Posts Tagged: "fees"

CAFC Reverses and Remands Attorney’s Fees Issue in Newegg’s Favor

The district court made clearly erroneous factual findings that independently supported reversal. Particularly, the record supported a finding that this case was exceptional given the weakness of AdjustaCam’s litigating position. The evidence offered by AdjustaCam showed that its lawsuit was baseless. However, the district court instead found that AdjustaCam’s litigation position was not exceptional because Newegg’s ball-and-socket products were constrained in such a way that AdjustaCam could reasonably argue that it rotated on a single axis, consistent with the original district judge’s Markman order. But the Court pointed out that AdjustaCam never advanced this argument.

Federal Circuit Declines to Award Attorney Fees in Inventorship Dispute

The Federal Circuit heard the case on Univ. of Utah v. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften e.V. At issue is whether the district court abused its discretion in declining to award attorney fees to Max Planck. The case involved an inventorship dispute over the “Tuschl II patents,” for certain RNAi discoveries, and owned by Max Planck. March 2000, the Max Planck inventors published an article describing certain RNAi discoveries. A month later, Dr. Bass of the University of Utah published a review article discussing the Max Planck article and offering some hypotheses regarding RNAi. The Tuschl II patents were filed on subject matter that was influenced by testing Dr. Bass’ hypotheses. The University of Utah sued Max Planck, alleging that Dr. Bass is either a sole or joint inventor of the Tuschl II patents… The Court will not second-guess a district court’s finding that a case was not “exceptional” so long as the Court reasonably explained why the case does not stand out from other patent cases. A district court is not constrained to a specific or formulaic approach proposed in cases like Octane Fitness.

Trump FY 2018 budget cuts $1.5 billion from Commerce, how much will come from the USPTO?

With a proposed budget of $7.8 billion and $1 billion in cuts to identify, questions arise about where those cuts will come. Is the USPTO budget safe?Will the cuts be across the board cuts with the USPTO being asked to account for 35% of the $1 billion, which would reduce the USPTO budget to $2.967 billion for FY 2018? According to a chart prepared by the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Association, the largest single fee diversion came in 2011 when $209 million was diverted from the USPTO. If the USPTO must cut its budget by some $350 million that would far and away be the largest single year fee diversion in the history of the U.S. patent system.

Cash strapped USPTO, failed fee increase and political shenanigans

But why is the USPTO in such a fee crisis? Because they have strayed from their mission, which is to issue patents. Far too many Art Units have allowance rates under 5%, and some as low as 1% (and those are in Art Units dominated by Fortune 500 companies). For an agency that derives the majority of its fees from patent owners paying maintenance fees it is downright idiotic for the Office to allow examiners to bury applicants and refuse patents at every turn. Worse, the solution isn’t to ease up and allow patents, instead it is to double and triple down on instituting more post grant challenges and raising fees.

USPTO Seeking Comments on Proposed Patent Fee Adjustments

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to set or adjust certain patent fees, as authorized by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). The proposed fees are projected to recover the aggregate estimated cost of the USPTO’s patent operations, Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) operations, and administrative services. The Office welcomes comments on both the individual patent fee proposals and the rulemaking goals and objectives. The Office will consider and respond to all comments received, during the public comment period, in the final rule, which the Office expects to publish in 2017.