Posts Tagged: "post-grant"

Telebrands loses $12.3 million verdict for willful patent infringement of Bunch O Balloons

On November 21st, a jury verdict entered in the Eastern District of Texas awarded $12.3 million in damages to Tinnus Enterprises and ZURU Ltd. in a patent infringement case against major U.S. telemarketing firms Telebrands and its subsidiary Bulbhead.com. The verdict, which also carries a finding of willful infringement of the patents-in-suit, further upheld the validity of patents owned by Tinnus in stark contrast to findings which have issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on those patents.

Allergan’s patent transaction with St. Regis Mohawks could presage more arbitrage patent transactions

News of the St. Regis patent transaction has sparked interest in others pursuing similar arbitrage arrangements that provide revenue streams to Native American tribes outside of gambling and tobacco. According to Shore, there’s a lot of interest in pursuing such deals in sectors outside of pharmaceuticals. White seemed confident that other tribes would soon pursue their own similar IP deals. “There are 500 tribes in the U.S.,” White said. “There is a lot of media surrounding this and there is a lot of money. There will be other tribes.” Small operating companies have plenty of reason to contemplate such a transaction of their own patents themselves, Shore said. “There may be no IPRs filed yet, but they may be looking to do this preemptively so that when they engage in an enforcement campaign, they have removed the risk of IPR.”

Update on Post-Grant Design Patent Challenges

Interest in design patents is increasing, in part, because they can be obtained relatively inexpensively and quickly. Dennis Crouch recently reported that from 2010-2012 the majority of design patents issue within 12-months of their filing date (see “Design Patents Are Still Relatively Quick” by Dennis Crouch, Patently-O, January 21, 2012,. In addition, most design patents issue without amendment and with little or no file wrapper estoppel, potentially leading to a “cleaner” patent with potentially fewer issues to be raised in litigation that could negatively affect the scope of the patent. The number of design patent filings has increased approximately 20% since 2009 (Robert Olszewski, “State of the Technology Center,” USPTO Design Day 2013), and, with this increase it is reasonable to expect an increase in design patent enforcement

Managing Costs of Patent Litigation

It’s no secret patent litigation costs are immense. According to the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the cost of an average patent lawsuit, where $1 million to $25 million is at risk, is $1.6 million through the end of discovery and $2.8 million through final disposition. Adding insult to injury, more than 60% of all patent suits are filed by non-practicing entities (NPEs) that manufacture no products and rely on litigation as a key part of their business model. Patent litigation will always be costly, but by planning, preparing, assessing, narrowing and focusing – the attentive client or counsel may succeed in achieving some predictability and keeping costs to a minimum.

Kappos, Prost, Armitage and Dickinson Discuss AIA at AIPLA

Kappos on final rules to implement the AIA: “We put together a good set of rules, but they are by no means a perfect set of rules.” Kappos explained that typically in Washington administrative rules are written and may be changed some time in the future, but not very quickly. That was not the USPTO approach. “Our approach was different,” he explained. The USPTO approach is one of continuing improvement. “We are already talking about convening the state holder community again after a few months when there is data to discuss.” The goal is to get feedback and make any necessary changes to continually improve the rules.