Posts Tagged: "Melissa Brand"

To the surprise of Lemley and Zyontz, their study uncovered a striking disparate treatment in the way federal courts handle patent eligibility matters based on entity size, with startup companies doing poorly when it comes to Alice-related patent eligibility matters, and individual inventors doing even worse. Their abstract summarizes their findings thusly: “Most surprisingly we find that the entities most likely to lose their patents at this stage are not patent trolls but individual inventors and inventor-started companies,” Lemley and Zyontz write. “As biotech worries about deterrence of new innovation and software worries about patent trolls dominate the debates, we may be ignoring some of the most important effects of Alice.”

The issues I will be watching in 2018 other than Oil States are as follows: (1) What does the new Director of the USPTO do with respect to reforming the PTAB? (2) Will the USPTO adopt a code of judicial ethics for PTAB judges? (3) Will the U.S. drop out of the top 10 countries for patent protection in the annual U.S. Chamber IP Index? (4) How will the Federal Circuit resolve Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity and the assertion of sovereign immunity by Indian Tribes? (5) Will the Federal Circuit continue its unprecedented disposition of cases without an opinion by relying on Rule 36 summary affirmance? (6) Will Conservative groups become even more vocal advocates of a strong patent system?

First-take reaction to Aqua Products v. Matal from a distinguished panel of experts. Todd Dickinson: “I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a collection of procedural somersaults and arcane discussion masquerading as an appellate opinion. ” Russell Slifer: “it would be wise for the USPTO and the PTAB to consider limiting all Board decisions wholly to the record developed during the proceeding. Eliminate the opportunity for a panel to issue a sua sponte reason for unpatentability.” Ashley Keller: “One could be forgiven for wondering if the Republic is truly well served entrusting such a tribunal with exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals.” John White: “This decision puts neon highlights around what is wrong with the PTAB process as it pursues the political outcome of ridding the system of ‘troublesome’, aka: ‘commercially valuable’, patents.” Plus much more.

The Court’s Sandoz v. Amgen decision gutted a statute that had been carefully crafted to facilitate timely resolution of patent disputes and avoid delaying market entry of biosimilar products. In holding that a biosimilar applicant cannot be compelled through federal law to engage in the patent dance, the Court effectively gave biosimilar applicants a license to hide the ball. Given the complexity of biologics and biosimilars, it can be very difficult for an innovator company to reasonably determine which of its patents might be infringed by the biosimilar. Now, potentially meritorious patent infringement questions could be kicked far down the road. This could lead to delayed launch of the biosimilar product, possibly through a decision not to launch at risk or possibly by way of injunctive relief outside the BPCIA.

Bob Stoll: ”And it is the international exhaustion holding that is particularly troubling. Sales abroad act independently from the US patent system and there is no impact from the US patent system on those sales. Yet in this decision, the Supreme Court says that the foreign sale now diminishes patent rights in the US. All sorts of goods, including life-saving pharmaceuticals, are sold at lower prices in poor nations. This decision will encourage powerful foreign groups to gather products up and send them back to the US to get the higher prices. Or, companies will not be able to lower prices and sell their products in those countries. Both the poor in distant lands and the innovators in the US will suffer.”