Posts Tagged: "inventor"

As anticipated, the Chamberlain Group, Inc., in a corrected petition for rehearing filed today, asked an en banc panel of the Federal Circuit to reconsider its August 21 precedential decision, which in part reversed a district court’s finding that certain claims of Chamberlain’s patent for a “moveable barrier operator” (for example, a garage door opener) were not abstract under Section 101.  “Not only did the panel err in resolving [Alice] step two in the first instance, it misapplied an essential requirement of step two,” says the Chamberlain petition. In addition to contradicting its own assertions that appellate courts should not conduct fact-finding, the Federal Circuit’s approach conflates Alice steps one and two, “focusing the step two inquiry on the abstract idea itself, disregarding the ‘additional elements’ inquiry of Alice,” the petition adds.

Each year the World Intellectual Property Organization releases a report titled World Intellectual Property Indicators. The latest edition of the report, the 2019 version, is a look back on the filing statistics for 2018. The report is eye-opening and should be mandatory reading for policy makers and legislators in the United States. For the first time since 2009, the United States saw a decline in the number of patent applications filed. This remarkable statistic comes at a time when patent applications are growing in number across the rest of the world. And let’s not forget that 2009 was a time of particular economic crisis both in the United States and around the world due to the global financial crisis and Wall Street meltdown brought on by the housing market collapse.  

Chrimar Systems, Inc. filed a petition for en banc rehearing with the Federal Circuit on October 21 asking it to review the so-called Fresenius-Simmons preclusion principle. The petition has a high hurdle to meet, as the underlying Federal Circuit decision was nonprecedential, but the petitioners argue that the case qualifies as a rare exception warranting en banc review.

On Thursday, October 17, the USPTO issued new patent eligibility guidance. The new guidance discusses and elaborates on the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (PEG) that was issued on January 7, 2019. The new guidance begins by stating that “all USPTO personnel are expected to follow the [PEG].” This statement is somewhat helpful given that some eligibility rejections still do not apply the PEG. After making the statement above, the guidance begins clarifying certain items from the PEG. In terms of Step 2A, Prong One regarding whether a claim “recites” a judicial exception, the guidance notes that a claim can recite more than one judicial exception. The judicial exceptions may be distinct in that there might be separate judicial exceptions in different claim elements. In other instances, there might be two judicial exceptions at play throughout the claim, in which case the examiner should identify the claim as reciting both and make the analysis clear on the record.

On Thursday, October 17, a Capitol Hill staff briefing will take place at 3:30 PM in 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building on a proposal to increase the amount of time that patent examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have to examine patent applications. At the briefing, Professors Michael Frakes of the Duke University School of Law and Melissa Wasserman of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law will present findings from their paper, Irrational Ignorance at the Patent Office , recently published by Vanderbilt Law Review. While the professors’ conclusions regarding increasing time spent by examiners on patent applications are seemingly innocuous, the entire paper is infected with the “bad patent” premise that has proven to be incredibly detrimental to the U.S. patent system in recent years. Branded as a work that updates prior research on patent quality produced by law professor Mark Lemley, the Frakes and Wassserman paper concludes that the costs of increasing USPTO resources for weeding out “bad patents” during the patent prosecution process are far outweighed by the costs borne by society in waiting for the courts to invalidate those patents during litigation.

In Knauf Insulation, Inc. v. Rockwool International, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s determination in an inter partes reexamination that certain patent claims for two of Knauf’s patents covering fibrous products and related methods and binder and fiber glass products were obvious. The Court also found that certain other claims of the two patents were not unpatentable as obvious, and Rockwool International cross-appealed that determination, but the Court held that Rockwool did not have standing to cross-appeal and thus dismissed it. The decision was not precedential, but some have commented that the Court’s holding with respect to Rockwool’s lack of standing for a cross-appeal could have significant implications.

On Tuesday, I attended a panel discussion on the National Security Implications of Patents along with my siblings, Madeline and Gideon Malone, and we were informed that inventors like the Wright brothers pose a threat to innovation. We were joined by approximately 50 attendees at the Capitol event moderated by Charles Duan from R Street Institute, along with panelists Abby Rives from Engine, Daniel Takash from Niskanen Center, and Ian Wallace from New America. They argued that patents harm innovation, and government subsidies are a better alternative to incentivize innovation. In order for R Street (a free-market think tank) to justify these blatantly anti-free-market claims, they focused on the problems with “bad patents” and how patent monopolies prevent competition. To top it all off, their example of a “bad patent” was the one granted to the Wright brothers, which the panelists felt unreasonably excluded their competitors from making improved versions of their airplane.

