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The FTC Should Give Up Its Doomed Fight with Qualcomm and Adopt Delrahim’s New Madison Approach
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just can’t take “no, you’re wrong” for an answer. Despite its embarrassing reversal by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals …
CAFC: Parties Joined in IPRs are Not Estopped from Raising New Invalidity Grounds in District Court
On September 24, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed-in-part and reversed-in-part the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas’…
California Court’s Finding of Fair Use for Nicki Minaj Affirms Public Benefit of Artistic Experimentation
In a ruling earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips of the Central District of California granted partial summary judgment in favor of Onika …
Hindsight Bias
Informal Drawings is a comic strip devoted to patent attorneys, examiners, and inventors. New comics are published weekly. Prints and coffee mugs may be purchased at patentspace.…
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ITC Decision to Review Final Initial Determination in Botox Case Could Have Big Implications for Trade Secrets
Last week, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a notice in the Matter of “Certain Botulinum Toxin Products, Processes for Manufacturing or Relating to Same …
This Week in Washington IP: House Judiciary Committee to Review Copyright Office Section 512 Report, Senate Committees Consider Copyright Small Claims Proposal and Subpoenas for Big Tech CEOs
This week in Washington IP events, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing at noon on Wednesday to explore the findings of the Copyright Office’s …
Quickly Modeling Patent Market Prices
Imagine you have found four patent families that address a specific risk to your business, and you are about to ask your boss to approve buying those …
Federal Circuit Shoots Down Apple Bid to Strike Certain Voip-Pal Claims Upheld by PTAB
In the latest episode of a long-running saga between Apple and Voip-Pal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday denied Apple’s …
‘Lead Development’ in Compound Claim Challenges
In an earlier article, “Tips for Selecting a ‘Lead Compound’ in Compound Claim Challenges,” I introduced an approach derived by U.S. federal courts called the “lead …
Other Barks & Bites for Friday, September 25: Anonymous Precedential Decision Nominations at the PTAB, CAFC Rules on IPR Prior Art Estoppel in District Court and DOJ Issues Section 230 Proposals
This week in Other Barks & Bites: China’s IP administration releases draft provisions on the protection of geographical indications; Chief APJ Scott Boalick announces a new form …
Analyzing Vastly Different First Action Final Rejection Outcomes Following Recent Policy Change (Part II)
The USPTO recently revised Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (MPEP) Section 706.07(b) to retroactively impose a first action final rejection (FAFR) policy that significantly reduces patent applicants’ …
UK Judge Upholds Refusal of DABUS Patents
In the latest decision regarding inventions made by the DABUS artificial intelligence machine, the England & Wales High Court has upheld two decisions of the UK Intellectual Property …
Google’s Fair Use Shell Game
Google has admitted it copied over 11,000 lines of Oracle’s creative Java code to build its Android smartphone platform, that it makes commercial use of the code …
Panelists Urge Americans to Trust IP, Trust Vaccines, Listen to Science in COVID-19 Debate
IPWatchdog’s most recent webinar focused on the role of IP in the development of the most promising vaccines to combat COVID-19 and included speakers from the …
USPTO Rulemaking on PTAB Precedential Opinions Deserves Public Support
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has submitted proposed rulemaking for review by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Although the …
Patent Filings Roundup: Clash of Clans Conflict Continues; First ANDA-Related Pharmaceutical Patent Discretionary Denial; Freedom-to-Operate Action on Synthetic Peptide Tech
District court patent filings bounced back this week to 86, while the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw a slight jump to 44, fueled in part by eight …
Clause 8, Episode 22: Brad Watts – Section 101 Reform Efforts in the 116th Congress
Brad Watts is the Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Under the leadership of Senator Thom Tillis, Brad Watts has …
EPO/ IEA Study on Innovation in Batteries and Electricity Storage Aims to Identify Trends to Help Tackle Climate Crisis
On Tuesday, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a joint study titled “Innovation in batteries and electricity storage - a global …
AAM v. Neapco Comes Full Circle: The Foundation of Invention Becomes its Trap (Part II)
In Part I of this article, we briefly summarized how O’Reilly v. Morse was relied upon in the denial for rehearing in the recent case of …
On Goodwill Versus History and the Potential Renaming of Franklin Pierce Law School
According to the Concord Monitor, the University of New Hampshire is being petitioned by several students to drop the name of Franklin Pierce from the law school. …
‘Unalienable Rights’: Understanding America’s Growing Disdain for Physical and Intangible Property
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these …
