Posts Tagged: "Gene Quinn"

On January 12, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a request for comments on proposed changes to regulations that support the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, which is more commonly known as the Bayh-Dole Act. At the time, NIST explained that this important update to Bayh-Dole represents a key element of the Return on Investment Initiative, which seeks to maximize American innovation arising from the federal government’s more than $150 billion annual investment in research and development. Monday, April 5, was the deadline to submit comments to NIST on the proposed rule revisions. Below are a handful of excerpts to comments submitted, together with links to the full text of the comments.

In characteristic form, the Supreme Court has once again managed to blow it in another intellectual property case. This time, the Justices blessed Google’s copying of Oracle’s code and called it fair use despite the fact that Google copied that portion of the Sun Java API that allowed programmers to use the task-calling system that was most useful to programmers working on applications for mobile devices. In the infinite wisdom of the Supreme Court, the copying of this code was found transformative because Google only used it to circumvent the need to license Java from Oracle with respect to Android smartphones. Of course, that isn’t exactly how the Supreme Court characterized it, but make no mistake, that is what they decided.

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) March 26 deadline for filing a petition for writ of certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court has come and gone, officially ending the FTC’s opportunity to appeal its loss at the Ninth Circuit in its antitrust enforcement action against semiconductor developer Qualcomm. As federal regulators move on from this final vestige of Obama-era antitrust enforcement activity against patent-related business activities, much of the intellectual property world continues to await key appointments under President Joe Biden that will reveal the tenor of the policy debate in patents and antitrust during the current administration.

With the recent accessibility of big data sets and powerful computing systems, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used across industries to generate predictions. A human is always initially involved to program the model and determine any learning objective, but the model may evolve to generate results not foreseen by the human. If the result is new, non-obvious, and useful, should…

For innovative companies the life blood is having engineers and scientists who produce invention disclosures. Unfortunately, as good as they are at creating, engineers and scientists are generally far less equipped to explain what it is that they have created, which creates an obstacle from the start. As every patent attorney can attest, often invention disclosures lack concrete description at…

Innovations relating to power and power consumption are an increasingly hot topics as society works to reduce our power footprint by reducing power consumption and moving away from reliance on fossil fuels. As power related innovation continues to advance, implementations are continually morphing from one domain to into another – in manufacturing, solar, data centers, automotive, robotics, consumer products, mobile…

Trademark opposition proceedings provide trademark owners a relatively quick means to challenge the trademark application of another prior the challenged application being granted. Meanwhile, a cancellation proceeding offers a trademark owner a procedural mechanism to challenge an issued trademark at the Intellectual Property Office rather than in court. Different timelines, grounds for challenge, standards of proof, and appeals rules apply…

Insufficient patent protection and enforcement in China has been a long-standing frustration not just for international but also domestic rights holders. After several rounds of revisions and years in the making – the revised PRC Patent Law entered into force on June 1, 2021. The fourth amendments bring substantial changes including the creation of a patent linkage system, introduces an…

Markets are changing, technology is changing, and the approach to negotiation and patent litigation is changing. Still, some things are constant; namely, competent technical information is necessary to make data-driven decisions. Given the benefit of hindsight and reflection, what information has proven to be the most persuasive, most helpful documentation or evidence to ultimately achieve the best possible outcome? Join Gene…

Join us for a free CLE webinar where we will discuss the processes and policies driving the USPTO. Topics during this casual conversation with the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners for Patents will include hot issues affecting the Office, how they ensure quality, patent examination policy, how they are using AI, and much more. We have assembled a stellar panel of…

Whether it is true or not, IP is often characterized as a cost, making it a prime target for cost-cutting measures during times of shrinking budgets. Add to this that surveys show that over half of IP department heads are anticipating severe budget cuts for 2022 and getting this budget cycle right could not be more important for the future…

Trademarks are a universal phenomenon and have existed for almost as long as trade itself. Identification symbols that worked as early trademarks have been found on the goods that were traded dating back to as early as 4000 years ago. Although found in virtually every legal system around the world, trademarks are based on national law. Having a trademark in…

More than 30 years ago the National Cancer Institute began to explore what was then a heretical idea: a patient’s own immune system could be employed to fight cancer. Today, the resulting field of medicine is called immunotherapy, and common practice in hospitals around the world. It is also a fast-growing field.  Numerous companies have begun studies and filed for…

Costs are an omnipresent concern for those in the intellectual property arena, making IP budgeting is a critical necessity for both IP law firms and in-house IP counsels. Whether for purposes of strategic portfolio decision making, or to address requirements to cut spending, accurate budgeting is essential. Unfortunately, creating IP budgets can be time consuming, and it can be extremely…

In December of 2020, IPWatchdog hosted a webinar discussing the use of and interest in solid-form patents in the pharmaceutical industry. There were many questions during the webinar, and many follow-up inquiries on the “nuts and bolts” of these patents. Issues including prosecution, claim drafting, novelty, obviousness, enablement, non-species claims in a crystalline-form context, claim interpretation and proving infringement. Join…