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By Bloomberg

AbbVie Inc., the pharmaceutical research company spun off from Abbott Laboratories in 2013, has signed a licensing agreement for two pediatric AIDS treatments with the Medicines Patent Pool.

The patent pool, a United Nations-backed organization aimed at increasing access to HIV treatments, said in a statement yesterday that the license will enable other companies to manufacture and formulate specialty pediatric drugs for distribution in low and middle-income countries where 99 percent of children with HIV in the developing world live.

AbbVie is committed to working “to ensure that all children living with HIV have access to the best medicines available,” Mike Severino, the company’s chief scientific officer and executive vice president of research and development, said in the statement.

The agreement covers 102 countries and permits the manufacturing and distribution of the drugs in countries where AbbVie doesn’t hold patents, according to the statement.

One-Third of Jobs’s Patents Have Been Issued Since His Death

About one-third of the U.S. patents that list Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs as an inventor have been issued since he died of pancreatic cancer in October 2011, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review reported.

Jobs is an inventor on 458 patents, with 141 of them issued after his death, according to Technology Review.

He filed applications even in his last weeks of life, with one filed Oct. 4, 2011, the day before he died, the publication reported.

On many of the patents, Jobs is one of multiple listed inventors, often because of the feedback he gave on small details of the inventions, according to Technology Review.

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Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Intel Urges India to Put More Muscle into Trade Secrets Laws

Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, has sent a letter to the drafters of a new intellectual property policy for India requesting that the country strengthen protections for trade secrets, The Economic Times reported.

The letter recommended that India move away from the British system that uses contractual protections and “elevate trade secrets to a genuine IP right,” the newspaper said, citing the document.

The Santa Clara, California-based company suggested a new Indian trade secrets law should contain “specific criminal sanctions,” according to The Economic Times.

The newspaper quoted the chipmaker as saying trade-secret protection is particularly important for nascent companies that may lack the resources to pursue patents on their inventions.

Copyright

Brad Pitt Movie a Piracy Hit Following Sony Studio Cyber-Attack

Brad Pitt’s war movie “Fury” has been a hit on file- sharing sites since it was stolen in a Nov. 25 cyber-attack on Sony Corp.’s film-and-television studio.

The World War II drama, which was released Oct. 17, has been downloaded 500,000 times from one service alone since the Sony attack, according to the news site TorrentFreak, which tracks copyright, privacy and related issues.

The flurry of illegal downloads of “Fury” illustrate the economic damage hackers can inflict on film studios. The scourge facing Hollywood, Silicon Valley and investors costs the global economy as much as $575 billion annually, according to a study published in June by McAfee, a security-software maker owned by Intel Corp., and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Fury” ranked No. 5 on a weekly list of the most-pirated movies by TorrentFreak, which measures downloads on the BitTorrent file-sharing site.

Entertainment industry news service Variety.com reported the number of downloads may exceed 1.2 million across multiple sites, citing piracy tracking firm Excipio.

Sony’s yet-to-be-released “Annie,” “Still Alice,” “Mr. Turner” and “To Write Love on Her Arms” have also appeared on sites offering pirated movies since the attack last week that continues to affect computer systems at Sony Pictures Entertainment, said a person with knowledge of the matter.

Sony Pictures is continuing to investigate the breach, including the possibility it may involve North Korea, the person said. The website Re/code reported Nov. 28 that the studio was looking into whether the attack coincides with the release of “The Interview,” a comedy about a CIA plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

Culver City, California-based Sony Pictures, the entertainment division of Tokyo-based Sony, said yesterday in a statement that it was working with law enforcement officials to investigate the cyber-attack. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced yesterday that it had joined the probe.

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Trademark

BCE Trademarks Crave TV Ahead of Online Streaming Service Debut

BCE Inc., Canada’s largest telecommunications company, has registered a series of trademarks using the name “Crave” ahead of the introduction of its new online streaming service.

A numbered corporation registered to a BCE executive, Maria Margiotta, applied in October to register as trademarks names including Crave TV, Crave Movies, Crave Sports, Crave News and Crave Kids. The marks are for “subscription video on demand” services, according to the filings.

BCE, known by its brand name Bell, sent out an invitation today to a Dec. 3 webcast that will showcase the full details of a TV-streaming service codenamed “Project Latte,” which was first announced in October. Rogers Communications Inc. made its own subscription streaming service called shomi available to customers last month. Both companies are introducing the online offerings as more customers get rid of traditional cable in favor of Internet-delivered TV like Netflix Inc.

Scott Henderson, a spokesman for Bell, declined to comment on the Crave trademarks. Margiotta, reached yesterday by phone, said she’s involved with registering trademarks for the company. She declined to comment on the Crave trademarks.

BCE has already signed a distribution agreement with Telus Corp. and plans to make “Project Latte” available to all TV providers, according to a Nov. 5 statement.

The account registered to Margiotta also formalized trademarks for Rafale and Binge TV earlier in the year.

Seven & I Holdings Wins Court Order Barring Use of Trademarks

Seven & I Holdings Co.’s 7-Eleven unit won a court order barring the operators of a Holyoke, Massachusetts, convenience store from using its trademarks.

The Japanese corporation sued in June in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts, claiming that the 7-Eleven store operators were using the marks after their franchise was terminated. According to court papers, the store operators were accused of manipulating sales data to avoid paying the franchiser its share of the profits.

The franchise was terminated in June, and in July the store operators asked the court to order Seven & I to reinstate it. Without the franchise, the store operators said they couldn’t sell lottery tickets or money orders, or use the 7-Eleven cash register system, according to court papers filed in the case. The operators also asked the court to bar their eviction from the premises.

In a Nov. 20 ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark G. Mastroianni ordered the store operators to quit using 7-Eleven trademarks. He declined to enforce the franchise agreement’s non-compete clause. The store could continue to do business as an unaffiliated convenience store if the operators reached an agreement with 7-Eleven over such issues as rent, insurance, equipment loans, and the costs associated with the removal of the trademarks, Mastroianni said in the ruling.

The case is 7-Eleven Inc., v. Grewal, 14-cv-12676, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Springfield).