Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

In the November 2005 (Issue 13.11) issue of Wired, Lawrence Lessig points out that November will be decision time for Google on its Google Print program.

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As reported by CNET, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by a programmer who sued his former employer for changing his programs’ source code.

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Go Daddy Group Inc. filed patent application number 20050216288 on September 29, 2005. The patent claims as a patentable invention the offering the following services to a customer in a single package: (a) registering a new domain name; (b) setting up a hosted website using such domain name; and (c) submitting an application to the trademarks office in order to trademark the selected domain name. There may also be an additional service of submitting the URL of the hosted website to various serach engines. Obviously, offering these services as a package with only one set of forms that need to be filled out may result in some rekeying of data. Also, performing all of these steps, and within a shorter rather than longer timeframe, may provide better legal protection. However, is offering this combination of services as a package, even if not offered by others, something that would not be obvious to someone skilled in the art?

USPTO - Patent Application No. 20050216288

Apparently, Go Daddy employs two full time patent attorneys and has over 50 patent applications pending. Another patent application covers the process of combining the designing a website with an application to the US copyright office.

Google has run into a trademark problem in the UK. It seems that another company is claiming rights in the GMAIL name. So as of October 19, 2005, Google has stopped issuing @gmail.com accounts. It will instead issue @googlemail.com addresses for new email accounts for people in the UK. This illustrates the importance of clearing product names is all relevant markets before launching.

Yesterday, Research in Motion lost a motion to obtain a stay while it appeals its patent infringement case with NTP Inc. to the U.S. Supreme Court. As a consequence, a an injunction could be issued to prohibit US sales of its Blackberry devices.

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