Word: patentable
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...years ago, executives at Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing flew into a rage. The tape, which sets fractures faster than plaster, was remarkably similar in design and function to a casting tape developed by 3M scientists. The St. Paul-based company quickly sued, charging J&J with violating four of its patents. Last month a federal court backed 3M and ordered J&J to pay $116 million in damages and interest -- the fourth largest patent-infringement judgment in history...
...battle is widening -- U.S. companies filed more than 5,700 intellectual- property lawsuits last year in contrast to 3,800 in 1980 -- and the stakes can be enormous. In the biggest patent-infringement case to date, Eastman Kodak was ordered last October to pay $900 million for infringing on seven Polaroid instant-photography patents. In a $100 million trademark suit, Mirage Studios, creator of the hugely popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters, is demanding that AT&T refrain from using such terms as turtle power and cowabunga in a 900-number telephone service for kids. In a far- reaching copyright...
...reason is that many countries offer only feeble protection to intellectual property. Realizing that such laxness will exclude them from much world trade as well as hobble native industries, nations everywhere are revising laws covering patents, copyrights and trade names. Malaysia, Egypt, China, Turkey, Brazil and even the Soviet Union have all recently announced plans either to enact new laws or beef up existing safeguards. In an effort to win U.S. congressional support for a proposed free-trade pact, Mexico last month revealed plans to double the life of trademark licenses to 10 years and extend patent protection...
Maybe, but why take the risk? Brain tumors must be excised, if possible, but dandelions don't really do any harm. In fact, they are pretty, enthusiastic, nutritious in salads and excellent for wine making. Of course, if they ever became popular, the lawn-care megacorporations would sell us patent medicine to encourage them by killing the grass. In the meantime, California may be the waterless wave of the future. In Los Angeles, Robin Thomas is trying to revive his dried yellow grass with organic products, not chemicals, because "I have children, and they play on the lawn." In Oakland...
Leder's genetic research gained worldwide attention in 1988 when he became the first to obtain a patent on a genetically altered animal...