Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Intellectual Ventures’ funding unit bought more than 140 patents and pending patents from Transmeta Corp., the Bellevue, Washington-based patent-development and licensing company said in a statement Jan. 28.

The acquisition comes in the wake of closely held Novafora Inc.’s $255.6 million acquisition of Transmeta of Santa Clara, California.

Transmeta, once backed by billionaires George Soros and Paul Allen, evolved from a chip manufacturer into a designer in 2005 after failing to compete with Intel in the market for low- power computer processors. The company eventually made almost all its money from services and technology-licensing revenue.

Intellectual Ventures -- known as IV -- says it will license the technology on a non-exclusive basis.

IV was founded by Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer of Microsoft Corp. In 2005, Myhrvold told the Association of University Technology Managers his company was interested in acquiring patents from universities. His company opened an office in Japan in 2007.

Peter Detkin, who formerly led the litigation efforts at Intel Corp., is an IV founder and vice chairman.

The company now has more than 2,000 semi-conductor patents, Paul Reidy, IV’s vice president of semiconductor licensing said in the statement. He said the newly acquired patents cover “some of the most interesting breakthroughs in microprocessor architecture we’ve seen in the last decade or so.”

Some of the other Transmeta IP will go to Novafora, where it can be used to improve the closely held chipmaker’s own technologies.

“This transaction demonstrated how Intellectual Ventures’ unique business model can enhance the creation, dissemination, and use of technological inventions,” Vincent Pluvinage said in the statement. He leads strategic IP acquisitions and private equity partnerships at IV.

IV has amassed a war chest of patents across a number of technologies. To date the company hasn’t filed any patent- infringement suits, according to Bloomberg data.

India May Turn to WTO Over EU Patent-Violation Claims

India may drag the European Union to the World Trade Organization for trying to prevent its companies from selling generic copies of drugs, citing infringement of patents, Commerce Secretary G.K. Pillai said.

“It’s a concerted effort by the multinational companies to prevent the marketing and sale of Indian generic drugs,” Pillai said in an interview in New Delhi Dec. 28. “We are consulting our legal experts and may go to the World Trade Organization if consultations don’t yield any results. First, as a process, we’ll seek consultations with the EU.”

Indian drug companies including Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., the country’s largest, and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., the second-biggest, face obstacles in the U.S. and Europe as patent holders, fearing loss of profits, use litigation to prevent the entry of generic Indian rivals, Pillai said. He gave no indication of when India may lodge a complaint against the EU at the Geneva-based WTO.

Peter Power, a spokesman for European Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, said the EU is studying India’s arguments.

“We’re aware of the comments made by the Indian government and we are looking into the particular case which has led to this comment,” Power told journalists in Brussels yesterday. “Over and above that, I’m not in the position to go further.”

Pillai also criticized the recent seizure in the Netherlands of shipments of Dr. Reddy’s generic drug Losartan, used to treat high blood pressure. The shipments, which were in transit to Brazil, were later released.

“Seizing drugs while they are headed for some other location is against the spirit of free-trade agreements,” said Pillai, the ministry’s senior bureaucrat.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry also protested the seizure and said the customs authorities in Rotterdam were acting on the request of an unidentified company that allegedly has patent rights over the drug in the Netherlands. Losartan can be imported freely in Brazil.

“We don’t want the use of the word ‘counterfeit’ as a backdoor entry into the health system and to use that as a measure of blocking the marketing and sale of generic drugs,” Pillai said.

On Jan. 15, the Davie, Florida-based unit of Watson Laboratories Inc. and Sciele Pharma Inc. sued India’s Lupin Ltd. for an alleged patent infringement over plans to market a generic version of the diabetes drug Fortamet in the U.S. The week before, U.S. drugmaker Wyeth sued Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd., alleging the Indian company had infringed on three patents for the antidepressant Effexor.

Microsoft Sues Ancora Over Deception in Earlier Patent Suit

Microsoft Corp. sued Ancora Technologies Inc., claiming its Chief Executive Officer Miki Mullor landed a job with the world’s largest software maker under false pretenses and gained access to confidential data.

