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Kip Werking

has been practicing intellectual property law for over a decade and is registered as a patent attorney before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Kip previously worked with multiple patent law boutiques where he assisted dozens of technology companies in preparing and prosecuting patent applications. He has extensive experience working with the following technology areas: displays, projectors, xerography, electric vehicles and batteries, digital cameras and optics, games and artificial intelligence, cellular networks, and software security systems.

Recent Articles by Kip Werking

Director Iancu Could Address Section 101 Problems Through Regulations Governing Post Grant Review Trials

Since U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu took office, I have observed, with admiration, how he has taken bold action to improve perceived problems in the patent system. The Director’s bold action has also caught the attention of members of the Supreme Court. Justice Gorsuch, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, observed, “[n]or has the Director proven bashful about asserting these statutory powers to secure the [policy judgments] he seeks.”
Oil States Energy v. Greene’s Energy Group, 138 S.Ct. 1365, 1381 (2018) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting).

I wonder, however, whether the law now permits Director Iancu to do something even bolder: create rules interpreting Section 101, at least within the limited context of the America Invents Act’s (AIA’s) post-grant review trials, such that courts may defer to the Director’s interpretation under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).

Alice’s Tourniquet: A Solution to the Crisis in Patentable Subject Matter Law

The Supreme Court’s own precedents provide overwhelming authority for interpreting § 101 broadly and, conversely, interpreting its judicial exceptions to § 101 narrowly. These precedents provide ample support for the Cluster Argument: (1) observing that the term “abstract idea” constitutes a legal term of art that, according to stare decisis, properly refers to looped mathematical algorithms and old and fundamental business practices and (2) declining to expand the set of “abstract ideas” beyond these two clusters without a signal from Congress.