Posts Tagged: "David Kappos"

Former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos, and former Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, today released a White Paper calling the Biden Administration’s decision to support a waiver of intellectual property protections for COVID-19-related technologies under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) “strategic folly.” The report was produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In the paper, titled “The Shot Heard around the World”, the three officials, two of whom served under the Obama Administration, explained that the United States must indeed ramp up its efforts to improve vaccine diplomacy and to distribute more vaccines globally, but that “[w]aiving IP protections would not lead to the manufacture of a single additional dose of a vaccine.” Instead, they proposed a number of alternative solutions to solve the “real problems.”

During a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s IP Subcommittee today, Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) were the only senators present to question the Pride in Patent Ownership Act’s (PPOA’s) approach to penalizing patent owners who fail to record accurate ownership information within 90 days after the issuance date. The hearing included testimony from four witnesses on the topic of the PPOA introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) in September. Leahy explained in his introduction that the same fundamental principle of disclosure that underpins issuance of a patent should extend to patent ownership information. There is presently no requirement that ownership information be publicly available after a patent issues.

The extreme uncertainty that U.S. patent eligibility “validity goulash” jurisprudence has caused is wreaking havoc on inventors, especially those working on emerging technologies. It is also hindering patent owners’ ability to enforce their property rights, investment and licensing deal-making, and giving China advantages in global competitiveness. And it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Those were takeaways from the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund’s (EFELDF) “The Sorry State of Patentability: ‘Anything Under the Sun Made by Man’ No More” program in Washington, D.C. The September 29 event’s panelists considered patent eligibility from the Chakrabarty decision, which ruled a manmade living microorganism was patent-eligible, to dubious, damaging, judicially-created exceptions in such cases as Bilski, Mayo, Alice, Myriad and American Axle. The participants made painfully clear that the Alice-Mayo Framework doesn’t work and course correction is long overdue.

Day one of IPWatchdog LIVE 2021 in Dallas, Texas, kicked off on Sunday, September 12, with a fireside chat between David Henry of sponsor Gray Reed and Judge Alan Albright of the United States’ most high-profile district patent court; panels on patent monetization and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) post-Arthrex; and IPWatchdog’s first ever Paul Michel Award, which went to David Kappos of Cravath Swaine & Moore.

The second day of IPWatchdog’s PTAB Masters™ 2021: “Winning at the PTAB” featured a keynote interview with former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director David Kappos, who was at the helm of the agency when the America Invents Act (AIA) was passed. As part of the AIA, Kappos was tasked with developing rules to implement the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and related post grant proceedings, and was chiefly focused on adhering to the unprecedented timelines set for those proceedings in the AIA. “The PTO had never been given strict timelines before,” explained Kappos. “I felt the gravity; I thought, ‘if the public is going to respect the PTO and patents, we have to get on top of the timeframes.’ [I told my team] the goal is going to be to implement within the timeframes 100% of the time.”

On day one of IPWatchdog’s SEP2020, keynote speaker David Kappos told IPWatchdog President and CEO Gene Quinn that the IP community should not panic about what a Biden administration might mean for standard essential patents (SEPs), or IP more broadly. “I have reason to believe we could see a positive continuation of what we’ve seen in recent years,” Kappos said. “President-Elect Biden comes from a background where he under[stands] IP. I worked with him on IP issues under the first Obama administration and he demonstrated an appreciation for the balance that involves intellectual property. He comes from a state – Delaware – that means business about IP, with a strong specialty chemicals industry in that state, and a strong patent jurisprudence.” Additionally, Biden would have people like Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), who has been “an extremely strong advocate for strong intellectual property,” around him. “I have a tremendous faith in [Coons] as a force for making sure we continue going in the right direction,” Kappos added.

Later this year (likely in October), the United Kingdom’s highest court will hear arguments on questions arising in two disputes concerning standard essential patents (SEPs). The UK Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals in Unwired Planet International Ltd and another v Huawei Technologies (UK) Co Ltd and another UKSC 2018/0214 and the joined cases Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and another v Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL UKSC 2019/0041 and ZTE Corporation and another v Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL UKSC 2019/0042. The arguments are likely to focus on one question: can a national court impose a global license in SEP cases? The closely watched appeal will be the culmination of years of litigation between the parties. In the Unwired Planet case, Mr. Justice Birss of the High Court heard five trials on the validity and infringement/essentiality of Unwired Planet’s patents. In April 2017, he then gave a mammoth judgment determining what a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) license would be, and setting royalty rates. Critically, he found that only a worldwide license would be FRAND in the circumstances of this case. The England and Wales Court of Appeal upheld this conclusion, in a judgment in October 2018. The Supreme Court will likely sit in a five-judge panel in a hearing that will last about two days and will be live streamed on its website (the date and panel details have not been confirmed yet). It will hand down judgment later this year or early in 2020. (Ironically, patent specialist Lord Kitchin is a member of the Supreme Court but will not be sitting in this case as it is his own judgment that is under appeal.) You might have thought that—after decades of legal debate and academic writing, dozens of judgments addressing questions such as what constitutes a FRAND license and what are reasonable royalties, and extensive discussions between technology companies—the questions around SEPs would be close to being resolved. But that is far from the case. The outcome of the UK Supreme Court hearing, for instance, will have an impact on negotiations between owners of SEP portfolios and implementers worldwide, at a time when standards are set to become critical to many more industries.

