This week, the district courts saw 77 new complaints—though at least 10 are re-filings of Uniloc v. Google cases being transferred from the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of California by stipulation, somewhat inflating the numbers, leaving us with a relatively low filing rate of 66 bona fide new complaints this week. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), for its part, saw 36 patent filings, driven up in part by a half-dozen petitions from LEGO® and Warner Bros. against assertion vehicle MQ Gaming, LLC.
Things Go Better with AI, says DJ: As reported a few days ago by Bloomberg Law and Law360, the ersatz AI-inventor DABUS (and his human advocate and creator Stephen Thaler) has filed a facial challenge to USPTO Director Andrei Iancu’s authority to deny a patent application (technically, two) filed with DABUS as the named inventor. Thaler accuses the USPTO of creating a new patentability requirement, filing the facial challenge in the Eastern District of Virginia, and setting up an interesting existential debate that I hope is more fun to watch than Stephen Spielberg’s similarly named film.
Some of the more interesting aspects of the AI-owner-inventor debate center around who, if such filings are ever allowed to proceed, owns the fruits of an AI’s inventions. It’s all more of an intellectual than financial/substantive debate at this point—the applications in question are to a fractal-designed cup and a blinking light beacon—with the complaint going so far as to cite and quote John Stuart Mill, Alan Turing, and a laundry list of invention-related Supreme Court opinions. But a fun one, nonetheless.
All the Building Blocks: MQ Gaming, LLC, an assertion vehicle run by Jonathan Barney (who went to Michigan—Go Blue!), formerly of patent broker Ocean Tomo, startup PatentRatings, LLC, and a partner at Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP, and associated with another, Creative Kingdoms Technologies LLC, brought suit against Warner Brothers and Legos on patents related to RFID-enabled toys used as part of their lucrative Lego Dimensions® series (and Lego Batman®-branded Dimensions products), themselves largely based on the wildly popular Skylanders® series of real-world toys that interact with video games via RFID switches. Lego® and Warner Brothers® have now filed six IPRs on the asserted patents. While the concept and implementing technology does seem simple, the portfolio benefits from a relatively early filing date (2002) and evidence of commercial success and industry praise. A good portion of the petitions is devoted to concerns over a 2021 trial date and the potential it may be moved due to COVID. Conversely, a good portion of the complaint was devoted to awards and early praise given the predecessor company Creative Kingdoms (now apparently sold) by tech magazines prior to the commercial success of Skylanders®.
Between Uniloc and a Hard Place: Fortress IP-backed Uniloc 2017 LLC has again benefitted from the indefiniteness of a patent under 35 USC 112—sort of. The Board denied Apple’s petition IPR2020-00397 on Uniloc’s asserted patent U.S. 6,980,522 on 314 discretionary grounds, but they did so, based on the petitioner’s argument that the claims lacked sufficient structure as a computer-implemented means-plus-function claim. The Board refused to bite, suggesting that doing so would be akin to issuing an “advisory opinion” and demurring, which, fair. Certain Board panels have done so in the past, though results have been mixed—some instituting, some saying the claims are indefinite affirmatively, others couching it in a failure of proof—and it’s an ongoing concern with any petitioner challenging computer-implemented means-plus-function claims that arguably lack structure or algorithms. Yours truly co-authored an article on the indefiniteness bind in 2017, the main contribution to the debate being the title, Indefinitely, Maybe. Challenging MPF claims continues to present the Board and petitioners with the Hobson’s choice of alleging indefiniteness and earning denial or arguing definiteness to earn institution but make the patent owner’s definiteness case for them. With district courts being less likely to take up the indefiniteness mantle in dispositive briefing (the Court here is the Eastern District of Texas), it remains to be seen whether the issue will be resolved or the assertion will linger. This particular patent has had claims challenged and instituted in the past (then settled—by Samsung).
PTAB (36) |
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District Court (77) |
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Join the Discussion
5 comments so far.
Anon
August 15, 2020 09:58 amIn retrospect, the ‘genderfication’ (anthropomorphication) should have been avoided, and the proper pronoun would be ‘it.’
Jonathan R Stroud
August 12, 2020 08:01 pmAnd in retrospect I should not have gendered DABUS male. I had an elementary school teacher named Mr. Dabney and I think I associate Dabus as a male name, but should have thought about it or used they.
Jonathan R Stroud
August 12, 2020 07:59 pmJosh, I agree—there’s nothing wrong with it in the administrative sense, and it conflates administrative rulings with Article III standing requirements. Bart, I agree it’s a super fascinating topic that presents a whole host of novel legal issues (though I am not sure DABUS is the best first mover).
Bart Newland
August 12, 2020 05:18 pmThe AI-as-inventor challenge is fascinating. I believe that there are plenty of situations where, if the AI cannot be named, no one can be named under current inventorship jurisprudence.
Josh Malone
August 12, 2020 01:54 pmWhat is wrong with advisory opinions? It seems that it would solve all of the PTAB problems and would be fair for everyone.