Mandamus Petition to CAFC Sets Up Showdown Between Article III Courts and Stacked PTAB Panels
On August 13, Sand Revolution LLC filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The petition asks the …
Mystery Science: What Lemley and His Colleagues Get Wrong in Their Push for SCOTUS to Review TCL v. Ericsson
In December 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in a standard essential patent (SEP) appeal involving Ericsson and TCL Communication …
What’s Fair? Senate IP Subcommittee Contemplates Problems with Copyright Fair Use Regime
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on Tuesday continued its year-long series of hearings on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), this time focusing …
CAFC Evenly Splits on En Banc Rehearing of American Axle’s Driveshaft Patent Case
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued Orders granting a request for panel rehearing and denying a request for rehearing …
Qualcomm Vindicated in Ninth Circuit Reversal of California Court’s Antitrust Ruling
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today vacated a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California finding …
Drew Hirshfeld Appointed to Second Five-Year Term as USPTO Commissioner for Patents
This morning, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross reappointed Commissioner for Patents Drew Hirshfeld for a second five-year …
Senator Tillis Urges USPTO to Adopt Administrative Changes
On August 10, Senator Tillis, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, sent a letter to United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director …
Other Barks & Bites for Friday, September 4: CAFC Issues Modified Opinion in Facebook v. Windy City, USIJ Letter to Senate Supports PTAB Reforms, and United States Holds Third in WIPO Global Innovation Index
This week in Other Barks & Bites: Modified Opinion issued in Facebook v. Windy City at CAFC; the Alliance for U.S. Startups and Inventors for Jobs (USIJ) …
IPWatchdog Launches Weekly Comic Strip, ‘Informal Drawings’, by Peter Sleman
IPWatchdog is pleased to announce the launch of our weekly comic series, brought to you by Wei & Sleman founding partner, Peter Sleman. Peter’s Comic Strip, appropriately …
This Week in Washington IP: Federal Technology Investments, Advancing Clean and Nuclear Energy R&D, and Former Google CEO Schmidt on Innovation Policy
This week in Washington IP news, the Senate remains in recess, but the House of Representatives features several committee hearings on the creation of a National Cyber …
Financial Incentive Structure for AIA Trials Destroys Due Process at PTAB, New Vision Gaming Argues
On June 30, New Vision Gaming & Development filed a corrected appellant brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit challenging two covered business method (…
Ninth Circuit Reverses Functionality and Fame Findings in Office Chair Trademark Case
On June 25, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in Blumenthal Distributing v. Herman Miller, Inc. in which the appellate court …
Federal Circuit Affirms District Court’s Eligibility Analysis, Reyna Dissents
On July 14, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with Judge Lourie writing for the majority, affirmed-in-part and vacated-in-part a decision of the United …
Registering your website with the Chinese government?
Doing business in China is exciting and potentially lucrative; however, there are “hidden” traps. Most of these hidden traps have been extensively discussed in the Western world – …
What happens when lifestyle drugs like Viagra and Cialis lose patent protections?
Each year, millions of men rely on pharmaceuticals like Viagra and Cialis for their erectile dysfunction (ED), but they may not be the only ones facing dysfunctionalities. …
The Myth of the 18-Month Delay in Publishing Patent Applications
Starting in November 2000, the USPTO started publishing patent applications 18 months after their earliest filing date. So the simple assumption is that you file a patent and 18 months …
Top Patent Law Firms for 2017
We compiled a list of the top patent firms that are ranked based on the total number of U.S. utility patents that issued in 2017 where the …
Reflections on Taking the Patent Bar Exam
If you are reading this article beyond the title, you are either preparing to take the USPTO’s patent bar exam or you are considering whether you …
Alternate Approaches to the Valuation of Intellectual Property
Techniques for valuing intellectual property continue to develop, especially as access to information becomes easier and more efficient. The practice of valuing intellectual property has only been …
Federal Circuit Affirms TTAB Refusal to Register ‘CHURRASCOS’
In a May 13, 2016 decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision upholding an Examiner’s denial of registration based on a finding …
Design Patent Infringement: How to decide if you should sue
First, look at the merits of the infringement claim. They may be stronger than you think, and you can thank a 2008 ruling for that. That year, the …
Top Patent Firms for 2016
A list of the top patent firms that are ranked based on the total number of U.S. utility patents that issued in 2016 where the patent firms …
Beat the Odds: How to Get Your Invention Licensed
Many inventors believe the way to get a company interested in their inventions is to write a letter – and then hope they receive an invitation to begin …
Does University Patent Licensing Pay Off?
