Posts Tagged: "Chief Judge Michel"

In looking at the cases filed at the Federal Circuit during 2010, 42% of the docket for the CAFC were patent cases. At the moment, the three judges who are patent attorneys on the Federal Circuit are all on active status, and by that I mean are not on senior status. Judges Newman and Lourie, however, currently qualify to move to senior status or retire, and in a matter of a few years Judge Linn could elect senior status, or to retire, as well. Thus, moving forward in the not too distant future there could be a time when none of the judges active on the Federal Circuit would be patent attorneys by training and experience. This, in my opinion, would not be at all wise.

I am pleased to announce that IPWatchdog.com was selected by the readers of the ABA Journal as their favorite IP Law blog for 2010 ABA. I am also pleased to announce that for 2010 we had over 2,000,000 visits, delivered nearly 11.8 million pages, our homepage was viewed 3.06 million times and we averaged over 67,000 unique monthly visitors! Thanks to all our readers for coming back day after day, and thanks to all of our Guest Contributors!

At this time of the year all typically sit back and reflect on the year that has been, spend time with family and friends, watch some football and set a course to follow into the new year. So here are the top 10 events that shaped the patent, innovation and intellectual property industry during 2010 — at least according to me, and with a heavy patent emphasis. What did you expect?

I am pleased to announce that the Editors of the ABA Journal yesterday announced they have selected IPWatchdog.com as one of the top 100 best law blogs by lawyers, for lawyers. Now readers are being asked to vote on their favorites in each of the 4th Annual Blawg 100’s 12 categories. IPWatchdog.com is in the “IP Law” category. To vote, please visit The 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100.

The Executive Director of the AIPLA, Q. Todd Dickinson, then took the stage to introduce a video that was dedicated to this year’s AIPLA Board of Directors’ Excellence Award. This year the award was given to the Honorable Chief Justice Paul R. Michel, who retired earlier this year. Dickinson explained the award was being given to him “in recognition of his extraordinary leadership and service to the United States Government and in particular his leadership of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as Chief Judge while having a distinguished career marked by intellect, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to the administration of justice.”

This is the final installment in my follow-up interview with Chief Judge Paul Michel, who retired from the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit effective June 1, 2010. In some ways this might be the most interesting of all of the interview segments for those practicing in the patent arena, or those who have any reason to appear in front of the Federal Circuit. In this final installment Chief Judge Michel speaks with me about what, in his opinion, makes for effective appellate advocacy, both in terms of written briefs and in terms of oral presentation.

Friday afternoon I attended the second day of the AIPLA annual meeting. I got to the Marriott Wardman Park hotel at 9:00 am and was there until after 11:00 pm, for a full day of activities. I met so many interesting people while there, including the current Chief Judge Randall Rader for the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,…

Chief Judge Michel graciously agreed to a second interview, which took place on September 24, 2010. In part 1 of this interview sequel, we discussed fee diversion at the USPTO, he gave an insiders view of the Senate confirmation process, discussed the confirmation process of Robert Bork and a federal judiciary that seems almost ignored by Congress. In part 2, which appears below, Chief Judge Michel and I talk about the Federal Circuit, focusing on the good decisions during his tenure on the Court, as well as a few he thought the Court got wrong, including a nearly unanimous en banc decision. We discuss inequitable conduct, his thoughts regarding the Supreme Court should be meddling with patent law so much, and what he tried to do as Chief Judge to bring the Court together and build a collegial working environment.

On Tuesday, October 19, 2010, I attended the retirement dinner and reception of the Honorable Chief Judge Paul R. Michel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington DC. As fate would have it, I got lost on my way to the party. Even though I thought I gave myself plenty of time to get there, I arrived right before dinner. After dinner the celebration began with a video featuring numerous speakers and a toast. What follows is a recap of the evening’s events, as well as some quotes on the record from several distinguished guests that were at the event to celebrate with Chief Judge Michel.

In July 2010 I had the privilege of interviewing Chief Judge Paul Michel of the Federal Circuit, who had just recently retired from the Court effective May 31, 2010. Chief Judge Michel spoke with me on the record for over 1 hour and 40 minutes, and even then I only was able to get to a fraction of the topics that the Chief Judge agreed to discuss on the record. Chief Judge Michel agreed to go back on the record with me to address those additional topics, such as the confirmation process to become a judge, the state of the federal judiciary, funding for the Patent Office, Federal Circuit decisions over his tenure on the Court and more. We had our second interview on September 24, 2010, again at the University Club in Washington, DC.

Those who don’t believe innovation leads to job creation have their heads firmly implanted in the sand and simply must choose to ignore history, which proves otherwise. It is flat out irresponsible to suggest that speeding up the process at the USPTO would be anything other than one darn good idea, and practically essential to the resurgence of the US economy. The authors and the Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of themselves. We all should expect more from one of the Nation’s papers of record.

This past Sunday there was a brief but very interesting segment on Fox New Sunday that actually discussed the plight of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and how the enormous backlog of inventions in the queue at the USPTO is preventing organic job grow at a time when our economy desperately needs job creation. Sitting in for Chris Wallace was Brett Baier. He was interviewing Mark Zandi, who is Chief Economist for Moody’s Analytics, and Liz Claman, an anchor on the Fox Business News channel. The topic for this 11:54 second segment was the health of the U.S. economy and what can and should be done by our leaders in Washington, DC. Surprisingly, at least to me, Claman brought up the USPTO as an ideal opportunity for “instant stimulus.”

Straight from the “it’s about time” department comes breaking word that the so-called popular press are finally identifying the most under reported news story of this recession. The United States Patent and Trademark Office of foundering and it needs more money in order to do its job. Despite their lip service to innovation and job creation, politicians seem to year after year leave the Patent Office under funded and incapable of satisfying its purpose. But thankfully CBS did a 2 minute and 36 second segment on the crisis this past weekend!

In this final installment of my interview with Chief Judge Paul Michel we discuss Bilski v. Kappos and what he thought of the Supreme Court’s decision. Judge Michel talks about how only one of the Justices who decided Bilski ever decided a patentable subject matter decision, leaving the impression that the Supreme Court should probably just leave well enough alone. He tells us that he “think[s] the Federal Circuit can help minimize harm” that may otherwise be caused by the Supreme Court’s decision in Bilski v. Kappos, but is unsure whether the Federal Circuit can all “the harm that may lie inherent in the approach of the Supreme Court in that opinion…” Chief Judge Michel also discusses how he feels that the patent system is now favoring extremely large companies over independent inventors, start-ups and small businesses. Plus, the fun stuff!

In this interview Kappos discusses with me his management style, his famously long hours, how he manages to inspire the Office to work harder than ever before, his efforts to get funding for the Office, how the USPTO can help innovators create new businesses and new jobs, and how to inspire young people to do public service. We also learn that he and Judge Rader share the same favorite movie (see Judge Rader Interview at the end), he likes Star Trek and Star Wars equally (an astute political answer no doubt) and the famous American inventor he would like to meet is a “Mount Rushmore” inventor.