Posts in Interviews & Conversations

The second day of IPWatchdog’s PTAB Masters™ 2021: “Winning at the PTAB” featured a keynote interview with former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director David Kappos, who was at the helm of the agency when the America Invents Act (AIA) was passed. As part of the AIA, Kappos was tasked with developing rules to implement the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and related post grant proceedings, and was chiefly focused on adhering to the unprecedented timelines set for those proceedings in the AIA. “The PTO had never been given strict timelines before,” explained Kappos. “I felt the gravity; I thought, ‘if the public is going to respect the PTO and patents, we have to get on top of the timeframes.’ [I told my team] the goal is going to be to implement within the timeframes 100% of the time.”

While steps taken under former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu to restore equilibrium at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) have improved a bad situation to some extent, in many ways the damage has been done, said IPWatchdog founder and CEO Gene Quinn during a keynote interview with Iancu earlier today, on day one of the PTAB Masters ™ 2021: Winning at the PTAB Series. “It felt sometimes like the PTAB was making it up as they went along,” said Quinn to Iancu. “It eroded the confidence of patent owners. I do think it’s getting to be more of an equilibrium, but it’s a damaged brand.”

The IP Tech Summit, researched and produced by Premier Cercle, took place virtually this year, on December 3-4, and focused on new intellectual property strategies for open innovation and digital transformation. As part of the summit, IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn conducted a Fireside Chat with Cloudflare Co-Founder and COO, Michelle Zatlyn, who said that we are presently in a critical phase of the internet’s development and have an opportunity to redefine it to make it work. But—if we act too quickly—we could potentially go backwards.

It has likely been a while since most of even used a pencil – but would we use them more if they grew flowers, trees and herbs? Enter, Sprout World, a company founded on the concept of sustainability that credits patents as playing a large part in its success. In late 2012, Michael Stausholm, the company’s founder, happened upon a Kickstarter campaign launched by three MIT students for a pencil one could use and then plant in the ground to grow flowers, herbs, vegetables and even trees. “I saw it and thought it was a wonderful idea,” Stausholm says. “I had been working in sustainability for many years and everyone was talking about it, but what was it actually? The pencil was a wonderful way of illustrating the concept.”

IPWatchdog’s most recent webinar focused on the role of IP in the development of the most promising vaccines to combat COVID-19 and included speakers from the medical community, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the biopharmaceutical industry. The upshot was: wear masks, get the vaccine when it’s available to you, trust the FDA, and stop targeting IP rights, since there’s no evidence they have hindered the process and, in fact, IP has so far played a crucial role in collaboration efforts.

Starting this week, Bruce Berman, author and CEO of Brody Berman Associates and founder and chairman of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding, an independent non-profit, will publish his well-known column, the “Intangible Investor” with IPWatchdog.The column ran for 17 years in IAM Magazine and will continue to focus on trends and observations in the realm of IP valuation and investment. Berman spoke with IPWatchdog about the history of the column and what readers can expect going forward.

Headlining day two of IPWatchdog’s CON2020 was Retired U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Chief Judge Paul Michel, who offered attendees 12 “perspectives” on the present-day Federal Circuit to provide context for some of the Court’s current problems. Ultimately, said Michel, these problems need to be fixed via legislation, not the courts, and the key to speeding up that legislative process is for individuals and companies to become involved and proactively advocate for patent reform at the local level.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director, Andrei Iancu, joined day one of Virtual CON2020 today to chat with IPWatchdog CEO and Founder Gene Quinn about topics including counterfeiting, Chinese IP theft, and the continued confusion in the courts and at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) around patent eligibility. On the topic of Section 101 and patent eligibility, Quinn lamented the recent American Axle decision, wondering if the holding that an invention involving a drive shaft could be considered directed to a law of nature represents a broader and growing disrespect for intellectual property. Iancu could not comment on the case itself, but said that with respect to the basic principle, “you’re absolutely right.