Yesterday, 24 law professors, former Chief Judges of the Federal Circuit and former heads of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) sent a letter to Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE) and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Doug Collins (R-GA) aimed at correcting what the letter characterizes as “misapprehensions of law and misleading rhetoric” on the subject of pending patent reform legislation. The letter makes specific reference to statements made by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claiming that the draft legislation to amend Section 101 of the patent law “if enacted would authorize patenting products and laws of nature, abstract ideas, and other general fields of knowledge.” The authors of yesterday’s letter, which included Retired Federal Circuit Chief Judges Randall Rader and Paul Michel and former USPTO Directors Todd Dickinson and David Kappos, called such statements “profoundly mistaken and inaccurate” and laid out in detail the specific inaccuracies. Rather than expanding the scope of 101 to abstract ideas and laws of nature, said the letter, “the proposed amendments preclude ‘implicit or judicially created exceptions to subject matter eligibility,’” and do not eliminate existing constitutional and statutory bars.

On May 9th I attended the International IP Commercialization Council (IIPCC) USA Chapter second annual program at the United States Capitol.  The topic of the event was Meeting the Threat to America’s Economic Future: US IP & Innovation Policy where representatives from IBM, Qualcomm, Personalized Media Communications, the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Michigan, as well as a Who’s Who of IP Leaders and policymakers, shared their real-world perspectives on the state of the US Patent System, and the effects it has and will have on the economy. 

“If companies were to lobby to allow for more polluting most people would think that is unethical,” Lauder explained. But there are people lobbying to make it more difficult for companies to come up with cures that allow for the creation of cures that save lives, which Lauder says he finds “equally unethical.” Lauder hopes that others start to look at the problem in the same way. That would indeed be a big step forward.

As judges, former judges and government officials, legal academics and economists who are experts in antitrust and intellectual property law, we write to express our support for your recent announcement that the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice will adopt an evidence-based approach in applying antitrust law equally to both innovators who develop and implementers who use technological standards in the innovation industries. We disagree with the letter recently submitted to you on January 24, 2018 by other parties who expressed their misgivings with your announcement of your plan to return to this sound antitrust policy.

The Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force convened in order to hear from patent experts on the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in TC Heartland, the IPR process and patent eligibility, and to discuss what Congress can do in terms of additional patent reform in order to improve the U.S. patent system… The Hatch op-ed would seem to be music to the ears of beleaguered patent owners in the life science and computer implemented innovation areas. The problem, however, is with those the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force heard from during this private meeting.

USC’s new course is premised on the notion that IP questions lie at the heart of a great many areas of modern life today — From Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 500 board rooms, from MIT engineering labs to Wall Street trading desks, and from industry trade conferences to the trade policy debates raging in Congress. Indeed, it is difficult to pick up a newspaper, or read any online magazine, without reading news about how intellectual property is impacting daily life and business… The brainchild of USC President C. L. Max Nikias and billionaire medical inventor Dr. Gary Michelson, USC new undergrad course in intellectual property — named The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Intellectual Property — just launched this fall. Taught by Kirkland & Ellis partner Luke Dauchot, with a phalanx of IP luminaries as guest speakers —including Marshall Phelps, former USPTO director David Kappos, Facebook IP chief Allen Lo, Dolby General Counsel Andy Sherman, and Xiaomi chief of IP strategy Paul Lin, among others.

“The results from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board reflect the procedures it applies, and in my judgment the procedures are wildly off base,” Judge Michel explained… “We’ve had PTAB final results… whatever the intentions were we don’t have to speculate… we have ample evidence of how it worked in practice. We know it doesn’t work satisfactorily.” *** “I don’t think things are really getting much better,” Kappos said. “We are in what I refer to as the leaky life raft.” When you are stranded and a leaky life raft comes along it looks great, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is still a leaky life raft. “The best you can say about 101 is that it has stabilized in a terrible space.”