Posts Tagged: "Guest Contributor"

On August 22, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued yet another decision reinforcing what can only be described as the “lead compound” rule for challenging pharmaceutical and other chemical compound patents on the basis of obviousness…. The Federal Circuit has been utilizing the “lead compound” construct since around 2000. The Sun panel cited an earlier decision which couched the construct as something the court “ordinarily” employs. Otsuka Pharm. Co., Ltd. v. Sandoz Inc., 678 F. 3d 1280, 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2012). That earlier decision cited yet an earlier decision which stated that the “lead compound” methodology is used “in general.” Esai Co. v. Dr. Reddy’s Labs., Ltd., 533 F. 3d 1353, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2008).

If you’re a regular reader of IPWatchdog, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that two different U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC or Federal Circuit) panels recently issued inconsistent, irreconcilable opinions. But what just happened over the last month is particularly concerning. Specifically, within the span of six days, the Federal Circuit held that: “A computer” means one and only one computer when a subsequent claim element recites “the computer” (Finjan v. Sonicwall); and “A sample stream” means one or more sample streams when a subsequent claim element recites “the sample stream” (ABS Global v. Cytonome/ST).

Words can have profound impact. The term “patent troll,” coined by an Intel litigator, has done incalculable damage. First use is attributed to Peter Detkin, who is said to have deployed it in 2001 to belittle plaintiffs in a patent case involving the chipmaker. Shortly after its appearance, Detkin emerged as what some in the tech world would consider a bad actor. He co-founded Intellectual Ventures, a company that raised $5.5 billion to acquire more than 40,000 patents and applications for sale, license or enforcement. The IP community needs to be more vigilant about preventing parties of interest and the media from controlling the IP narrative.

It was another slow week for patent filings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and a typical week in district courts, with 52 district court complaints filed and 22 new PTAB petitions. There was a new discretionary denial, a bunch of litigation-provoked high-profile PTAB challenges, and some notable new litigations. There was another Fintiv discretionary denial this week: here, a Chinese patent owner, Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd., benefited from the Board’s discretionary denial rules in a petition brought by another Chinese battery company. The case, IPR2023-00585, leaves unaddressed the questions raised about the validity of U.S. Patent 11329352.

Gene Quinn and I have collectively been teaching patent bar prep for almost 60 years! In that time, we’ve had contact with many career-bound patent people. All had, without exception, a background in the sciences or engineering, or both. The list of qualifications has, over the years, been expanded as technology has expanded. In years gone by, degrees in Biology and Computer Science would not have qualified you to sit for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Registration Exam, but now they do, along with many other intersectional STEM qualifications, including, for the first time, advanced degrees in these disciplines. Good, I say. The more the merrier.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) on October 10 issued its (consolidated) decision G1/22 & G2/22, which promises to significantly reduce priority issues for applicants—U.S.applicants in particular. When the applicants for a European patent application differ from the applicants on the priority application, the EPO employs the well-established “joint applicants approach” to evaluate the priority claim’s validity. For the priority claim to be valid, and assuming there’s been no transfer of the priority right, all applicants of the priority application must also be among the applicants of the subsequent European patent application. The table below outlines various scenarios and indicates whether the priority claim is valid according to the joint applicants approach.

The world is increasingly connected, and semiconductors are essential to enabling this connectivity. Specialists project the semiconductor market to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2030 (McKinsey & Co., 2022). The term “semiconductors” covers a large amount of embedded technology that is advancing rapidly in its development. Semiconductor companies are highly innovative and rely on innovation to maintain their market share and expansion objectives. An indicator of innovation in this sector is, of course, patents. Of the 10 largest semiconductor companies, according to a ranking published by Investopedia in April 2023, five companies filed between 2,000 to 5,000 patent families between 2019 and 2022

It was a slow week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with just 18 new petitions—all inter partes reviews (IPRs); in district court, a slightly below average 54 new patent filings and 48 terminations rounded out the count. District courts saw continued filings in several large campaigns. Unwired Global Systems LLC (associated with high volume plaintiff, Jeffrey Gross) adds another seven defendants to its campaign, asserting a single patent related to home area network middleware interfaces and inventor-controlled Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC filed suit against six defendants asserting patents related to, not surprisingly, digital imaging, bringing the total number of defendants to seven.

Inter partes review (IPR) is a legal process conducted before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to assess patentability based on anticipation or obviousness using prior art publications and patents. Congress established IPR to offer an efficient alternative to litigating patent disputes before the district courts. This article discusses some practice tips for both challenging and defending patents in IPRs before the PTAB.

On  April 27, 2023, the European Commission published its proposal for how the licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs) should be governed in the EU. The draft regulation states that the initiative aims to incentivize participation by European firms in the standard development process and the broad implementation of such standardized technologies, particularly in IoT industries. The developments are of interest to any business that develops, implements or markets connective technologies.

I was not even aware of the issue below until a CPA friend of mine happened to mention it during a friendly telephone call. But unless Section 174 of the Internal Revenue Code is restored to its previous state from prior to the 2017 Trump tax cuts, U.S. innovation will be greatly impacted. Section 174 of the Internal Revenue Code has been around since 1954. It was enacted to eliminate uncertainty in the treatment of research and development (R&D) expenditures and to encourage businesses to carry on research and experimentation.

Innovation has been the driving force behind our country since its inception. So much of our nation’s success has flowed from U.S. ingenuity and innovation. Yet much remains to be done on this front. Indeed, in a few short years, we will be celebrating the Semiquincentennial (also called the Sestercentennial)—250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We need the same approach moving forward, and we have the opportunity to do so with pending legislation, which brings me to a chance to reflect on some important questions of intellectual property and innovation policy.

How does the research that takes place at universities turn into products and services? Before the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, recipients of federal funding for early-stage research, such as universities and federal labs, were not permitted to own the intellectual property they created. Instead, the patents filed on inventions related to federally funded research stayed with the government.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday added another case to its docket that challenges the Chevron Doctrine, a decades-old principle instructing lower courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws. The Court said it will hear Relentless, Inc. v. Dept. of Commerce in tandem with an almost identical appeal brought by Rhode Island herring fishers. Mark your bingo card if you had “Rhode Island herring fishers.”

It was a relatively average week for patent filings in the district court with 59 new complaints. New filings included multiple filings associated with high-volume plaintiffs such as Jeffrey Gross, Leigh Rothschild, as well as a slew of filings from Pueblo Nuevo in a banking campaign. Meanwhile, XR Communications settled three inter partes reviews (IPRs) and filed two new cases against wireless carriers.