Icahn pushes Motorola to turn patents into cash

Shares of cellphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings jumped to a four-month high Thursday after activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he's pushing the company to squeeze profits from its vast patent portfolio.

Icahn said there could be several ways to capitalize on patents belonging to the company. Icahn was the single largest shareholder of the company as of March 31, owning 11.4 percent.

Motorola said Thursday that it continues to review its options and that the turnaround of its cellphone sales is in part due to its 17,000 patents.

There's a scramble for patents by technology companies as they seek to shore up their litigation defenses. Nearly every maker of smartphones is suing another manufacturer over patents.

Three weeks ago, a consortium that included Apple Inc., Research In Motion Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. pledged to pay $4.5 billion for a collection of patents from Nortel Networks, a bankrupt Canadian maker of telecommunications equipment. Google Inc., which provides Motorola with the software for its smartphones, was a counterbidder.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Icahn said Motorola's patent portfolio is "substantially larger than Nortel Networks' and includes numerous patents concerning 4G technologies."

On Wednesday, photography company Eastman Kodak Co. said it's looking for ways to turn its collection of 1,100 patents on digital imaging into money, perhaps through a sale. It hired investment bank Lazard to shop it around. It has sued Apple and RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry phones, saying the cameras in their phones infringe on Kodak patents.

Though Motorola is now only small player in the global cellphone market, it was a pioneer of the technology and was the second-largest phone maker in the world just five years ago. That means it has far more phone patents than its size suggests.

Icahn has successfully prodded Motorola before. He pushed the original Motorola Inc. to split up, figuring that investors would find its parts more valuable than the whole. Motorola split into two companies in January. Motorola Mobility consists of the consumer-focused cellphone and cable set-top box operations. Motorola Solutions Inc. sells products like police radios and bar-code scanners to government and corporate customers. - AP

BAM says SMEs should build their own IP to boost product awareness

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should invest in “intangible” aspects of their businesses such as intellectual property (IP) to boost awareness, said Branding Association of Malaysia (BAM) president Datuk Lewre Lew.

“Malaysian SMEs are very fond of investing in tangible things such as buildings, plants and machinery. But they hardly invest in IP, which is something intangible,” he said at the launch of the Branding Entrepreneurs Conference (BEC) 2011 yesterday.

Lew said many small businesses in other Asian countries had started venturing into building their own IP. “It saddens me that many business owners, especially SMEs, in Malaysia are still laid-back and do not realise the importance of branding. It's about changing the mindset,” he said.

Now in its third year, the BEC, which was jointly organised by SME Corp Malaysia and the BAM, aims to promote the development of SMEs especially in building and developing their brands of products and services. -The Star

Coming soon to the Internet: The .whatever address

Under guidelines approved Monday, Apple could register addresses ending in ".ipad," Citi and Chase could share ".bank" and environmental groups could go after ".eco." Japan could have ".com" in Japanese.

It's the biggest change to the system of Internet addresses since it was created in 1984.

More than 300 suffixes are available today, but only a handful, such as the familiar ".net" and ".com," are open for general use worldwide. Hundreds of new suffixes could be established by late next year, thousands in years to come.

"This is the start of a whole new phase for the Internet," said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the California nonprofit organization in charge of Internet addresses.

The novelty addresses will be costly - $185,000 to apply and $25,000 a year to maintain one. A personal address with a common suffix such as ".com" usually costs less than $10 a year.

ICANN says it costs tens of millions of dollars to write the guidelines for suffixes, review applications and resolve any disputes. Even with the hefty fees, the organization says it plans only to break even. It's also setting aside up to $2 million to subsidize applications from developing countries.

The expansion plan, which runs about 350 pages, took six years to develop.

Before 1998, the United States, which paid for most of the early Internet, was in charge of handing out Internet suffixes. ICANN, which has board members from every inhabited continent, was a way to take the administrative burden off the U.S. government.

ICANN was always supposed to expand the number of available Web suffixes. But the progress was slow because of concerns that new ones could infringe on trademarks, be obscene or give a platform to hate groups. Competing interests wrestled with ICANN over guidelines.

ICANN has come up with procedures for any party to object to applications for trademark, or other reasons.

Internet addresses, technically known as domain names, tell computers where to find a website or send an email message. Without them, people would have to remember clunky strings of numbers such as "165.1.59.220" instead of "ap.org."

But the addresses have grown to mean much more. Amazon.com has built its brand on one, and bloggers take pride in running sites with their own domain names, uncluttered by the names of hosting services.

The address expansion could create new opportunities for companies to promote their brands and allow all sorts of niche communities to thrive online. But they could create confusion, too.

And they might not make much difference. More and more people online find what they're looking for by typing a term into a search engine, not tapping out a full address. Or they use an app and don't type anything.

ICANN will start taking applications for new suffixes Jan. 12. Approval of individual applications is expected to be quick if there are no challenges for trademark, morality or other reasons. Proposals that are challenged would have to undergo more thorough reviews, including possible arbitration to decide on the merits of claims.

