In the category of quirky and fun, here is an antique patent from 1865, when recipes were still considered patentable subject matter.  U.S. Patent 47,545 is for Improved Tomato Soup – and the specification enables you to make an enourmous amount!  If anyone actually tries this recipe out, let me know how it goes.

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 . . .

A patent application filed at the beginning of this year was published today, allowing us a look into the inventive mind of Susan Harsh.  Titled Dog Nose Art, this application claims the process of turning a smudge on a surface, left by a dog’s nose, into a work of art.  Seriously.  The claims are strangely narrow, causing one to question whether the prior art in this field has already disclosed transforming the smudges left by other mammal’s noses into art.