Posts Tagged: "amicus briefs"

On March 8, Foster Pepper filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court, case number 18-1199, challenging the Federal Circuit’s emerging “physical realm” test as part of its Alice/Section 101 analysis. Amicus briefs in support of our cert petition are most welcome to assist the Court’s understanding of why it is important to grant cert and clarify the correct patent eligibility test for computer-implemented inventions. We are also seeking amicus brief writers for the many amici we have already secured. These efforts will help clear up the uncertainty innovators and patent holders face in cutting-edge fields of our modern economy and, as a result, help drive innovation forward. 

Mozilla, Mapbox, Medium, Patreon, Etsy, and Wikimedia have filed an amicus brief in support of Google in its case against Oracle at the U.S Supreme Court. The platforms disagree with the Federal Circuit’s March 27, 2018, ruling that Google’s use of Oracle’s Java application programming interface (API packages) was not fair as a matter of law, reversing the district court’s decision on the matter. The brief is the latest of 14 that have been filed in the last week in support of granting the petition.

After reviewing the way the term “person” is used throughout the statute it is clear that in some provisions of the Patent Act, the term necessarily should be interpreted to include the government (e.g., 35 U.S.C. § 296(a), expressly including government in the definition of “person”), while in other provisions the term “person” should be interpreted to exclude the government (see, e.g., 35 U.S.C. §§ 3(a) and 6(a), which clearly exclude the governmental entities like the USPS, but would include individuals in the government’s employ). Accordingly, reliance on universal definitions from the Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 8, governing the U.S. Code in general, and likewise on other general definitions of “persons” from relevant case law (e.g., Cooper), may well cause inadvertent problems with respect to the Patent Act. Rather, as set forth below, the answer to the question posed by this case should depend on the legislative context relating to creation of various post-issuance patent challenge proceedings and the PTO’s longstanding interpretation of “person” to include the governmental entities for purposes of ex parte  and inter partes reexaminations.

In its petition for writ, SSL Services argued that the PTAB’s decision to institute the IPR incorrectly denied the application of 35 U.S.C. § 325(d), the statute governing multiple proceedings at the USPTO; giving the USPTO Director authority to reject a proceeding based on substantially similar prior art or arguments already presented to the agency in a validity review. While the PTAB laid out a multi-factor test for applying the multiple proceedings rule in a 2017 precedential decision in General Plastic v. Canon, SSL Services argued that this test is legally incorrect because the factors in that test do not find support in the statute. Further, the PTAB has applied Section 325(d) to bar the institution of IPRs in far less meritorious cases, including multiple cases where the asserted prior art had only been cited in the original prosecution of the patent and not a validity challenge after the patent had issued. This has resulted in a standard for applying Section 325(d) which is unworkable, SSL Services argued.

Inventor advocacy group US Inventor recently filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the nation’s highest court to grant a petition for writ of certiorari in Capella Photonics v. Cisco Systems. This case, if taken up on appeal, will require the Supreme Court to answer whether the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit operates in violation of 35 U.S.C. § 144, the statute governing how the Federal Circuit must respond to appeals of decisions from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In other words, can the Federal Circuit use Rule 36 to issue an affirmance without opinion of decisions appealed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

JTEKT Corp. v. GKN Automotive Ltd., No. 2017-1828 (Fed. Cir. 2018) raises the important question of whether the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can refuse to hear an appeal by a non-defendant petitioner from an adverse final written decision in an inter partes review (“IPR”) proceeding, on the basis of a lack of a patent-inflicted injury-in-fact, when Congress has statutorily created the right for “dissatisfied” parties to appeal to the Federal Circuit.

A conflict exists between the incentive to invent and the breadth of patent-eligible subject matter. It has become difficult to recognize the line between patentable subject matter and non-patentable products of nature. The Supreme Court has made conflicting statements regarding that line in its rulings in Funk Bros. and Myriad Genetics. It is time for the Supreme Court to resolve the inconsistencies in their rulings on 35 U.S.C. § 101… This case is an ideal vehicle for providing the clarification the patent and investment community require.  At issue is how to determine whether something is a product of nature under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

On August 1st, the non-profit inventor advocacy group US Inventor filed an amicus brief with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit asking the court to grant a petition for en banc rehearing in American Vehicular Sciences LLC v. Unified Patents Inc. The case, which stems from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), involves issues regarding obviousness which US Inventor argues that the Federal Circuit should resolve through the en banc rehearing of this case… This uncertainty in determining the validity of an invention disincentivizes small inventors from taking risks and experimenting to create an invention at a time when the United States is facing an innovation crisis. US Inventor notes that China has been outpacing the U.S. in terms of startup funding for artificial intelligence developers and that patent applications filed in China has been outpacing U.S. patent applications at a rate of about 2-to-1.

