Posts Tagged: "reissue"

The PTAB Continues to Break Patent Promises to the Detriment of Inventors

Surviving inventors are incredibly rare. I have met dozens of inventors with incredible discoveries whose naïve belief in the patent system have cost them way more than they have gained. They taught a big corporation their technology either directly or via the publication of their patent. The big corporations have made tens of millions of dollars using the inventor’s technology. The inventor paid lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for losing his patent rights. Many of these inventors are financially and/or psychologically devastated, and every one of them has a legitimate invention. One such legitimate inventor who has been railroaded by the U.S. patent system is Tom Waugh… If he keeps trying to play the patent game of kings, he will become a pauper – a much worse position for having acted on the false promise of the modern American patent system.

Ironworks files new complaint against Apple asserting patents covering tactile feedback, ringtone silencing tech

On Friday, October 6th, Chicago, IL-based intellectual property owner Ironworks Patents LLC filed a patent infringement case against Cupertino, CA-based consumer tech giant Apple Inc. in the District of Delaware. Ironworks’ complaint alleges that Apple’s sale of various iPhone models infringe upon patents that Ironworks owns which cover programmable alert sounds and related technologies incorporated into Apple’s smartphones.

Federal Circuit Ends Ping-Pong with District Court, Affirming Summary Judgment

This marks the third return to the Federal Circuit of a dispute (the 050 case) between the ArcelorMittal Appellants and the AK Steel Appellees… Overall, the Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment invalidating ArcelorMittal’s reissue patent, finding that the district court: (1) possessed subject matter jurisdiction when it granted summary judgment, (2) properly followed the Court’s most recent mandate on remand, and (3) properly exercised its discretion to deny a Rule 56(d) request for new discovery on commercial success… When appropriate given all of the circumstances, a district court may have jurisdiction to consider claims of a reissue patent on remand, although the claims were not asserted at trial, e.g. if the reissue claims are sufficiently connected to the original case and the remand for such consideration is requested. A case or controversy is not moot, and jurisdiction is not avoided, by tendering an unexecuted and conditional covenant not to sue.

En Banc Federal Circuit Dodges PTAB Constitutionality

Patlex, which dealt with reexamination of applications by an examiner — not by an Article I tribunal — could be considered a next step beyond McCormick. MCM, however, simply cannot be viewed as consistent with either Patlex or McCormick on any level. Indeed, the Supreme Court was abundantly clear in McCormick, which remains good law. The courts of the United States (i.e., Article III courts), not the department that issued the patent, is the only entity vested with the authority to set aside or annul a patent right. Since the PTAB is not a court of the United States, it has no authority to invalidate patent rights. It is just that simple.

Curing the PTAB: How 3 Fixes Will Make a Better, Fairer Process

When the America Invents Act (AIA) was being formulated, from about 2005 – 2011, nothing was more subject to change bill-to-bill than the proposed “1st look” and “2nd look” procedures for issued US patents. Should the U.S. have a regular opposition procedure, or should existing inter partes reexam just be tweaked? The AIA final result is the universally dis-liked post grant troika known as PGR, IPR, and CBM… For today I will confine my remarks (and associated fixes) to three truly bad ideas that in practice have played out as particularly egregious. More specifically: (1) the lack of standing required for inter partes review (IPR) challenges; (2) the lack of any real ability to amend claims during a post grant proceeding; and (3) the trivially low threshold (i.e., reasonable likelihood) that initiates an IPR.