Who Owns the Patent on Nutmeg?

Newyorker.com, here. 

The Patent Guide: A handbook for analysing and interpreting patent data

UK  Intellectual Property Office, here.

Inventors choose to reveal their secret sauce before patent approval

Science Daily, here.

UK High Court rules computer simulations can obtain patent protection

Out-Law.com, here. 

Google and IBM do it again: Google Acquires over 1,000 Patents from IBM in August

SEO by the Sea http://bit.ly/niVXM5. 

The U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate on alleged smartphone-related patent infringements

Here.

When Do Generics Challenge Drug Patents?

C. Scott Hemphill and Bhaven N. Sampat, here.

On the limits of patent protection

Patent on diagnostic testing for genetic susceptibility to the most common hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer held invalid.

IT-Branchenverband BIKT zum "dritten Korb" der Urheberrechtsreform

Aus der Pressemitteilung: "Der BIKT ...fordert das BMJ dazu auf, durch eine geeignete Regelung im Urheberrecht dafür zu sorgen, dass patentrechtliche Verbotsansprüche gegenüber Computerprogrammen keine Wirkung entfalten können. Der Verband plädiert daher für die Einführung einer „Schutzschirmklausel“, die die gesetzliche Absicherung des Urheberrechtsschutzes für Computerprogramme gegenüber dem Patentrecht gewährleistet".

Oral argument in In Re Bilski before the US Supreme Court

See the transcript. Justice Breyer posed a slightly provoking question: "You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things --
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE BREYER: It was fabulous. And I could probably have reduced it to a set of steps and other teachers could have followed it. That you are going to say is patentable, too?
MR. JAKES: Potentially".

The Free Software Foundation on Bilski

An amicus brief has been filed.

Community patent underway?

A revised proposal for a Council Regulation on the Community patent is circulating.

F. M. Scherer on Patent Policy: Some Recommendations for Competition Authorities

From THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PATENT POLICY REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: "For the federal antitrust agencies, the extension of patent monopolies in time through profuse improvement patenting and their extension in scope through restrictive cross-licensing agreements pose important enforcement problems. Here too, the problem is in part one of education. Those who manage the antitrust agencies need to learn that there are important barriers to rapid imitation, enhancing incentives for innovation, other than the patent system, so maximization of monopoly rewards associated with patent holdings is unlikely to maximize economic welfare. These agencies need to learn that extension of patent monopolies over time and in scope is more likely to suppress than stimulate innovation. and insisting that drug production be opened up for generic competition once basic patents have expired, leaving however the right to produce validly patented improvement molecules exclusively in the hands of the original drug developer (or any other firm that patents and tests improved variants)"

The Economist on Generic Drugs and Competition

Something Rotten is the journal's overall comment.