High-profile entertainment, consumer-goods and financial-services companies will likely be among the first to apply for the new suffixes to protect their brands.

Canon Inc., the camera and printer company, already plans to apply for ".canon." And Apple could go after not just ".apple," but also ".ipad" and ".iphone." Apple had no comment Monday.

Groups have already formed to back ".sport" for sporting sites, and two conservationist groups separately are seeking the right to operate an ".eco" suffix. Trade groups for bankers and financial-services companies are jointly exploring applications for ".bank," ''.insure" and ".invest" for their member companies.

Smaller companies stand to benefit, too. A florist called Apple can't use "Apple.com" because the computer company has it. Previously, the shop might have registered a longer, clunky address. Now it can just be "Apple.flowers."

Of course, a small florist might not be able to afford an expensive suffix. But an entrepreneur or a trade group might, and it could sell individual addresses ending in ".flowers" for $10 or $100 a pop. A successful suffix owner could make millions, much more than what it pays in application and annual fees.

When two or more groups have a legitimate claim to an address, ICANN expects them to work it out on their own. If they can't, the nonprofit will auction the suffixes. - AP

President of MIPA in BFM

Chew Phye Keat, President of the Malaysian Intellectual Property Association, says Malaysia's IP laws are robust but there's a perception that enforcement is lax, and awareness is still low.


In another BFM interview, he uses examples to explain the practical aspects of the Competition Act. While the Act is meant to encourage competition and prevent abuse of position by dominant player like government-linked companies, government policy can still over ride the Act.

Renault Lotus and Team Lotus to continue Racing

The British High Court has declared that Group Lotus has the right to use 'Lotus' in F1. Group Lotus is the sponsor of Renault Lotus GP.

Justice Peter Smith found that the Proton subsidiary has goodwill associated with the name 'Lotus' in F1 and is free to compete in the sport under that name using the Lotus roundel. Also, Group Lotus trade mark registrations are unaffected and Group Lotus has the right to use the Lotus marque on cars for road use.

The judge also decided that 1Malaysia Racing Team Sdn Bhd, the owners of Team Lotus, is in breach of the Licence granted to them by Group Lotus to race in F1 under the name Lotus Racing (the name it used last year) and has awarded Group Lotus damages in respect of that breach.

However, the above concerns the name 'Lotus'. Team Lotus has the right to continue to race in F1 under the name 'Team Lotus' with the 'Team' in it.

Team Lotus would be able to continue using the Lotus name in F1 and confirmed Fernandes as the owner of the Team Lotus name having bought the rights to the name from Hunt; they also have the right to call their cars "Lotus", under the terms of a 1985 agreement between Group Lotus and Team Lotus.

Fernandes is happy that he can continue to race his cars under 'Team Lotus'. “Now our main aim is to build on the solid foundations that has made Caterham Cars the model for how to run a profitable contemporary car company and add more history to the incredible story of Team Lotus over the coming months and years and with the people, spirit, passion and determination we have in both businesses we know that marks the next stage in our incredible story,” Fernandes said.

China's National Patent Development Strategy

My client has set up a company in China to take advantage of various incentives offered for patent fillings in China and a number of foreign countries. China wishes to increase the number of companies based in China with patent filings.

China, through the State Intellectual Property Office, revealed its ten year master plan, National Patent Development Strategy 2011-2020 to realize its dream to be an innovation based country.

China has set a target to achieve two million annual patent filings by 2015. At the same time, the number of registered patent agent is envisioned to reach 10,000. To support that ambition, China will roughly double its current examiners to 9,000 by 2015. The average period for patent examination will be shortened to 22 months, and utility model or design application to 3 months.

To be a patent power house, China also intends to double the number of patents its residents and companies file in other countries.

Patent transaction services and market environment will be established in ten model cities. Support will be given to foster exports of patented products and increase the proportion of exported patent-intensive commodities.

Some of the incentives offered include patent subsidy in the form of cash bonuses, and tax breaks for companies that continuously file patents. It does not matter if the company is fully owned by foreign individuals.

MIPA IP Conference

The road to becoming an IP nation is a path that Malaysia wishes to walk to become a high income nation. What are the challenges to increasing innovation in Malaysia? What we can learn from the American and Japanese experience?

The Malaysian Intellectual Property Association (MIPA) is proud to host an Intellectual Property conference to present the latest issues and development of IP.

How to create and build a strong brand? Malaysia may join Madrid Protocol this year. What are the implication of Madrid Protocol to trademark owners?

Technology search, green technology, investing in IP and other informative intellectual property matters which creates an impact in Malaysia's innovation landscape are presented in this two day event on 22 & 23 June 2011, Empire Hotel, Subang Jaya.

Come listen to experts from USA, Japan, academicians, IP practitioners, MyIPO board member and representative from the newly formed UNIK corporation. It is a not to be missed event for business leaders, intellectual property owners, corporate counsel & lawyers interested in one of Asia's most dynamic countries.

Register before 31.05.2011 for early bird rate. For more information, visit mipa.org.my