If you’ve ever wondered how and why Judge Alan D Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas became America’s go-to judge for patent cases, you don’t want to miss this episode. Before Judge Albright was confirmed in 2018, less than 10 patent cases had been filed in the Waco district in its entire history. In 2020 alone, he took on almost 800 new patent cases, accounting for 20% of all new patent cases filed in the US last year…. This episode covers why Judge Albright loves handling patent cases, his plans for handling a growing docket, and his views on how a judge should handle a patent case and what makes an effective patent litigation counsel.

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What is the explanation behind the Supreme Court’s approach to patent and other IP issues?  I decided to talk to Prof. Stephen Yelderman – who personally knew two of the Supreme Court justices before they even joined the Court and clerked on the Supreme Court – to get some insight.  He also happens to be one of the most insightful – and underrated – scholars studying patent issues whose astute understanding of how the patent system works is rooted in his personal and practical experience.

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At the beginning of this year, IPWatchdog asked a panel of experts who should be the next USPTO Director. Almost every answer cited former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu as a model. Former Deputy USPTO Director Russ Slifer wrote: “Director Iancu worked with Congress and did not shy away from necessary reforms in Section 101 and the PTAB. Will the next Director be as successful? Hopefully, but Director Iancu is a difficult act to follow.” At the beginning of this year, IPWatchdog asked a panel of experts who should be the next USPTO Director. Almost every answer cited former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu as a model.

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How does the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) actually operate? What does it take to win an ex parte appeal? When should you request an oral hearing? What are the chances of the PTAB reversing a Section 101 rejection? How do you become an Administrative Patent Judge? In this latest episode of Clause 8, I speak with former Administrative Patent Judge Joe Lentivech to get answers to these questions. He’s not only an expert in how the PTAB operates, but also a master storyteller.

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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 led the effort to fix the Section 101, patent eligibility mess. A series of Supreme Court decisions over the last decade have caused enormous confusion and uncertainty with regards to patent eligibility.  After the 2018 midterm elections, to the relief of many in the innovation community, Senators Thom Tillis and Chris Coons requested to reinstate the Senate Subcommittee on IP to fix this issue.  

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When I first started practicing in the late aughts, I found that a lot of what I was seeing about patents in various academic papers and studies, on Capitol Hill, and even in Supreme Court decisions, didn’t really reflect the reality of what I was seeing in practice, talking to innovators. In contrast, Professor Adam Mossoff’s compelling work, including articles in various general interest newspapers, stood out.  Not surprisingly, he is largely responsible for providing the intellectual foundation that has helped shift the anti-patent narrative.  So, it was a huge honor to talk to someone who not only helped shape my own thinking about patent and IP policy issues but has really shaped the current debates in Washington, DC about these issues.

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On the latest episode of the Clause 8 podcast, Eli interviews Bruce MacEwen – the founder and president of Adam Smith, Esq. Bruce is recognized as the world’s leading expert on the economics of law firms, has written thousands of articles on the subject, and provides advice to select firms about how to succeed in the changing legal landscape.

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This episode features an interview with Sarah Tsou, who is an investment manager for patent litigation at the world’s leading litigation funder, Bentham IMF (now part of Omni Bridgeway Limited). The playbook is simple for deep-pocketed defendants facing lawsuits from patent owners with limited resources. Even if a patent owner has a very strong case, the defendant can just drag the case out long enough until the patent owner and his lawyers run out of resources to continue. At best, the patent owners are forced to settle lawsuits for a fraction of what they think they are owed. Patent litigation funders have changed this calculus by providing select patent owners with enough resources

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Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, and Charles Goodyear are some of America’s best-known innovators. Instead of just making and selling the final products, they obtained patents and licensed their innovations to manufacturers. American companies like IBM, Qualcomm, and Dolby have followed this great American tradition of focusing on innovation. However, the patent troll narrative has undermined the idea that innovators should be incentivized and rewarded for their efforts. A string of Supreme Court decisions and the passage of the American Invents Act were part of an effort to deal with the so-called “patent troll” problem. Hear more from Brian Pomper of the Innovation Alliance.

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This episode features an interview with trial attorney Frank Jakes – the founder of the Intellectual Property Group at the firm of Johnson Pope in Tampa, FL. There’s a good chance that you have recently seen him questioning Joe Exotic in the Netflix documentary Tiger King. However, even before successfully representing Carole Baskin and Big Cat Rescue, Frank Jakes was already a legendary trial attorney in Tampa who handled lots of cases involving high-profile parties and interesting personalities and won many millions of dollars in verdicts. Many of those cases involved a wide variety of IP rights.

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The latest episode of the Clause 8 podcast features an interview with Josh Malone – the inventor of Bunch O Balloons and America’s foremost advocate for reliable patent rights. Josh came up with the idea for Bunch O Balloons to help his kids fill up 100 water balloons in less than one minute. It eventually became the most popular toy in America. However, before Bunch O Balloons even came to market, another company copied it and started selling its own versions of the product. Luckily – or so he thought at the time – Josh filed a patent application for his Bunch O Balloons invention. He did not know the enormous amount of time, money, and luck it would take to successfully enforce patents that covered his invention. This episode tells the story of what it took, including taking a trip to Bentonville, AR in the middle of the night to try to convince Walmart to stop selling knock offs of his product.

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This episode is the second and final part of our interview with Kevin Jakel, the founder and CEO of Unified Patents. On this episode, we continue the conversation with Kevin about how Unified Patents operates, discuss Unified Patents’ new program for targeting Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), debate whether the patent troll narrative has been overblown, talk about the patent quality problem, and delve into some other patent policy issues related to IPRs and the PTAB. We also find out what Kevin has in common with George Costanza!

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Kevin Jakel is the founder and CEO of Unified Patents. Since the passage of the American Invents Act (AIA), Unified Patents has been focused on using AIA’s new post-grant proceedings to challenge patents at the PTAB that are owned by so-called non-practicing entities or “patent trolls.” This is an amazing story of rare and impressive innovation in the patent field.…

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Gene Quinn is the founder of IPWatchdog.com. It has been the leading online publication focused on intellectual property for almost twenty years. Although they don’t always agree, Federal Circuit judges, Congressional staffers, and K Street follow it closely to stay abreast of latest IP policy-related developments. During the episode, Gene discusses the serendipitous start to IPWatchdog.com, why it has been…

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Gil Hyatt is one of the most significant American innovators in the field of personal computing – the inventor of the microprocessor. And, he has been involved in a David versus Goliath battle with the US Patent and Trademark Office for decades.

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