The proposed rule would adopt the narrower standard articulated by the Federal Circuit in Phillips v. AWH Corp., where the “words of a claim are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning,” which is “the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the art in question at the time of the invention.” 415 F.3d 1303, 1312-13 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Additionally, under the proposed approach, the Patent Office would construe patent claims and proposed claims based on the record of AIA proceeding, and take into account the claim language, specification, and prosecution history. In response to the Patent Office’s notice of proposed rulemaking, the New York Intellectual Property Law Association (NYIPLA) recently submitted comments endorsing the Patent Office’s proposed changes.

On Friday, July 20, 2018, the New York Intellectual Property Association (“NYIPLA”) filed an amicus brief arguing that the Petition for Writ of Certiorari should be granted in RPX Corp. v. ChanBond LLC, No. 17-1686. See the NYIPLA’s website for the full Brief of New York Intellectual Property  Law Association as Amicus Curiae in Support of Neither Party, RPX Corp. v. ChanBond LLC, No. 17-1686 (July 20, 2018). This case raises the important question of whether the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) can refuse to hear an appeal by a petitioner from an adverse final written decision in an inter partes review (“IPR”) proceeding, on the basis of a lack of a patent-inflicted injury-in-fact, when Congress has statutorily created the right for dissatisfied parties to appeal to the Federal Circuit.

In this regard, a PTAB proceeding is not a suit in court, but instead an administrative proceeding in which the Patent Office (through the PTAB) takes “a second look at an earlier administrative grant of a patent.” Cuozzo, 136 S. Ct. at 2144 (2016); see also Oil States, slip op. at 7 (“[T]he decision to grant a patent is a matter involving public rights—specifically, the grant of a public franchise. Inter partes review is simply a reconsideration of that grant, and Congress has permissibly reserved the PTO’s authority to conduct that reconsideration.”). Like other administrative actions in which States and Federal Agencies (e.g., the Federal Power Commission) may regulate rights or responsibilities of Tribes with respect to off-reservation activities, a PTAB proceeding is one of the “other mechanisms” available to the USPTO to resolve questions of patent validity as the administrative authority granting the patent in the first instance. Cf. Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Cmty., 134 S. Ct. 2024, 2028 (2014).Even if the Tribe cannot be compelled to participate in this proceeding, the PTAB retains authority to adjudicate the validity of patents under review. Indeed, there is no requirement under the AIA that a patent owner participate in a proceeding in order for it to proceed.

On May 9, 2018, Network-1 Technologies, Inc. filed a combined petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, requesting reconsideration of the panel’s Claim Construction Ruling in Context of Database Search Algorithms in a consolidated appeal from inter partes review decisions relating to four of Network-1’s patents. 

Paying due homage to the TV series, The Twilight Zone, you have now entered the strange world of “shadow advocacy,” aka the amicus process. Indeed amicus advocacy has taken on increasing importance in recent years in the IP law world generally, and in the patent law world specifically, as witnessed, for example, by the Mayo, Myriad, and Alice cases which reached as high as the U.S. Supreme Court (aka, SCOTUS), as well as Sequenom’s failed petition for certiorari which garnered almost two dozen separate amicus briefs in support, including two from organizations outside the U.S. Shadow Advocacy: A Look Inside the Amicus ProcessBecause the stakes in this “shadow advocacy” world have never been higher, the amicus process has recently and unfortunately been turned sometimes into a “propaganda campaign” where briefs express not just viewpoints, but also try to influence the decision-makers, be they federal appellate judges or Supreme Court Justices, as to what those “facts” are.

Apple raised concerns of due process implications of ex parte communications and their impact on its trial. Apple’s motion demonstrates that PTAB does not publish ex parte communications into the administrative record as required by the APA, which is the exact issue Saint Regis requested discovery on and was denied… The PTAB’s decision to largely prevent the Saint Regis tribe from filing any additional papers in the case to which they are a party seems remarkable given the fact that the PTAB has opened up the proceedings of the Saint Regis trials to allow amicus briefings from third parties with an interest in the case. So, it would seem that the PTAB seems more interested in giving the agency’s supporters a say in these cases than the actual patent owner whose property rights are on the line, hardly the result one would anticipate if the PTAB were a court operating with any true sense of justice.

The Oil States v. Greene’s Energy Group case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 27, 2017, has generated much ink, analysis and opinion. Rightly so, given the profound consequences for the security of exclusive private property rights of limited duration in patents. Among the worthy and constructive reflections, conservative experts and leaders have contributed a fair share… Heritage Foundation legal scholar Alden Abbott, whose background includes service at the Federal Trade Commission and as a senior corporate IP counsel, has summed up the shortcomings of PTAB “patent death squads.” Abbott suggests how the Supreme Court should rule in Oil States: “The best option to fix the Patent Trial and Appeals Board is to get rid of it. There is a powerful legal case that board review violates the U.S. Constitution, and therefore is invalid.”