Posts in IP News

It was an average week for patent filings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and a slightly above-average week in district courts, with 62 district court complaints filed and 21 new PTAB petitions—one petition for Post Grant Review (PGR), and 20 for Inter Partes Review (IPR). The PTAB instituted 13 cases; iInstitution was denied in 12 cases and 15 cases settled. In district courts, 62 new cases were filed and 12 cases were terminated.

The training of artificial intelligence models using copyrighted material continues to stir debate and prompt litigation. In the latest salvo, the New York Times Company sued Microsoft and OpenAI – the creator of ChatGPT – for infringement under the federal Copyright Act. As often is the case with claims like these, the merits will center on the fair-use doctrine, a well-recognized legal principle in copyright law that aims to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public benefit of free speech and creative works. Fair use is a defense to a claim of copyright infringement that must be affirmatively invoked by the accused infringer.

In a recent brief to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), Pfizer and BioNTech (Pfizer) told PTAB judges that Moderna’s dismissal of prior art listed in Pfizer’s August 2023 petition for inter partes review (IPR) of Moderna’s patent on mRNA vaccine technology is inconsistent with its declarations to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the drug approval process. According to the brief, when Moderna was seeking approval for its COVID-19 vaccines, the company “candidly represented to the FDA that prior studies for related vaccines…supported an expectation of safety and efficacy. But now, faced with invalidating vaccine prior art…Moderna wrongly casts the same vaccine prior art as irrelevant.” The brief referred to this as a “litigation-driven one-eighty.”

Speakers at IPWatchdog’s PTAB Masters 2024 program this week predicted there will be little movement on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking anytime soon, but some pinned their hopes for change at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to the pending Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act. Both panelists who typically represent petitioners and those who represent patent owners at the PTAB also agreed there are a number of ways the perception of the Board could be improved. These could include changes like allowing oral argument more often, allowing experts to testify in person, and a more meaningful rehearing procedure, for example.

In a pending case, the Federal Circuit is primed to provide much-needed clarity on the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement at the United States International Trade Commission (ITC). In ruling, the court will likely resolve a long-running dispute between individual commissioners regarding how to apply the so-called “mere importer” test when determining whether the domestic industry requirement is met. If the complainant, Lashify, prevails, it could make the ITC a more appealing forum for patent infringement suits involving entities that have under-utilized the ITC, including inventors, universities, and start-ups. The case at issue is Lashify, Inc. v. ITC, No. 23-1245.

Last week, biopharmaceutical company Liquidia Technologies filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court to appeal a Federal Circuit ruling that affirmed induced infringement findings against Liquidia following the patent at issue being invalidated at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In the petition, Liquidia argues that two previous Supreme Court rulings lead to a result contrary to the Federal Circuit’s determination that the invalidation of patent claims at the PTAB do not have preclusive effect on infringement litigation pending an appeal of the PTAB’s decision.

It was little more than a month ago when the Biden Administration unleashed its draft guidelines for applying the march-in provisions of the Bayh-Dole Act. For more than 43 years, the law was implemented as written. Every Administration—including the Biden Administration—rejected repeated attempts to misuse the law so the government could license copiers when critics felt that a product based on a federally-funded invention was too expensive. This was mainly sought under the guise of lowering drug prices. Even though the Administration issued a stinging denial of the most recent attempt last March, in December it reversed course.

On Thursday, final judgments were issued in a pair of copyright infringement cases that arose from a now infamous 2014/2015 project New Portraits, where appropriations artist Richard Prince displayed Instagram photos and user comments as a purported commentary on social media and art. The two nearly identical final judgments were entered in favor of the photographer plaintiffs’ claims that Prince and the exhibiting galleries willfully infringed on their photographs, and the court dismissed all the defenses raised – including the fair use defense – with prejudice.

This week in Other Barks and Bites: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) says Judge Alan Albright abused his discretion in denying transfer to Honeywell; Judge Pauline Newman argues to keep her district court case against CAFC alive; Google settles a patent lawsuit launched by an AI chip company asking $1.67 billion in damages; the International Trademark Association (INTA) publishes a report highlighting companies’ IP value; and the Pokemon Company releases a statement on potential copyright infringement by a rival game developer.

Filings began picking up again this week after a slow start in the new year in both the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and district courts. The PTAB had a busy week with 31 new filings—one Post Grant Review (PGR) and the rest Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs). Nearly half of all new PTAB filings came from just two entities: Apple and Neurent Medical…. The PTAB was also busy issuing 27 institution decisions (21 instituted and 6 not instituted).

Today, a letter signed by a coalition of top academics opposing the Biden Administration’s efforts to exercise march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 was sent to the White House. Signed by academics in fields including law, economic policy and sciences, the letter warns the Biden Administration that its efforts to drive down drug pricing by seizing patent rights will “undermine fundamental principles that have made the American IP system the golden standard for supporting domestic innovation.” A growing topic during recent Congressional debates, march-in rights under Bayh-Dole took on a new focus in early December when the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Department of Commerce released a draft framework of factors that federal agencies should consider for the exercise of authority codified at 35 U.S.C. § 203 that would compel patent owners holding rights to federally-funded inventions to license those rights to “responsible applicants.”

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today that it is launching the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot, as directed by President Biden’s Executive Order on AI in October 2023. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is one of 10 government agencies that are partnering with NSF on the pilot. Biden’s October Executive Order (EO) announced a series of new agency directives for managing risks related to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, prioritizing risks related to critical infrastructure, cybersecurity and consumer privacy. The EO in part directed NSF to launch a pilot for NAIRR within 90 days, which it said was “consistent with past recommendations” of a task force on the subject.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal on Monday made public an order from December awarding VLSI Technology LLC $413,264.15 for “time spent addressing OpenSky’s abusive behavior” in a years-long and circuitous case between the two companies. Vidal first issued her precedential Director review ruling in October 2022, holding that inter partes review (IPR) petitioner OpenSky Industries, LLC abused the IPR process in its conduct with patent owner, VLSI Technology LLC, and sanctioning OpenSky by excluding it from the IPR proceedings by relegating it to be a “silent understudy” in the proceedings and “temporarily elevating Intel to the lead petitioner.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property today held a hearing featuring eight witnesses who testified about the need to restore certainty to U.S. patent eligibility law. Most, but not all, agreed such a need exists and urged quick passage of the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 (PERA). Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced PERA in June of last year. The bill would eliminate all judicially-created exceptions to U.S. patent eligibility law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today denied Charles Bertini’s petition for a writ of mandamus asking the court to order the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to decide his trademark cancellation case against Apple, Inc. According to Bertini, the cancellation case has been in limbo at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) for more than three years, “despite [the TTAB’s] policy and frequent public statements by top USPTO officials that it decides cases after trial in approximately ten weeks.” Furthermore, a Petition to the USPTO Director filed on May 4, 2023, has yet to be decided, “despite the fact that most Petitions to the Director are decided in approximately two months.”