Industrial IP

MasterCraft and Malibu Boats may have finally settled their long-running feud over wake-surfing patents, but there is still a lot of interesting information to be had in looking into the patent cases related to the action. The first aspect to note in the feud is that Malibu Boats did not have just a single patent at issue, but rather Malibu Boats was working on a portfolio. As sophisticated IP players know, the real goods are a well developed patent portfolio as it significantly increases one’s leverage against a competitor. Today we review one aspect of Malibu’s strategy in the case to drive settlement - the idea of a pending application. One might think a pending application is useless as it cannot be asserted in litigation (since the patent has not yet issued). But of course the value in a pending application is not whether it can be asserted immediately, but rather that it has the ability to change and can be asserted at some unknown point in the future. One of Malibu’s pe...

Obesity is an epidemic in many countries, including America, resulting from a lack of exercise and poor diet. Commonly, people are happier when they exercise and eat right, not to mention their vitals (BP, HR, etc.) change to more desirable values. This logic applies to household pets as well; dogs are happier and healthier when sufficiently walked and fed appropriately. Therefore, it is safe to assume that livestock, such as cows, would also be happier when provided with a medium for exercise. However, cows are naturally dormant animals that enjoying grazing and relaxing. Commonly, farmers, whether dairy or cattle, arrange drinking water for the cows far away from their food, thereby forcing the cows to walk. However, this requires a large plot of land that could be utilized in other ways. Large animal veterinarian, Arlan Smith, realized that animal husbandry costs may be reduced by providing a treadmill shaped to accommodate a cow. He claims that a variety of bovine probl...