Patents

Microsoft Corp. must face a lawsuit that seeks hundred of millions of dollars in damages over patents for a process to improve images on computer screens, a court ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington reversed a judge's findings that three patents owned by Research Corporation Technologies Inc. couldn't be enforced. It sent the case back to the lower court for rulings on validity and infringement.

Callaway Golf Co., the maker of Big Bertha and Steelhead golf clubs, traded lawsuits with Fortune Brands Inc.'s Acushnet Co. over its redesigned Titleist Pro V1 golf balls. Acushnet's new versions of Pro V1 golf balls, modified after a previous infringement suit by Callaway, infringed two other patents, according to a complaint filed Monday in Wilmington, Del. Acushnet countersued, claiming Callaway's patents are invalid and that the Carlsbad, Calif., company infringed nine of its patents.

When does a great idea become a patentable invention? That was a question easier to answer when Thomas Edison came up with the lightbulb and Whitcomb Judson devised the zipper -- Industrial Age innovations that clearly fit with old ideas of what it meant to invent something. But a recent case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit points up the difficulty of making such judgments in the age of the Internet. Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw of WeatherWise USA Inc.

The companies that make Scrabble are trying to shut down Scrabulous, an online version of the game that is one of the most popular applications on the social-networking website Facebook. Hasbro Inc., which owns the rights to the crossword game in the U.S. and Canada, and Mattel Inc., which owns the rights elsewhere, believe that the Facebook game infringes their copyrights and trademarks. Scrabulous listed more than 600,000 daily active users on Facebook as of Wednesday.

Alcatel-Lucent lost a key ruling in Microsoft Corp.'s U.S. trade complaint over patents for a system that integrates telephones and computers for voice calls, e-mail and videoconferencing. U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Paul Luckern said Alcatel's OmniPCX Enterprise system infringes one Microsoft patent and recommended that it be barred from the U.S. He rejected claims that the system infringed three other patents or the OmniPCX Office servers infringe any of the four patents.

At least three generic versions of the popular osteoporosis treatment Fosamax are headed for pharmacy shelves with the expiration of the drug's main patent Wednesday, bringing patients hefty savings. Two of the biggest makers of generic drugs, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., said Wednesday they would immediately begin selling generic Fosamax, which is made by Merck & Co.

Motorola Inc. has sued Research in Motion Ltd., claiming that the Canadian company's BlackBerry wireless e-mail device violates seven U.S. patents covering mobile-communications technology. Motorola, the biggest U.S. maker of mobile phones, said Research in Motion was using the inventions without permission and asked a federal judge in Marshall, Texas, to order a stop. Motorola also is seeking cash compensation for past infringement of the inventions, according to the complaint filed Saturday.

EBay Inc. has settled a seven-year patent dispute with MercExchange that prompted an important intellectual-property ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. The San Jose-based online auction company said Thursday that it had bought the three MercExchange patents it had been accused of violating. The price was not disclosed, but EBay said the amount would not materially affect its financial results. Great Falls, Va.

The Supreme Court has limited the ability of companies to collect multiple royalties on their patents. The unanimous decision Monday was helpful to customers of Intel Corp. and is the latest step by the justices to scale back the power of patent holders. The case revolves around a longtime Supreme Court doctrine that says the sale of an invention exhausts the patent holder's right to control how the purchaser uses it. In 1992, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

It's too bad that Greg Kinnear couldn't have played Robert Kearns more often in real life. That thought went through my mind last week while watching Kinnear's performance in "Flash of Genius," a new drama based on the story of the cantankerous Detroit engineer who successfully sued Ford and Chrysler for a combined $30 million for infringing on his patent designs for the intermittent windshield wiper. Kinnear apparently never met Kearns, who died of cancer at age 77 in 2005.