Mullor applied for a job at Microsoft in October 2005, saying he was a former Ancora employee and that the company had gone out of business, according to the complaint filed Jan. 22 in state court in Seattle. Mullor concealed that Sammamish, Washington-based Ancora had accused Microsoft in June of infringing a 2002 patent, Microsoft said.

“This is simply a retaliatory lawsuit by Microsoft to get the patent case transferred to Seattle,” Mark A. Cantor, an attorney for Mullor in the patent case, said yesterday in a phone interview. Cantor is a partner in Brooks Kushman of Southfield, Michigan.

Ancora initially filed its patent complaint in federal court in Los Angeles against Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Toshiba Corp.’s Toshiba America Information Systems unit over claims their use of Microsoft’s technology infringed a patent. Microsoft filed to intervene as a defendant in the case in September.

During his employment at Microsoft, Mullor allegedly accessed and downloaded to his company-issued laptop confidential documents relating to original equipment manufacturers, Microsoft said in the complaint.

The documents “relate directly to the subject matter of Ancora’s patent action,” Microsoft said in the complaint. “These documents had no bearing on Mullor’s work at Microsoft at the time.”

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, is seeking a court order barring Mullor from any involvement in the patent claim, including assisting Ancora with prosecuting the suit or providing trade-secret information he improperly acquired.

Mullor, reached at his home in Sammamish, referred all calls to Cantor, who said a lawyer hasn’t been retained in the Seattle case. A trial is scheduled for Jan. 26, 2010, in the patent case.

The case is Microsoft Corp. v. Miki Mullor, 09-2-04665-4, King County Superior Court, State of Washington (Seattle).

The patent case is Ancora Technologies Inc. v. Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., 8:08-cv-00626-AG-MLG, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Santa Ana).

For more patent news from yesterday, click here

Copyright

Danish Song Blocked on YouTube After R.E.M.’s Infringement Claim

Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Music Inc. accused Danish pop band Hej Matematik of copying R.E.M.’s “Supernatural Superserious” and asked Google Inc.’s YouTube site to remove videos of the band’s song “Walkmand,” the Copenhagen Post reported yesterday.

YouTube sent Copenhagen Records, the band’s label, a message saying the video “has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue,” according to the newspaper. Hej Matematik member Nocolaj Rasted said he couldn’t hear any similarities between the two songs, and the objectionable Danish song was based on “Walkmand” as originally recorded by Michael Hardinger in 1981, according to the Copenhagen Post.

The band’s fans have flooded YouTube with their complaints that the song was taken down, the newspaper reported.

U.K. Considers Tax on Broadband Connections to Battle Piracy

The U.K. government is proposing the idea of a quasi- governmental entity to act as broker between content owners and Internet service providers as part of efforts to cut back copyright piracy, the UK’s Times reported yesterday.

The organization would be funded by a levy of 20 British pounds ($29) per broadband connection, according to the Times.

At the same time the government will propose that every house has the legal right to broadband at 2 megabits speed, the newspaper reported.

Opponents call the tax proposal “a bizarre way to stimulate investment in the new digital economy,” according to the Times.

For more copyright news from yesterday, click here

Trademark

Internet Retailer Seeks Declaration It’s Not Infringing

A Connecticut-based Internet retailer asked a federal court to declare it isn’t infringing trademarks belonging to Wine of the Month Club Inc. of Monrovia, California.

IGC America Inc., which does business under a variety of names, says it’s been receiving cease-and-desist notices from the California company since 2007, accusing it of trademark infringement, according to the complaint filed Jan. 27 in federal court in New Haven, Connecticut.

ICG sells wine, beer, coffee, flower arrangements, chocolate, neckties, barbeque sauce and other goods by telephone and through its Web sites: www.AmazingClubs.com, www.FlyingNoodle.com and www.CaliforniaReds.com.

The Web sites are for buying clubs, with monthly delivery of goods in a particular merchandise category, such as coffee of the month, pasta of the month and wine of the month. ICC claims this is a generic use of the term “simply to indicate” the type of buying club, with monthly shipments.

