Posts Tagged: "independent inventor"

As previously reported on this blog, a bipartisan group of senators recently reintroduced a bill in Congress called the “Inventor Diversity for Economic Advancement Act of 2021,” or the ‘‘IDEA Act,’’ S.632; H.R.1723.  The Senate Committee on the Judiciary is scheduled to hold its hearing on the IDEA Act this Thursday morning.  Citing a report that “only 22 percent of all U.S. patents list a woman as an inventor,” the sponsor’s press release explains that the bill’s purpose is “to close the gap that women, minorities, and others face when procuring patent rights in the United States.” To advance this putative goal, the bill adds Section 124 to the Patent Act that will require the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to annually collect and report personal demographic data from patent applicants including “gender, race, military or veteran status, and any other demographic category that the Director determines appropriate, related to each inventor listed with an application for patent.”  Accordingly, the USPTO Director would be granted plenary authority to collect information on “any other demographic category” such as those the sponsors have already identified in their previous version of the bill, namely: ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, disability, education level attained, and income level…. Unexpectedly, however, this bill would actually harm small business and underrepresented inventors. As explained below, this legislation is contrary to patent law; it proposes a dangerous method for injecting identity politics at the USPTO, where it never has nor should play any role, and where there is no evidence that the USPTO has displayed prejudice or discrimination.

Throughout February, we have recognized some of the earliest Black women inventors, beginning with Martha Jones in 1868 and her patent directed to a corn husker, ending with Sarah Boone’s 1892 patent for the Ironing Board. Black women have continued to play an important role in driving innovation during the twentieth century and through today.

In 1873, Mary Jones De Leon was granted U.S. patent No. 140,253 for her invention titled ”Cooking Apparatus.” De Leon, who resided in Baltimore, Maryland, is believed to be the second black woman to receive a U.S. patent, following Martha Jones in 1868. De Leon’s invention was an apparatus for heating or cooking food by dry heat and steam the same time. Her cooking apparatus was an early precursor to the steam tables now used in food buffets to keep food warm during gatherings.

Accurate and clear patent drawings strengthen and enhance patent applications, helping patent examiners who are already overburdened with applications to understand inventions faster. In this article, we will be covering the essential points on the importance of patent drawings and how we can make the drawings feasible for filing at the USPTO. We will also cover some important guidelines to help you to avoid unwanted office actions.

Martha Jones of Amelia County, Virginia, is believed by many to be the first black woman to receive a United States patent. Her application for an “Improvement to the Corn Husker, Sheller” was granted U.S. patent No. 77,494 in 1868. Jones claimed her invention could husk, shell, cut up, and separate husks from corn in one operation, representing a significant step forward in the automation of agricultural processes.

Inventor advocacy group US Inventor has filed an amicus brief in support of a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asking the justices to clarify “[w]hether the Federal Circuit’s “heavy presumption” line of cases or its “holistic” line should govern claim construction. The petition was filed in December by Akeva, LLC, owner of a portfolio of athletic footwear patents, and is an appeal from a July 2020 nonprecedential Federal Circuit decision, Akeva, LLC v. Nike, Inc. In that case, the Federal Circuit upheld a district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement to a number of defendants—including Asics, Nike, adidas America, Inc., New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., and Puma North America, Inc.—finding in part that the district court had “correctly construed the claim term ‘rear sole secured’ to exclude conventional fixed rear soles.”

As a Patent Agent, the work product coming out of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seemed random to me. This article shares what I learned as a USPTO Patent Examiner that lifted the veil and shed light on that randomness. As a Patent Examiner I learned a powerful lesson: the approach that a Patent Examiner takes in interpreting claim language is learned by “on the job” training while working with USPTO trainers and other experienced USPTO examiners. The USPTO does not give new Patent Examiners detailed training on how to interpret claim language. Understanding the unique lens through which each examiner is viewing the application and prior art is critical to working effectively with Patent Examiners. Some Examiners interpret very broadly and allow fewer applications, while other examiners interpret more narrowly and allow more applications.   

Eleven amicus briefs were docketed during the last two business days of 2020 in United States v. Arthrex, Inc., et al., which is scheduled for oral argument on March 1, 2021. Several of the briefs were filed by independent inventors, who implored the Court to acknowledge the stories of entrepreneurs and small inventors who have been adversely impacted by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), in part because Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) are presently unaccountable.

