Posts Tagged: "US Chamber of Commerce"

These headlines are further proof that China, long known as and still considered to be a major international contributor to IP theft and piracy issues, has taken steps to rectify these issues in the months since President Xi Jinping publicly stated that “IP infringers will pay a heavy price” last July. A look at China’s economy profile in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2018 IP Index shows that some of these recent copyright actions directly address certain weaknesses in China’s IP regime. The country received no score whatsoever for the provision of expeditious injunctive-style relief and disabling of copyright infringing content online. While it’s not clear how expeditious the NCA’s video takedown action was, it at least provided injunctive-style relief on behalf of copyright issues. The same holds true for the CAVCA’s karaoke takedown efforts. It’s also possible that at least the NCA’s actions could improve China’s score in another criteria where it ranked poorly, namely the availability of legal measures providing necessary exclusive rights to prevent copyrights on web hosting and streaming platforms.

Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Andrei Iancu made some interesting remarks yesterday at the Intellectual Property Owners Association Annual Meeting in Chicago on September 24, 2018 regarding a proposal for new guidance on how the USPTO would approach determination of subject matter eligibility under §101. In the IPO meeting’s (written) remarks, Dir. Iancu speaks at length about the current confusion in the Mayo/Alice framework and how “significantly more work needs to be done, especially on the ‘abstract idea’ exception.” Director Iancu asserted that “Currently, we’re actively looking for ways to simplify the eligibility determination for our examiners through forward-looking guidance. Through our administration of the patent laws, which we are charged to execute, the USPTO can lead, not just react to, every new case the courts issue.”

On the morning of Wednesday, July 11th, the House Small Business Committee held a hearing titled Innovation Nation: How Small Businesses in the Digital Technology Industry Use Intellectual Property. Though the witness panel was not quite as one-sided as those seen testifying in front of the House IP Subcommittee in recent years, an informed observer could not help but conclude that yet another opportunity to seriously address the damaged state of the U.S. patent system was missed to the detriment of many of the small businesses which the committee purports to protect.

While the goal of developing a US innovation policy bolstered by strong IP protections was the focus of the event it was clear that competition with China, who clearly has set their own innovation agenda on a country-wide level, created a clear sense of urgency in the discussions… Generally speaking, the panelists felt that the actions of the last few years had inflicted serious damage on the reliability of patent rights in the US and created substantial doubt about what those rights were worth economically with the changes. The panel was overwhelmingly in favor of making significant changes to the current environment especially with regard to the proceeding at the PTAB.

Suppose you are valuing a large patent portfolio with issued patents and pending applications in more than 20 countries throughout the world. One of your tasks would be to project how much royalties each patent could collect in each of the subject countries over time. After plotting out your expected revenue streams, you would have to apply a discount rate to these projected royalty revenue streams to reflect the risks associated with entering into governing licensing agreements. Which risks are embodied in discount rates (also known as costs of capital)?

The letter explains that the results from the Chamber’s IP Index has shown that as a whole North America is at a considerable disadvantage compared with both Asia and Europe. “NAFTA modernization is an opportunity to elevate the IP frameworks to a level commensurate with the world’s leading economies – if it fails to put Canada and Mexico among the top 10 countries ranked on the Index it will be a missed opportunity,” the letter reads.

On Thursday, April 24th, I attended a Sports Industry briefing and cocktail reception in honor of World IP day.   The program was sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) and International Trademark Association (INTA). The program featured a panel of policymakers, including US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Vishal Amin, and Congressional Trademark Caucus Co-Chairs, Senator Chris Coons and Senator Chuck Grassley as well as Attorneys who represent the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, and IMG College Licensing.

Sen. Harris followed up by asking whether algorithms were mathematical representations of laws of nature. “You’re getting right to the heart of the issue,” Iancu said. What Iancu said after that should be a major breath of fresh air to inventors and patent owners frustrated by Section 101 validity issues in the wake of Alice and Mayo: “This is one place where I believe courts have gone off the initial intent. There are human-made algorithms, human-made algorithms that are the result of human ingenuity that are not set from time immemorial and that are not absolutes, they depend on human choices. Those are very different from E=mc2 and they are very different from the Pythagorean theorem, for example.”

Here is what Director Iancu had to say about the Wright Brothers: “At my swearing-in, I remarked that through the doors of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office comes our future. And indeed, it does, and it always did. We must celebrate that. From Thomas Edison to the Wright Brothers, from Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer to Steve Jobs, American inventors have fueled the imagination of our people for generations. We are a pioneering people who overcome large obstacles in order to realize our dreams and create prosperity. Inventors help make dreams reality, and American invention changes the world. Indeed, with American patents, humans made light, began to fly, treated disease, and enabled instant communications across the globe from tiny devices in our pockets.”

“We are at an inflection point with respect to the patent system itself. As a nation we cannot continue down the same path if we want to continue to succeed economically. We will not continue down the same path,” Iancu explained.

In a telephone interview, Rep. Stivers noted that, while the AIA was intended as legislation that would make the patent system more efficient, the resulting differences in standards between the PTAB and the district courts have led to a large number of appeals from the PTAB. “Instead of living up to its billing as being more efficient and quicker, the PTAB has become just another stop which is more complicated, more expensive and exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do,” Stivers said. Although he noted that he was not an advocate of getting rid of the IPR process entirely, Stivers felt that the PTAB had to use the same standards of evidence used by district courts. “If that happens, then the PTAB can live up to the potential that it was sold on and you can get the same ruling no matter where you go,” Stivers said.

Among the many bureaucratic changes that resulted from the amendments to the Chinese Constitution included the integration of trademark responsibilities with the other intellectual property activities of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). Such responsibilities, including the management of trademark applications, grants and administrative adjudications, were formerly the province of China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), which has been disbanded. The newly reorganized SIPO will also handle applications and grants for geographical indications of product origin.

One of the questions that gets asked this time of year, when the world is busy flipping the calendar from one year to the next, is “What are you looking forward to in the new year?” For patent owners operating in the U.S., however, it may be better to ask, “What are you looking ahead to in 2018?” Looking forward would seem to denote a sense of optimism and such optimism has been in short supply among those in the tech space who don’t have the deep wallets to withstand the costs of pursuing infringers, including those costs incurred by the efficient infringer cartel’s use of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

It is that time once again when we look back on the previous year in preparation to close the final chapter of 2017 in order move fresh into the year ahead. 2017 was a busy year in the patent world, although change was not as cataclysmic as it had been in past years, such as 2012 when the PTAB and post grant challenges began, in 2013 when AIA first to file rules went into effect, or in 2014 when the Supreme Court decided Alice v. CLS Bank. It was, nevertheless, still an interesting year… To come up with the list below I’ve reviewed all of our patent articles, and have come up with these top 10 patent stories for 2017. They appear in chronological order as they happened throughout the year.