Tuesday Must-Reads

The Game Is To Be Sold: The Long Legal Battle For “Skee-Ball” (via The Classical)

 

Zombie Patents (via The Economist)

“In a new paper Sotiris Vandoros of the London School of Economics looks at what happens when patents expire in two important classes of drugs: ACE inhibitors, used to treat blood pressure, and proton-pump inhibitors, such as omeprazole. He tracked sales of these drugs after patents expired in six European countries between 1991 and 2006, measuring the switch both to generic drugs and to related but still patented compounds. “

Copyright Monetization Business is Latest IP Enforcement Play (via IPCloseUp)

 

Inside Keurig’s plan to stop you from buying knockoff K-Cups (via The Verge)

“This is a particularly threatening form of counterfeiting for Keurig. Like printer companies with their inkjet cartridges, Keurig’s business model is built on selling machines cheap and then reaping huge profits on the refills. Now, bereft of a legal monopoly on pod making, Keurig is trying to establish a technological one: its new brewer, which goes on sale this fall, has a mechanism that scans each pod for Keurig’s markings and locks out any unapproved capsules. It’s essentially digital rights management (DRM) — a mainstay in music and video — adapted for coffee.”

Despite the patent ‘giveaway’, Tesla has been monetising its portfolio all along (via IAM Magazine Blog)

“…Tesla has been able to secure loans against its patent assets. That is something it could not have achieved if its lenders did not see value in its portfolio. As such, it seems a little disingenuous for Tesla’s CEO to suggest that patents are holding businesses back. Ultimately, Tesla has been able to leverage its patents to raise cash and to create the foundations for a new market for its products and services.”

Xerox to Sell Patents in Sealed Bid Auction (via IP Watchdog)

“Xerox (NYSE: XRX), a global leader in business processes and document management systems, has engaged intellectual property brokerage ICAP Patent Brokerage, the world’s largest intellectual property brokerage and patent auction firm, to auction 239 U.S. patents and associated foreign patents and pending patent application.”