In 2015, Randy dela Fuente launched Snapizzi. Randy had bet big, putting his career, savings, and company at risk. Later, Randy brought in a business partner, Chris Scoones, who cleaned out his savings and mortgaged his house. But they believed in the patent. On the patent’s government-issued cover, it stated that Snapizzi would have the “right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention. This meant that U.S. Patent No. 8,794,506 would protect their company from infringers and give them enough time to carve a toehold in the market. That patent cover also said that the patent was “granted under law”, which meant that it was a legally granted and presumed valid property right. In America, we are a nation of laws. Randy trusted the U.S. government, and this made the burden of huge risk much more tolerable. But in December 2019, a court held that the claims are all ineligible for patenting because they are “abstract ideas”.

In the late 1990s, prolific inventor David Petite invented a foundational technology for the Internet of Things. His invention drove proliferation of wirelessly networked machines and met with huge commercial success. But last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the revocation of his patent through a byzantine and controversial administrative proceeding. This patent was subjected to a Covered Business Method Review (CBM) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The PTAB is a division of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) created by the 2011 America Invents Act that has invalided a whopping 84% of the 3,000 patents they have reviewed. Coming too late to save Petite’s patent, the “transitional” CBM program expired September 16 of this year (two other types of PTAB proceedings remain in effect). CBM was not used nearly as much as the other PTAB proceedings, which have no restrictions on subject matter. Yet, corporate interests are still trying to revive CBM, and there’s buzz that attempts are being made to reinstate the program via the fiscal 2021 spending bill this week. There’s no logical basis to do so.

Recently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a Request for Comments on Discretion To Institute Trials Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), seeking “focused public comments, on appropriate considerations for instituting America Invents Act (AIA) trials.” Comments are due on November 19. US Inventor provides a streamlined tool for submitting comments here. This is a big deal for inventors. We desperately need help. We simply cannot participate in the patent system until the PTAB is regulated to provide predictability with respect to the validity of our issued patents. Director Iancu has made a valiant effort to restore balance, but it has failed thus far. As it stands, we cannot use our issued patents because it is utterly impossible to predict whether or not they survive the PTAB – no matter how carefully we follow the existing laws and procedures.

In August, Apple, Google, Cisco and Intel filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the Northern District of California challenging the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) adoption of the NHK-Fintiv discretionary denial framework as procedurally invalid under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and arguing that the PTAB’s application of them violates the America Invents Act (AIA). Shortly after, a number of “Small Business Inventors” (US Inventor; 360 Heros, Inc.; Larry Golden; World Source Enterprises, LLC; Dareltech LLC; Tinnus Enterprises, LLC; Clearplay, Inc.; and E-Watch, Inc.) filed a Notice of Motion and Motion to Intervene and related Complaint in the case. Now, US Inventor has filed its reply brief, in which it contends that “AIA trial reviews have stifled innovation, crushed inventor morale, and created a lopsided process whose use alone (irrespective of individual merits) can destroy innovative businesses”. The organization is asking the court to enter a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in order to preserve “the one lifeline giving any hope of escaping this ongoing catastrophe for American innovation and fair competition.”

Yesterday, a group of 324 American innovators sent a letter to the bipartisan leadership of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to express support for several improvements in the patent system implemented by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director, Andrei Iancu, over the last several years. The letter also expressed support for recently proposed rulemaking concerning the USPTO’s discretion in instituting inter partes review Proceedings (IPR). The group of innovators included universities, nonprofit foundations, individual inventors, startups, small businesses, manufacturing, technology and life sciences companies.

Survival bias permeates today’s tech world, especially the Silicon Valley, in the celebration of failure as a sine qua non for success, almost as a virtue, a badge of honor. Praise, acclaim and visibility are given to companies that were started in a garage and are now multi-million-dollar public corporations. As if starting from a garage is some sort of a predictor of future success. Unfortunately, we often forget about the many more companies that started from a garage and are still in a garage, or do not exist anymore. The celebration of those “who made it” and how they made it (often praising their multiple failures) does not take into account those who failed and did not make it.

Higher education is undergoing a seismic transformation as a result of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Administrators and faculty around the world are quickly overhauling how they provide instruction to students while trying to keep them on the path to graduation. With change in the academic space already underway, now is the time for colleges and universities to reinvent their innovation ecosystems and implement the intellectual property (IP) education methods and policies that students need to thrive in our knowledge economy.