Super Bowl weekend is here with the Saints and the Colts about to face off for the championship!  Parties are planned, chip and dip aisles are all but bare, and the beer is chilling.  Merchandising aficionados are in a frenzy as team apparel flies off the racks and into the hands of eager fans.  And the NFL has dispatched a massive cease and desist campaign . . . wait, what?

In the past several weeks, businesses offering Saints merchandise have received ominous missives ordering them to terminate the making and selling of any paraphernalia with the words “who dat” inscribed or depicted.  The NFL is sending these cease and desist letters to merchants of Saints apparel and memorabilia, demanding that any inventory with the words “who dat” be purged as well.  Claiming ownership of the phrase, a phrase that has purportedly been in existence since before the formation of the National Football League, is an interesting move by the NFL.  Especially considering the iconic nature of the phrase and the deep attachment felt by the natives and residents of Louisiana, and of New Orleans in particular.

Ah, the irony.

A Chinese company by the name of Shenzhen Great Long Brother Industrial Co is preparing to sue Apple if the iPad enters the Chinese market.  This company – let’s call it Shenzhen for brevity – pre-emptively cloned the iPad and released their cloned version, called the P88, three months prior to the Apple release.  It should be noted that the P88 looks remarkably similar to the iPad concept sketches and the final product. Hmmm.

The president of Shenzhen is now threatening a lawsuit, claiming Apple stole their designs!  A news report quotes President Wu of Shenzhen as being “very angry and flabbergasted” at Apple’s release of the iPad.  President Wu also stated that the P88 and iPad designs are “identical.”  Well, now, I wonder whose fault that is?

Judge Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas entered a final judgement against Microsoft today, following a jury verdict issued on May 20, 2009.

The suit originated in 2007, when Canadian software firm i4i Ltd sued Microsoft for infringing their U.S. Patent 5,787,499.  The suit alleged that Microsoft knowingly infringed on this patent in its Word application and its Vista operating system.

The judgement entered today includes a permanent injunction prohibiting Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products capable of opening .XML, .DOCX, or DOCM files containing custom XML.  Microsoft must comply with the injunction within sixty days.  Microsoft is also required to pay total damages and interest of more than $290 million to i4i Ltd.

Interesting article on why this shouldn’t worry Word users here.

Update: Good blogpost here that breaks down the injunction terms, infringed claims, and more

A Texas-based company called TechRadium filed suit against Twitter Tuesday, August 4, 2009, in the Southern District of Texas, alleging patent infringement.  TechRadium is a technology company that makes mass notification systems which provide a platform where one message can be sent to multiple recipients over various types of devices.

The complaint alleges that Twitter infringes on three TechRadium patents: 7,130,389 (issued October 31, 2006), 7,496,183 (issued February 4, 2009), and 7,519,165 (issued April 14, 2009).  TechRadium is not just looking for a payout here, but has requested punitive damages and a permanent injunction.  Effectively, TechRadium wants to shut Twitter down and clean them out.

This lawsuit probably does not come as a surprise to Twitter.  Actually, in some ways it was expected by the company, although the plaintiff may have been the unknown variable.  Mistakenly leaked internal Twitter documents from a February 2009 strategy meeting were posted last month by TechCrunch.com, in which the expectation of legal action were discussed.  Specifically, the documents reveal that Twitter expected to be “sued for patent infringement, repeatedly and often.”  The same memo queried “should we get a great patent attorney to proactively go after these patents?”  I hope they followed up on that question!

This will be one to watch . . . and tweet about while we can.

August 18, 2009 - Update: Free outside counsel scouring TechRadium patents to aid Twitter in legal battle, read more here.

The legal battle continues, and it just got more interesting!

The TiVo patent at the center of this controversy is currently embroiled in reexamination proceedings with the USPTO.  Monday, August 3, 2009, the USPTO rejected two of the patent claims in the TiVo patent in a preliminary finding of invalidity.  The rejected claims, claims 31 and 61, cover the features that allow TV shows to be stored and played back.

This could be the break EchoStar needs to swing the legal proceedings in it’s favor, and at the least bolster their arguments on appeal.  In response to the USPTO action, however, TiVo issued a press release today, which stated: “This is an initial step in the lengthy process known as ‘reexamination,’ and it is not unusual for the PTO to provide a preliminary finding of invalidity and to then later find that the claims are valid after hearing an explanation from the patent owner.”

The saga continues . . .