5th International Invention Festival on October 3 to 5 in Tehran

Azad University of Central Tehran Branch  under the sponsorship of IFIA is organising the 5th International Invention Festival, from 3rd to 5th Octobet in Tehran. It is an outstanding opportunity for exchanging experience and ideas between inventors, innovators and commercializing bodies while introducing high-tech invention in various fields of science and technology. 
Indian Innovators interested in participation may contact Indian Innovators Association.

Microsoft refused to pay royalty of 2.25% on final product price for standard essential patents to Motorola

Both Motorola and Microsoft are members of the standard setting organisations Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ("IEEE") and the International Telecommunication Union ("ITU"). Motorola owns numerous patents that are essential to the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network ("WLAN") Standard ("802.11 Standard") and the ITU H.264 advanced video coding technology standard ("H.264 Standard").On October 21 and 29, 2010 Motorola sent letters to Microsoft offering to license its standards-essential patents (SEP) for the 802.11 Standard and H.264 Standard. The offer asked for a 2.25% royalty rate on the price of all end products Microsoft sold utilizing the technologies protected by these patents. Microsoft regarded these terms as blatantly unreasonable and responded by filing a breach of contract case against Motorola in the Western District Court of Washington, claiming that Motorola had violated its agreement with the IEEE and ITU to provide reasonable and non-discriminatory terms of licensing to all potential licensees on a global scale.

Read the court judgement.

CSIR-TKDL misleading with its claim that they stopped an European patent -on a medicinal composition containing turmeric, pine bark and green tea for treating hair loss.

Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India issued a press statement with title`India Foils UK Company’s Bid to Patent Use of Turmeric, Pine Bark & Tea for Treating Hair Loss'. The Indian press dutifully carried this news item as yet another instance of crooked white man stealing Indian traditional knowledge. And few in India analysed the European patent claims to check this claim of CSIR-TKDL.
Darren Smyth in his blog IPKat traced the patent in dispute and anaysed the claim(s) in detail. The conclusion:

• Caim 1 is achieving an electrostatic effect in the interaction of hair building solids with hair and there is no reference to turmeric, pine bark and green tea.
• About the third party observations, it was stated:The comments developed in this [the third party observations] filing concern mainly the subject-matter of original claims 10, 11 and 12, which relate to the introduction of pharmacologically active ingredients. The third-party observation has been taken into account.
• From this it can be seen that they played no part in the examination at all.  The examination report was not responded to, and the application has now lapsed.
• So the statement by the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology is pretty much untrue - there was not in any real sense an attempt to "patent" use of "turmeric, pine bark and green tea for treating hair loss", and nothing that the TKDL did had any influence on the examination so India has not "foiled" the attempt to get a patent anyway.  Any announcement is in any case premature, since the applicant can still file a response and revive the application using "further processing" up to 9 September 2015.