Posts Tagged: "America Invents Act"

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal, Vice Chief Administrative Patent Judge (APJ) Michael Tierney of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and Lead APJ Amber Hagy presented a webinar Tuesday on the Office’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on PTAB practices, walking attendees through some of the key proposals, and repeatedly reassuring stakeholders that the ANPRM does not contain any proposed rules. The widespread confusion about the ANPRM was highlighted during Vidal’s recent oversight hearing by the House IP Subcommittee.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) indicating it is considering changes to America Invents Act (AIA) proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Perhaps most notably, one of the proposals it is asking for input on has to do with creating rules that would authorize discretionary denial of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings “to ensure that certain for-profit, non-competitive entities do not use the IPR and PGR processes in ways that do not advance the mission and vision of the USPTO to promote innovation or the intent behind the AIA to improve patent quality and limit unnecessary and counterproductive litigation costs.”

On Wednesday, April 4, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) denied VLSI’s motion to terminate Intel’s involvement in an inter partes review (IPR) of VLSI’s U.S. Patent No. 7,725,759. In addition to Intel, OpenSky is also a petitioner in the IPR, which pertains to claims 1, 14, 17, 18, 21, 22, and 24 of the ‘759 patent. VLSI argued that a previous March 2021 district court ruling that found Intel had not proven invalidity of claims 14, 17, 18, and 24 of the patent precluded the tech firm from continuing to pursue this IPR. However, Intel successfully made the case that claim preclusion does not apply thanks to the America Invents Act (AIA). Additionally, it argued that the IPR and district court proceedings do not involve the same accused product and have different standards of proof.

As an update to my previous posts from 2017, 2019, 2020, March 2021, August 2021, and 2022, it has now been almost nine years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision. Yet the debate still rages over when a software (or computer-implemented) claim is patentable versus being simply an abstract idea “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none” (as eloquently phrased over 74 years ago by then-Supreme Court Justice Douglas in Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co.). Further, it has been 12 years since famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote the influential and often-quoted op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Software Is Eating the World.” Today, the digital transformation where software is “eating the world” is undeniable. Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Metaverse, Web3, cloud, gene editing, autonomous driving, quantum computing, and “green tech” dominate the technology news headlines and technology trend forecasts – all heavily reliant on software-related innovation – [Forbes] [Gartner] [World Economic Forum], but we are still without concrete guidelines for software-related patenting.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) publishes the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) (currently electronically, but spanning thousands of pages in printed form) to provide examiners and patent practitioners with guidance on the patent statute, USPTO regulations, and patent prosecution practices and procedures. USPTO regulations are promulgated pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which requires a process that includes publication of proposed rules and a public comment period and are binding on the public. The 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) strengthened the USPTO’s already-considerable policymaking powers. In a recent law review article addressing the USPTO’s post-AIA policymaking powers, William Neer recognized the USPTO’s AIA-empowered potential to engage in retroactive substantive rulemaking and determined that the USPTO promulgated more rules post-AIA than it did pre-AIA. This article discusses substantive MPEP procedural changes implemented retroactively by the USPTO.

Patent filings continue to be slightly depressed in the district courts and at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) compared to the highs of last year, with 17 new PTAB cases and 38 new district court filings. New filings consist primarily of a few apparently funded cases—a Fortress entity, for instance, sued Amazon, and a Taiwanese entity with no Internet presence has sued Apple and Samsung on wireless charging patents, with some new Jeff Gross entity filings, a slew of Dynapass filings, and some other banking campaigns picking up steam; at the Board, most of the fillings revolved around existing campaigns Robocast and Daedalus Prime, as detailed below. Ericsson continued with challenging some Phillips patents; and there’s even a funder, Element Capital, who has been hit by inter partes reviews (IPRs) after suing in their own name (via a Singapore subsidiary, against Chinese subsidiaries of other companies, including Motorola).

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal today issued a second Director Review decision correcting the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on its approach to the “compelling merits” analysis outlined in her June 2022 Guidance Memo. In AviaGames, Inc. v. Skillz Platform, Inc., IPR2022-00530, Vidal vacated the PTAB’s denial of AviaGames’ petition to institute IPR of certain claims of Skillz’s U.S. Patent 9,479,602 B1. She explained that the Board’s determination to deny the petition following a Fintiv analysis was improperly based on the district court’s judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101, since that is “a statutory ground that could not have been raised before the Board” and “does not raise concerns of inefficient duplication of efforts or potentially inconsistent results between the Board and the district court.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a precedential opinion clarifying the requirements for the disclosure of technology that is ready for patenting at a public event to qualify as being “in public use” for purposes of the pre-America Invents Act (AIA) public use bar under 35 USC 102(b). The appeal stems from Minerva Surgical, Inc.’s suit against Hologic, Inc. and Cytyc Surgical Products, LLC for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 9,186,208, titled “Systems for endometrial ablation.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted summary judgment for Hologic that the relevant claims were anticipated under the public use bar of the pre-AIA Section 102(b).

