Posts Tagged: "Wayne Sobon"

USPTO handling of patent eligibility sparks substantive discussion at PPAC meeting

Bahr explained a number of things, including the reason the USPTO has not updated patent eligibility guidance to address the pro-patent decision of the Federal Circuit in BASCOM v. AT&T. Many in the industry have been critical of the fact that the USPTO, which has been otherwise quick to provide guidance with respect to important precedential decisions, did not provide examiners with guidance in this case which found the software claims at issue patent eligible. Bahr explained that the USPTO did not think the case changed anything they had previously told patent examiners, which is why no further guidance had been issued.

Gene Quinn

August 24, 2016

A Global IP System at the Crossroads

The challenges to the global IP system, however, go much, much deeper than mere debates over so-called patent trolls or patent quality. The very premises of our intellectual property laws — the economic value of the intellectual property system itself — are now in deep dispute, not only in the U.S. but worldwide. Indeed, global anti-IP sentiment seems to be at its highest level since the late 1860s, when opponents of intellectual property rights succeeded — for a time, at least — in abolishing or weakening the patent systems of several nations around the world.

Wayne S. Sobon

January 19, 2015

Todd Dickinson Leaves AIPLA

Earlier this morning Wayne Sobon, President of the American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association, sent an e-mail to members announcing that Todd Dickinson will step down as Executive Director of the AIPLA. The announcement suggest this will be effective immediately, and provides no reason for Dickinson’s departure.

Gene Quinn

July 14, 2014

Infringement of Method Claim Shouldn’t Require a Single Entity

AIPLA believes that the so-called “single entity” rule for deciding method claim infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), where multiple actors perform the claim steps, as set out in recent Federal Circuit panel decisions as well as in the instant case, is based both on an incorrect construction of Section 271(a) and of the statutory structure of Section 271 as a whole. In concluding that only principles of agency law determine the ambit of such infringement liability, the Federal Circuit has mistakenly strayed from the traditional tort law basis of patent infringement and has created loopholes for method claim infringement that drastically reduce the exclusive rights conferred by validly issued patents – it has, in effect, reduced the scope of method patents until they have little relevancy… Direct infringement should not be limited only to an agency-type relationship between parties…

AIPLA

April 6, 2014