Articles by TJ Johnson
TJ Johnson is the Senior Patent Editor for the IP Brief and a 3L at the Washington College of Law pursuing a career in patent law. He is also the Publications Editor for the Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. Currently he is working as an intern for MacDonald, Illig, Jones and Britton in business and patent law. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering with a minor in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno. Prior to law school, TJ worked designing embedded motion tracking and control systems for the solar power industry. TJ’s main interests are in patent law relating to the mechanical and computer arts. TJ enjoys flying as a private pilot, aircraft and semiconductor design, motorcycles and riding his bicycle.
One-time partners Microsoft and Motorola Mobility are going all out in their patent lawsuits with Microsoft seeking to ban Motorola Mobility phone sales in the U.S. and Motorola Mobility seeking to block sales of Windows 7 and Xbox in Germany. In an interesting strategy, Microsoft has blocked a German court’s ruling through a U.S. lawsuit over contracts.
Earlier this week the Supreme Court shocked the patent community by ruling that claims for a medical treatment were invalid as patent eligible subject matter.
Apple scored a big win in the German courts, winning its lawsuit against Motorola Mobility on the slide to unlock patent. This could result in trouble for Android phones in Germany, especially with a new Microsoft lawsuit surfacing against Motorola.
Kodak has been buying up patents for a technology that competes with its old film technology in order to keep its dying film market alive. However, its impending bankruptcy most likely means that only the patents it holds can save it.
With one of the biggest changes in the patent system coming soon there has been a lot of talk regarding first-to-file. How does this compare to Canada’s change to a first-to-file system? What does this change mean to you as an inventor or businessperson and what should you plan to do about it?
