half of the royalty payments for sales of Windows and the Xbox sought by Google. The amount totaling $4 billion a year in payments has been reduced to $1.8 billion. “This decision is good for consumers because it ensures patented technology committed to standards remains affordable for everyone,” David Howard, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and deputy general counsel, said in a statement.Voice your opinion on this patent law issue below. And, as always, if you have any patent, trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property related questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at our Los Angeles or Beverly Hills Office Office by calling (310) 276-6664.

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