The Morning Briefing: Patents and rulings

"The Morning Briefing" is SmartPlanet's daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we're reading about court rulings in patent disputes.

1.) Teva Pharma says U.K. court supports MS drug patent. A U.K. court has ruled in favor of Teva Pharmaceutical in regard to dispute over a patent supporting its multiple sclerosis drug.

2.) Schering-Plough's K-Dur pay-for-delay ruling reversed. Merck & Co.'s Schering-Plough unit must face a challenge to its agreement with competitors to keep generic versions of its drug K-Dur off the market, an appeals court ruled, reversing a lower-court antitrust decision.

3.) RIM forced to pay $147 million damages over patent dispute. RIM has been found liable of infringing software patents held by Mformation Technologies. There goes $147 million in damages for the BlackBerry manufacturer -- more cash it can't afford to lose.

4.) Yahoo and Facebook settle patent dispute, forge advertising alliance. Facebook and Yahoo have agreed to settle a months-long patent dispute, averting a potentially expensive battle over the technology running two of the Internet's most popular destinations.

5.) Secrecy bid in Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit denied. Requests to cloak the patent dispute in secrecy made by both Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co. have been been denied by a U.S. judge.

Image credit: Johan Larsson

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com