Patent licensing or creating new companies is not a get rich quick path for schools despite the occasional blockbuster invention or Google spin-out. Indeed, enriching universities is …
These Are the 20 Hardest and Easiest Art Units
Art Unit 3689 has the lowest allowance rate at 7.7%. Art Unit 3659 has the highest at 98.3%. Oddly enough, these two art units are from the same technology center. It’…
Comic-Con Considerations: Cosplay, the Right of Publicity, and Copyright Concerns
For as much as Comic-Con is about comics, TV, and upcoming movies, it’s not hard to see that a large portion of its allure for fans …
Do Patents Truly Promote Innovation?
Invention, it has been shown, is driven primarily not by genius or happenstance but rather by markets and the expectation of the profit that can be gained …
10 Years Later – A Look at the Efficacy of the Pre-Appeal Brief Conference Program
For 61% of the non-defective requests, the panel decided that there was an actual issue for appeal, such that the applicant would either need to file an Appeal …
The Cost of Obtaining a Patent in the US
Estimating US patent costs is a difficult matter because so much depends on the technology involved, but answering "it depends" is not particularly insightful or helpful. What …
Protecting Ideas: Can Ideas Be Protected or Patented?
Unfortunately, despite what you may have heard from late night television, satellite radio commercials or snake oil salesmen, there is no effective way to protect an idea… …
Patent Searching 101: A Patent Search Tutorial
Inventors and entrepreneurs who are looking to cut costs frequently want to do their own patent search. This is a wise first move, but inventors need to …
The Top 5 Mistakes Inventors make with their Invention
Generally speaking the first step toward commercializing an invention and making money is typically to pursue the patent path. For those new to the industry it is …
Patent Claim Drafting 101: The Basics
When writing a claim it is important to describe how the various components are structured and how the various components interact and connect. First, include a claim …
Moving from Idea to Patent – When Do You Have an Invention?
In order to protect an idea it must mature into an invention first. This means that you need to be able to explain to others how to …
The Law of Recipes: Are Recipes Patentable?
In most cases the typical recipe for a "killer Margarita" or "the best barbeque sauce ever" will not be patentable, but the only way to know for …
Tricks & Tips to Describe an Invention in a Patent Application
One excellent way to make sure you are including an appropriately detailed description that treats a variety of variations and alternatives is to have many professional patent …
Getting Your Invention to Market: Licensing vs. Manufacturing
Of course, whether you are going to pursue licensing or manufacturing, for the first lesson is to realize that there are no tricks to invention marketing. It …
Patent Drawings and Invention Illustrations, What do you Need?
If you are going to file a patent application you must have drawings to include in the application, but patent drawings are not the only type of "…
Provisional Patents: What are they and why do you need them?
The first thing to say is this: there is no such thing as a provisional patent. You can, however, file what is known as a provisional patent …
Patent Drawings 101: The Way to Better Patent Applications
To properly accomplish the goal of having the best disclosure possible you should also not think in terms of a single patent drawing or illustration, but rather …
Design Patents: The Under Utilized and Overlooked Patent
Typically an inventor wants to protect the function of the invention when at all possible. But what if you cannot get a utility patent because the underlying …
Good, Bad & Ugly: Truth About Provisional Patent Applications
Whether that provisional patent application can ever be useful moving forward is unknown and unknowable at the time it is filed, which allows for those who knowingly …
Utility Patent Applications – Content and Substance
In order to obtain a utility patent one must file what is referred to as a non-provisional application or a non-provisional utility application. It is called “non-provisional” …