This past week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit issued precedential decisions affirming the invalidation of patent claims covering osteoarthritis treatments and a costs award to Facebook, but reversed the PTAB on a reasonable expectation of success finding; the U.S. Supreme Court issued orders denying certiorari to several intellectual property cases; North Korea acceded to the Geneva Act of WIPO’s Lisbon Agreement; the Dollywood theme park was hit with a copyright suit over use of the Peanuts’ “Christmas Time is Here”; Nokia announced 2,000 patent families declared as 5G SEPs; former CAFC Chief Judge Rader has called on China to move forward with promised pharmaceutical patent reforms; 2019’s third quarter showed growth in the global PC market; and the USPTO announced that it has met its patent application pendency goals as well as a new senior-level position for an AI expert.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed by Imperium IP Holdings (Cayman) Ltd., thus letting stand a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that reversed a more than $22 million enhanced damages award against Samsung. Imperium Holdings petitioned the Supreme Court in July seeking to overturn the January 2019 Federal Circuit ruling that agreed with Samsung’s argument “that the only reasonable finding on this record is that the ’884 patent claims at issue here are invalid for anticipation,” largely due to the Court’s interpretation of the expert witness testimony during the jury trial. “Juries have wide leeway to assess evidence and credibility,” said the Court, “but under the requirement of substantial evidence, a jury’s rejection of expert testimony must have some reasonable basis.”

Recently, IPWatchdog published an excellent article by Wen Xie outlining the legal inconsistencies of the Chamberlain v. Techtronic Industries opinion, penned by Judge Chen. Unfortunately, describing the latest inconsistencies in the garbage pile of contradictions that is the Federal Circuit’s Alice/Mayo doctrine provides no surprise to anyone. The Alice/Mayo decisions issued by the CAFC are self-contradictory and cannot be reconciled with the Constitution, 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103, and 112, and at least a dozen Supreme Court cases. Indeed, the only surprises from the Federal Circuit these days come in the form of the odd holding for patent eligibility. However, Wen Xie’s article did cause me to realize that I’d overlooked Judge Chen’s distortions of fact. “Distortions,” however, is too mild a term for the outrageous misrepresentations made in Chamberlain.

This week in our nation’s capital, Congress is mostly quiet during the work period, although the House Small Business Committee heads out to Kansas City for a hearing on employee shortages for small businesses outside of notable technology hubs. The Center for Strategic and International Studies kicks off the week with a look at innovations at the Missile Defense Agency. Elsewhere, The Heritage Foundation explores bioethics, New America looks at potential data privacy legislation and The Brookings Institution focuses on China’s tech sector and its threat to American tech dominance.

As I noted in part one of my talk at the IPWatchdog Patent Masters Symposium, the validity statistics for SEPs do not look very good at first glance. Thus, according to a 2017 PricewaterhouseCoopers study, plaintiffs in U.S. courts (ignoring patent type) have on average a 33% chance of success—only a 27% chance in the case of telecommunications patents. This chance of success is probably overstated for Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), based on the easy availability of prior art. Indeed, according to RPX’s 2014 study, in the United States, SEPs are likely to be less than half as successful as non-SEPs.In my talk, I pointed to the high invalidation rates in Europe to buttress my point that, at first glance, SEPs seem particularly vulnerable to validity challenges. Thus, in Germany, a supposed nirvana for patent assertion, the authors of the study “Patent Paper Tigers” reviewed the case law of the German Federal Patent Court and the German Federal Court of Justice in nullity matters in the period from 2010 to 2013 and found that: The nullification rate of all Senates of the German Federal Patent Court is 79.08% in total; and the nullification rate at the German Federal Patent Court regarding Software and Telecom patents which are (currently) of particular relevance from an economic point of view is 88.11%. Returning to the point made in the first part of my talk, having noted that most SEP nullification comes from obviousness, and not novelty, there should be no public interest exception to my argument that: unprovoked—that is, without first having made a FRAND offer or counteroffer—serial nullification of SEPs is contrary to the duty to negotiate in good faith and should remove a party’s defense against an injunction to SEPs.

Now, there is a flaw in this theory, and that is that, in the past few years, third parties have emerged that will—for their members or other contracted entities—kill patents.

Athena Diagnostics filed its petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday in Athena Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Services. There is a strong argument for the Court to grant the petition, and patent stakeholders on all sides are sure to weigh in via amicus briefs over the next month. The petition could represent the best chance for clarifying Section 101 law in the near-term, since patent reform efforts on the topic have been seemingly stalled. Below are a few initial reactions from the patent community to Athena’s arguments.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear the first of six IP cases granted cert last term. On Monday, the Court will hear Peter v. NantKwest, in which the question presented is “Whether the phrase ‘[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings’ in 35 U.S.C. 145 encompasses the personnel expenses the USPTO incurs when its employees, including attorneys, defend the agency in Section 145 litigation.” The Court will heard other IP cases in November and December, while Google v. Oracle, Berkheimer v. HP, and Hikma v. Vanda await a decision on cert, and petitions in Straight Path IP Group, LLC v. Apple Inc., et al. and Athena Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Services have the patent world holding its collective breath.

In May, the USPTO held the first of three hearings prompted by the Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science (SUCCESS) Act, which requires the USPTO Director to provide Congress with a report on publicly available patent data on women, minorities, and veterans, and to provide recommendations on how to promote their participation in the patent system. The hearing featured emotional testimony from five inventors, one of whom said she had joined Debtors Anonymous as a result of her patent being invalidated in the Southern District of New York.Responses to the USPTO’s request for written comment on 11 questions the Office had posed have now been published. Eleven organizations and 58 individuals submitted comments, underscoring a range of concerns. While many organizations focused on the need to collect demographic information and increase exposure to STEM education at the K-12 level, a number of other organizations and individuals emphasized the broader issue that was addressed during the hearing in May—that the current patent system is stacked against the individual inventor across demographics.