Posts Tagged: "administrative law judge"

An administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission recently found patent infringement in Qualcomm’s case against Apple, but then inexplicably refused to recommend that the commission issue an exclusion order against infringer Apple. Is there some new standard that “established and profitable companies” are no longer deserving of ITC action?  The International Trade Commission is in danger of causing the same harm to patent rights as the U.S. Supreme Court has inflicted on patent owners with the court’s lame-brained eBay decision.

Patents that have withstood scrutiny in Article III federal courts are not bad patents, they are good patents, and they ought not to be struck down by an Article I administrative tribunal. The procedures of the AIA are working in a way to subjugate Article III federal courts to the arbitrary, capricious and egregiously overactive whims of an administrative tribunal in search of work to satisfy the several hundred newly hired “judges.”… Why is the PTAB spending precious resources re-litigating and ultimately killing good patents? The PTAB was created by Congress to review dubious patents and revoke bad patents. So why is the PTAB diverting its attention and re-litigating issues already addressed by federal judges and juries? Is it really likely that claims confirmed valid in federal court are invalid? In any rational world it would be per se unlikely that patent claims previously adjudicated as valid in federal court are invalid.

The USPTO admits that the Director does not have statutory authority to adjudicate an issue after a panel has been chosen, but argues that the Director can assert administrative authority to intentionally select Judges that will rule diametrically opposite to those Judges originally assigned to the case, thereby stacking any panel the Director chooses to achieve the result the Director wants in any case… This admission by the USPTO is both stunning and scandalous for at least two reasons. First, the Administrative Procedure Act, which applies to the PTAB, demands decisional independence, which obviously is not happening when the Director of the USPTO can stack a panel to achieve a particular desired outcome.

On Tuesday, August 8th, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it was opening up an investigation on claims that Cupertino, CA-based consumer electronics behemoth Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is infringing upon patented technologies, specifically baseband processor modems, in its mobile electronic devices. The investigation follows a Section 337 patent infringement complaint filed on July 7th with the ITC by…