It’s been selling merchandise through monthly clubs since 1995, using Web sites and mail-order catalogues, according to court papers. It also advertises by buying keywords frequently entered in Google Inc.’s and Yahoo! Inc.’s search engines, the company says.

Beginning in November 2008, Google “disapproved” ICG’s ads for its wine-buying club in response to complaints by the California company, ICG said it its pleadings. IT said that one month later, Yahoo! also began rejecting the company’s keyword purchases, again in response to complaints from Wine of the Month Club.

ICG claims the marks it’s accused of infringing are invalid and unenforceable because they are “commonly used generic phrases,” and asked the court for a declaration to that effect.

It also seeks an order barring Wine of the Month Club from trying to enforce trademark infringement rights for the term, as well as money damages and attorney fees.

Martin J. Murray of Philadelphia’s Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP represents ICG America.

The case is ICG America Inc., v. Wine of the Month Club Inc., 3:09-CV-00133-PCF, U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut (New Haven).

El Nasr Clothes Acquires Jil Trademark for $4 Million

El Nasr Clothes & Textiles, the third-largest publicly traded textile maker in Egypt, said it bought the Jil trademark from Jil International for 22 million Egyptian pounds ($4 million).

El Nasr will pay Jil International the fee over 12 months starting from February, the Alexandria, Egypt-based company said in a statement posted on the Web site of the Egyptian Exchange yesterday.

El Nasr, also known as Kabo, will use the trademark in Egypt and Africa, it said. The company sells Egyptian cotton knitwear for men, women and children in the Middle East, Europe and North America, according to its Web site.

For more trademark news from yesterday, click here

University Technology Transfer

University of Colorado Invests, Licenses Technology to LineRate

LineRate Systems Inc. of Boulder, Colorado, received a $50,000 proof-of-concept investment and an exclusive option to the IP for high-rate software processing technology, both from the University of Colorado-Boulder, according to a joint statement issued Jan. 22.

The software was developed at the university by LineRate co-founders John Giacomoni and Professor Manish Vachharajani. Giacomoni is a candidate for a doctoral degree from the university and Vachharajani is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The company plans to introduce its first product in mid- 2009.

“This team of inventors was able to recognize and communicate the value in their discovery largely through the collaborative Boulder Innovation Center process,” Kate Tallman, director of technology transfer for the university, said in the statement. The Center provides a conduit for the commercialization of IP developed at the university.

Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Data Theft Cost Businesses $1 Trillion Last Year, Study Says

The theft of trade secrets cost businesses about $1 trillion last year, with employees committing many of the offenses, according to research commissioned by McAfee Inc.

In a survey of information-technology executives, 42 percent of respondents said laid-off workers were the biggest threat caused by the economic slump. Businesses reported losing $4.6 million on average last year as employees and outsiders took company information.

The skidding economy, along with the spread of corporate data to overseas factories and call centers, is making company secrets more vulnerable, McAfee said. The information has become a form of currency, used by workers to make themselves more valuable when applying for a job, the study found.

“A lot of the anecdotal evidence shows that many of the thefts were internal,” Gerhard Watzinger, executive vice president of Santa Clara, California-based McAfee, said in an interview. “The information can be anything. We have one case of an oil company with complicated logistics procedures, which an employee took to a competitor.”

The study, conducted by Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, polled 800 information chiefs at businesses with more than $250 million in annual sales. Researchers extrapolated the $1 trillion figure, which includes the value of stolen data and the cost of repairing breaches, from its survey sample.

“In the past you heard about credit-card information being stolen,” Watzinger said. “Now it’s more about intellectual property. We saw a spike in the second half of the year.”

U.S. companies have eliminated more than 150,000 workers this month, according to Chicago-based executive-search firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. That follows the loss of 2.6 million jobs last year.

For Bloomberg articles by lawyers on intellectual property Topics click here.

For daily Bloomberg legal analysis click here

To contact the reporter on this story: Victoria Slind-Flor in Oakland, California, at vslindflor@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 30, 2009 07:01 EST