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PublishedJuly 19, 2013

Roundup of This Week’s Patent News: July 19 Edition

Hi there!  Support for patent reform continues to build.  In case you missed it, on Wednesday 50 groups sent a letter to leadership in the House and Senate urging for them to #fixpatents.  CCIA and other tech groups were signatories, as was the MPAA, and stakeholders from industries as diverse as retail, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, and financial services.  The consensus that this is a massive problem has been building for a while, but this was definitely a milestone.

In addition to the above-linked post on the ‘Big Tent’ letter, this week also featured two posts on Patent Progress by Matt Levy — one about Microsoft and Motorola and one about Apple and Samsung — on the smartphone wars and the unlikely role of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in patent litigation at the ITC.

The New York Times continues to give attention to patent reform, and had two articles this week on notorious patent trolls: one on Intellectual Ventures on Wednesday, which also focused on the FTC’s new strategy that was announced by Chairwoman Edith Ramirez at CCIA’s recent event, and one on IPNav on Saturday, that quoted Alan Schoenbaum, James Bessen, and Dan Ravicher.

Another interesting post from this week was by Washington Post Wonkblog’s Timothy Lee, which told the stories of several entrepreneurs from startups that have been sued by patent trolls.

Finally, yesterday there was an announcement that a patent monetization company has made a deal to acquire patents from the Rockstar Consortium, a group of companies who acquired the Nortel portfolio.  There is not a lot of information yet, but this is a development to follow.

Did we miss something?  Questions or suggestions?  Feel free to leave a comment below, mention us on Twitter (@PatentProgress), or email us: patentprogress[AT]ccianet[DOT]org

Ali Sternburg

, CCIA

Ali Sternburg is Vice President, Information Policy at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, where she focuses on intermediary liability, copyright, and other areas of intellectual property. Ali joined CCIA during law school in 2011, and previously served as Senior Policy Counsel, Policy Counsel, and Legal Fellow. She is also an Inaugural Fellow at the Internet Law & Policy Foundry.

She received her J.D. in 2012 from American University Washington College of Law, where she was a Student Attorney in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, President of the Intellectual Property Law Society, Senior Symposium Chair and Senior Marketing Manager for the Intellectual Property Brief, and a Dean’s Fellow at the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property.

She graduated from Harvard College in 2009 where she studied Government and Music, wrote her senior honors thesis on “Theoretical and Legal Views on U.S. Government Involvement in Musical Creativity Online,” and interned at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

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