Retired Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Paul Michel told registrants of IPWatchdog’s Virtual Patent Masters program taking place today  that the U.S. patent system has been “weakened to the point of being dysfunctional.” This dysfunction has been especially harmful to small businesses and startups, as well as to innovation in the life sciences industry—which we need now more than ever. Asked by IPWatchdog CEO and Founder Gene Quinn whether the coronavirus pandemic may be a wakeup call to those in power about the importance of incentivizing innovation in the life sciences area, Judge Michel noted that experts in the vaccine industry have indicated that China now dominates vaccine research and production. “The current circumstances may shift the thinking of policy makers quite suddenly and quite far,” Michel said. “We definitely are crimping the human health efforts for prevention and cure of symptoms. Let’s hope this really is a wakeup call for our leaders.”

On December 31, the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Commissioner for Trademarks, Mary Boney Denison, retired from her position with the agency. Denison joined the USPTO in 2011 as Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations and became Commissioner for Trademarks on January 1, 2015. Before joining the USPTO, she practiced law in the area of trademark prosecution and litigation, as a founding partner of Manelli Denison & Selter PLLC in Washington, D.C., from 1996 to 2011, and as a partner of Graham & James LLP for ten years. The USPTO has not yet named the next Commissioner for Trademarks. Deputy Commissioner for Trademark Operations Meryl Hershkowitz will be acting in the role until the new commissioner is named. In late December, IP Watchdog had the opportunity to interview Denison about her career and her accomplishments at the USPTO. Below, she discusses what she is most proud of, what she could have done better, and provides an update on the Office’s efforts to combat fraudulent trademark filings from China, which has proven to be a major stumbling block for the agency in recent years.

Last week during IPWatchdog’s Patent Masters Symposium, former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel sat down with me to discuss the state of the U.S. patent system and best options/ predictions for moving forward. He began by lamenting that “the courts have failed and failed and failed” with flawed rulings such as Helsinn v. Teva, which Michel characterized as “completely illogical”, and Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. To boot, the Supreme Court has refused to take any patent eligibility cases, and the Federal Circuit has managed to make the harm and illogic of the SCOTUS rulings even worse, Michel said. In fact, they’ve “expanded on the bad rulings of the SCOTUS.” Part of the problem may lie in a misunderstanding of the true intent of the patent system, according to Michel. “The real point of the patent system is to incentivize innovation, not to encourage creative people. Creative people will create no matter what. Investment is extremely risky and costly—if the incentive to invest shrinks, and there is evidence that it has, we are in trouble.” Below, Michel offers more of his thoughts on the current patent landscape, including what to expect from pending legislation and why he is cautiously optimistic that change is coming soon.

In the final installment of my interview with three examiners at the European Patent Office (EPO), we wrap up our conversation about their approaches to examining computer implemented inventions, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), and how the EPO system compares with the U.S. patent examination system.

In Part II of my interview with three examiners at the European Patent Office (EPO), we continue the conversation about their advice, pet peeves, and approaches to examining computer implemented inventions, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), and how the EPO system compares with the U.S. patent examination system.

The Supreme Court issued its decision yesterday in Iancu v. Brunetti. As largely expected, the Court followed its own lead in Matal v. Tam and struck down the Lanham Act’s bar on “immoral or scandalous” trademarks as violating the First Amendment. Below are some insider perspectives on what the ruling means for brands and trademark practitioners going forward.

IP rights face “a challenging future,” according to Christian Archambeau, the Executive Director of the EUIPO, who spoke to the media during the INTA Annual Meeting in Boston last month. In particular, he cited the challenges posed by Brexit, international cooperation, artificial intelligence (AI) tools and Blockchain, working in multiple languages, and the volume of applications. EUIPO (formerly OHIM) is the Office responsible for registering EU trade marks (EUTMs) and registered Community designs (RCD) in the European Union. But Archambeau, who became Executive Director in October last year, also emphasized its broader remit to support cooperation between offices in Europe and beyond, and to promote IP awareness, particularly among SMEs. In this respect, he said the Office is looking at “helping SMEs with services that help them and make sense to them,” although it cannot change fee levels, which are set by an EU Regulation.