During the PTAB Masters 2023 program, which was held this week on Tuesday and Wednesday at IPWatchdog’s headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia, former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director David Kappos explained on a panel about potential reform of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that the PTAB was meant to be an alternative to district court, but “that hasn’t worked out.” Kappos was Director during the enactment and implementation of the America Invents Act (AIA), which established the PTAB.

US Inventor is publicly opposing the appointment of Representative Darrell Issa (R – CA) to Chair the IP Subcommittee due to Issa’s record of IP reforms that are harmful to independent inventors and startups. To accomplish these IP reforms, Issa squelches the voices of independent inventors and startups while amplifying the voices of Big Tech and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled multinationals. Now, in a recent statement, Issa argues that his IP reforms have made the patent system more fair for everyone, even as the facts show he is completely wrong. Issa is unfit to be IP Subcommittee Chair.

Last week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that it is seeking comments from the public on the draft of the organization’s 2022-2026 Strategic Plan. According to a press release, the plan sets five goals for the organization: Spur U.S. innovation and global competitiveness; promote IP rights; promote IP protection against new and persistent threats; bring innovation to positive impact; and maximize agency operations.

I founded Netlist in Irvine, California, over 20 years ago to develop the most sophisticated memory module technology in the world. We succeeded, shipping over a billion dollars of product and partnering with top companies, such as IBM, HP and Dell, to power their high performance computers. Netlist continues to invest heavily in R&D in the U.S. We hold more than 130 patents, many of which have been designated as standards-essential. Our memory technology has benefited consumers, businesses and the U.S. military as it is now an integral part of advanced computers deployed in a variety of industries. When we began the company, we were under the impression that securing a U.S. patent was the high-water mark of innovation and that this would protect our inventions against infringement. A patent, we believed, would allow small innovators like Netlist to compete with large incumbents that wield enormous market power.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on two mixed inter partes review (IPR) decisions involving American National Manufacturing and Sleep Number Corp. that found some, but not all, of the challenged claims not unpatentable. The IPRs on appeal involve U.S. Patent Nos. 8,769,747 and 9,737,154. They “describe systems and methods that purport to adjust the pressure in an air mattress ‘in less time and with greater accuracy’ than previously known.” American National filed IPR petitions challenging many claims of both patents and asserting that most of the challenged claims would have been obvious over various prior art references.

Earlier this week, IPWatchdog hosted a webinar sponsored by the Innovation Alliance, now available to view for free here, in which panelists drew a roadmap for fixing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Ultimately, they said: 1) thoughtfully exercise discretion to deny the inter partes review (IPR) petitions to ensure quiet title, 2) apply the clear and convincing standard of proof for invalidity to match the district court standard, 3) change the joinder rule so that time-barred parties aren’t allowed to join IPRs, 4) create a standing requirement to bring IPRs to end gaming by uninterested third-parties and 5) increase transparency at the PTAB— for example, with respect to panel changes and transfers. The participants who delivered these solutions were Dr. Marian Underweiser, an Intellectual Property Professional and former IBM Executive, Hon. Kathleen O’Malley (CAFC, ret.), currently Of Counsel with Irell & Manella, Jayson Sohi, the Director of IP Strategy at Netlist, and Gene Quinn, President & CEO of IPWatchdog, Inc.

On October 3, the U.S. Supreme Court entered an order list in which it denied petitions for writ of certiorari in several cases involving questions under U.S. patent law. In rejecting these appeals, the Supreme Court declined to clarify aspects of the written description requirement under 35 U.S.C. § 112, the patent eligibility standard under the Court’s two-step framework for 35 U.S.C. § 101 subject matter eligibility, and whether institution decisions at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) violate constitutional due process. The Supreme Court did, however, invite the U.S. Solicitor General to file a brief on Teva’s petition challenging the Federal Circuit’s induced infringement ruling over Teva’s “skinny label,” and the Court granted cert in a case that questions whether online platforms face liability for aiding and abetting terrorist acts if they offer services that are used by terrorist organizations.