In Part I of this two-part article, we reviewed the origins of the judicially-created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) and laid out the background on how the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit arrived at the 2023 In re Cellect decision. Here, we delve deeper into the case law and explain a simple fix for many present-day ODP problems.

Earlier this year, a jury trial was held in the matter of G+ Communications, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Case No: 2:22-CV-00078-JRG (E.D. Texas). Pursuant to the jury’s verdict, two of the three patents asserted were found to be infringed by Samsung, and compensation was awarded to G+ in the amount of $45 million for one patent and $22.5 million for the other. The verdict further indicated these amounts were running royalties as opposed to lump sum royalties. Additionally, the jury found G+ had not “breached its [fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory] FRAND obligation by failing to offer a license to the Asserted Patents to Samsung that was fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory, and by failing to act in good faith regarding negotiations with Samsung as to a FRAND license covering the Asserted Patents.”

Huge datasets and limitless computing power are converging to upend the practice of healthcare, especially the speed and accuracy of detecting major diseases. “We can manage terabytes of data in seconds, then move and store it in the cloud,” explains pioneering physicist, bioengineer, and serial entrepreneur Alan C. Nelson in a new conversation with Bruce Berman on his podcast ‘Understanding IP Matters.’ This capacity is markedly different than thirty years ago when Nelson began using AI to invent new tools to improve health outcomes.

Intellectual property litigation in the 21st century has brought to the fore systems for asserting infringement in which IP owners may be spared some of the huge expense of litigation by “routing” extra-judicial enforcement activities through a third party. They may do so by availing themselves of programs operated by middlemen such as Amazon, which can potentially cripple a competitor with the threat of removal from Amazon.com, while the patentee can claim to be immune from a declaratory judgment suit on the accused infringer’s home turf.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that pretty much every business of every size possesses information that would qualify for trade secret protection. This is because under federal law the term “trade secret” is defined very broadly to capture virtually all types of tangible or intangible information. Specifically, the Defense of Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which became law in 2016, defines trade secrets to include “all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes”

In 1945, American engineer and the first Director of The Office of Scientific Research and Development, Vannevar Bush, published a famous report, Science and The Endless Frontier, which stated that “scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.” However, scientific progress could not be achieved until a streamlined patent system that incentivized and rewarded inventors was created. 

On Tuesday, May 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear argument in a long-awaited appeal addressing the inventorship of the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR technology. The case is the latest in a continuing legal battle between two groups of innovators, each asserting patent rights to key aspects of the groundbreaking technology.

On May 2, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) issued its most recent biennial report, entitled “Making Innovation Policy Work for Development,” which analyzes patent filing, scientific publications and economic data across the globe over the last two decades to identify innovation policies effective at diversifying national economies. While WIPO’s report underscores the highly concentrated nature of the global innovation economy, it also highlights several countries that have seen significant improvements in their own technological diversification during the study period.

If the headlines are to be believed, every aspect of American life, from farming to football, is under threat due to excessive patent litigation. While these anecdotes may seem compelling, it is important to look at the underlying data before drawing any conclusions about the state of the U.S. patent system. As an economist and one of the authors of the Federal Trade Commission’s study of patent assertion entities (PAEs), I understand the value data can bring to patent policy debates, and have also seen firsthand the damage evidence-free policymaking has on America’s innovation ecosystem.

The judicially-created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) originated long ago as a shield to protect the public against unwarranted patent term extension (PTE). The Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (URAA) removed most of these concerns when it changed statutory term from 17 years from issue to 20 years from earliest effective filing date. By limiting patent families to a single 20-year term, the URAA eliminated the ability of patent owners to indefinitely extend the term of their invention by filing successive continuations claiming similar subject matter. After the URAA, all patents in a family are effectively limited to the 20-year term of the first-filed patent, plus an occasional modest term extension due to regulatory delays (PTE) or delays at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (Patent Term Adjustment (PTA)).

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Department of Commerce releases a plan to increase women’s employment in the semiconductor sector in order to meet CHIPS goals; the FTC adds 300 drugs to the FDA’s Orange Book of junk patent listings; and eight major U.S. newspapers sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement related to ChatGPT.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed a district court’s decision in Snaprays (dba SnapPower), v. Light Defense Group (LDG) on May 2, finding that Lighting Defense Group (LDG) purposefully directed extra-judicial patent enforcement activities at SnapPower in Utah. The opinion was authored by CAFC Chief Judge Moore.

A client’s recent experience applying for a European patent led to the development of a possible optimization strategy to address patent costs for clients. This client had made an initial U.S. filing and then extended his application in the form of a European patent application. His U.S. application went extremely well, and he obtained a quick grant with very few additional costs. This, unfortunately, was not the case with his European application.

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) sent a letter yesterday to President Joe Biden again condemning the Administration’s December 2023 proposal to allow agencies to consider pricing in deciding whether and when to “march in” on patent rights. Under the proposed framework, which sources have told IPWatchdog is close to being finalized, an agency may consider “[a]t what price and on what terms has the product utilizing the subject invention been sold or offered for sale in the U.S.” and whether “the contractor or licensee [has] made the product available only to a narrow set of consumers or customers because of high pricing or other extenuating factors”.

On May 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Intellectual Tech LLC v. Zebra Technologies Corp. reversing a Western District of Texas ruling that dismissed patent infringement claims for lack of constitutional standing. In so doing, the Federal Circuit found that Article III standing was not extinguished by the plaintiff’s default on a patent security agreement that granted a secured third party the right to assign the patents at issue in the appeal.