Are Patent Rulings Impacting Court Cases?
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The Wall Street Journal sure thinks so. Here is an excerpt from a WSJ article titled ‘How a Patent Ruling Is Changing Court Cases’ that drives the point home –Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco who previously had allowed a patent-infringement lawsuit [by Friskit] to proceed against RealNetworks Inc. changed course and dismissed the case, citing the Supreme Court's April ruling in KSR v. Teleflex. The case is believed to be the first in which a trial-court judge has reversed his position and dismissed a case in the defendant's favor, citing the KSR decision.
"The Supreme Court has made it clear what it thinks," the judge said at a hearing in the case. "Patents are being issued on obvious inventions, and it tightened the reins."
The Supreme Court laid out the obviousness doctrine in 1851, saying that a patent requires more "skill and ingenuity" than that of "an ordinary mechanic acquainted with the business." Since virtually every litigated patent case includes an assertion of obviousness, and since the U.S. patent office examines patent applications for obviousness, many legal commentators have called KSR the most important patent case in decades.
"Patentees have long had the upper hand in patent litigation but the KSR case has shifted that balance of power back to defendants," said Dennis Crouch, a law professor at the University of Missouri.
This means that applicants need to be much more careful while putting in their applications if they want the proceedings to progress without any hitches. The best, and ultimately cheapest, option would be to let experienced professionals handle the application procedure from the beginning, so that none of the problems arise later on to delay or derail the process.
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The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) is presently experiencing a large increase in the number of ex parte appeals. In 2006 (Financial Year), the Board received 3,349 ex parte appeals. In 2007, the Board expects to receive more than 4,000 ex parte appeals; and in 2008, it expects to receive over 5,000 such appeals.
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A few days ago, I had drawn your attention to .jpg)
The 
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A Secure Ambulation Mode (S.A.M.) physical therapy device is being used by Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington D.C., to help patients recover from traumatic spinal cord and brain injuries.
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Recently, the Patent Reform Act of 2007 was approved by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. It closely tracks a similar bill passed by the Senate Committee last week. This acquires added significance in light of the fact that numerous companies had put forward a series of complaints concerning an increase in the number of frivolous patents in recent years.
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Can getting a single letter of the alphabet wrong in an issued patent spell disaster when it comes to litigating against infringers? Unless the mistake is seen as being a minor typographical error that can be corrected by filing a certificate of correction, the answer is a resounding yes.
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Not surprisingly, 
The latest issue of the 