Posts Tagged: "Gene Quinn"

IPWatchdog has been told that Kathi Vidal, who is President Biden’s nominee for Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), will have her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, December 1. As of the time of publication, the Senate Judiciary Committee, to which the Vidal nomination has been referred, lists a confirmation hearing for the full Committee at 10am on December 1, but provides no additional information. It is believed Vidal will share the hearing with several nominees for federal judicial positions.

The question that we receive most frequently from inventors, usually independent inventors, relates to whether a provisional patent application can be refiled with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  Before giving the correct answer, it is critically important for everyone to understand that if a provisional patent application is refiled it may become impossible for a patent to ever be obtained, period.  Can a provisional patent application be refiled? The short, easy answer to the question is yes, of course you can refile the provisional application. The USPTO will be happy to have you refile the application, take your filing fee, and send you a new filing receipt. The problem for you, as an inventor, however, is the consequence of refiling a provisional application. So, while it may be very easy to do, and seem like you’ve just extended the life of your original provisional application, that is precisely NOT what has happened, and you may have – indeed likely have – made it impossible to ever obtain a patent anywhere in the world.

From the “one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing” category, believe it or not, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is effectively refusing to release documents it possesses relating to the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. More precisely, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT), a group of doctors and scientists, submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents relating to the approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. After the FDA denied a request by the PHMPT to expedite release of the documents, a lawsuit was filed. In response to that lawsuit, the FDA proposed to release 500 pages per month, which would allow the agency time to redact material as necessary. Given that there are 329,000 pages responsive to the PHMPT request, at the proposed FDA rate of 500 pages per month it would take 55 years for the FDA to fully release the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine documents.

Last week, IPWatchdog hosted its annual SEP conference, which once again took place in virtual format. I either moderated or directed/produced all the panels, so I stayed busy throughout the week, but still managed to pay attention to what was being said by the panelists. For some panels I participated more, making it a bit more challenging to take notes, so when I say what follows are statements that particularly piqued my interest, I am by no means suggesting there weren’t many more golden nuggets of wisdom imparted to the over 900 registrants over our four-day program.

Now, more than ever, it is imperative to ensure that you are obtaining the highest quality patents in the most efficient manner. The days of using gut instinct to drive patent prosecution decision-making are long gone. To compete in today’s world, you need accurate, reliable data that provides valuable insight to help manage expectations and drive strategy throughout the prosecution…

tandard Setting Organizations (SSOs) exist as a mechanism for industry innovators to work together to collectively identify and select the best and most promising innovations that will become the foundation for the entire industry to build upon for years to come. Those disclosing patented technologies to an SSO during the development of a standard commit to offering a license at a FRAND (which stands for Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) rate to the extent the patent is essential, as explained by Curtis Dodd, Chief IP Counsel for Harfang IP, during the second panel of SEP 2021 yesterday, which focused on FRAND and patent damages. Indeed, the myriad issues surrounding FRAND obligations and the disclosure of innovations to SSOs were the focus of the three panels that took place on day 1 of SEP 2021, hosted by IPWatchdog.

Is patent litigation out of control? Has patent litigation ever been out of control? The answers to these questions largely depend upon your point of view, and as with most complex topics, the truth is nuanced. What is not nuanced are the numbers reported in the annual reports from the  Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which shows that the number of patent cases that reach trial are extremely few. In fact, the number of cases that make it to the final pre-trial conference represents a small subset of the number of cases that are filed. I initially started this research in 1997, while working on my Master’s thesis, which dealt with patent litigation and the use of alternative dispute resolution. The real growth in patent litigation over the last 40 years has taken place before trial. Between 1980 and 2020, the number of patent cases reaching trial ranged between a low of 63 (in the COVID-19 affect FY 2020) but was otherwise at a low o 64 (in FY 2019) and a high of 164 (in FY 2016). All are a remarkably low number of cases that proceed to trial given the number of patent lawsuits commenced.

Perhaps nowhere in the intellectual property world is the old saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure more accurate than with respect to domain names. Attacks against domain names and domain registration accounts can deliver devastating consequences to brand reputation, to customer trust and to the bottom line. With cybersquatting and other online threats on…

Last week, at a meeting of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), World Trade Organization (WTO) members had an opportunity to engage in small group and bilateral meetings to discuss the proposals by South Africa and India to waive patent and trade secret protections relative to COVID-19 innovations, as well as the proposal from the European Union regarding the use of current TRIPS compulsory licensing provisions during a pandemic. Some delegations believed the discussions were encouraging, while others expressed more skepticism, pointing out that a deal will not be achieved “unless delegations are able to make some real compromises.” See Members pursue convergence for IP COVID-19 response.

According to sources on the Hill, Kathi Vidal of Winston & Strawn is now high on the list of potential nominees for a new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO Director). Several sources IPWatchdog has spoken with say the Biden Administration is openly floating her name, and she could be named as President Biden’s nominee for the USPTO post within a matter or weeks, or even days, if there is not substantial pushback.

The much discussed, but previously unreleased, Restoring America Invents Act has finally been made public. The bill was submitted by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in what he described late last week as an attempt to reverse the reforms of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) made by former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu. Leahy promised to take aim at discretionary denials of inter partes review (IPR) and post grant review (PGR) challenges, which he did, among many other things.

Without innovation, nothing of consequence happens, or matters, in any technology sector. And without strong patents, much of that innovation will never happen. The innovation we most want for the benefit of society is paradigm-shifting, disruptive innovation that leaps forward. These forward leaps lead to the formation of new start-up companies and frequently to the birth of entirely new industries,…

While there are any number of reasons to question the continued viability, value and necessity of the Federal Circuit, the court’s continued use of mandamus is extremely troubling. Much of the time, it seems the Federal Circuit is using this extraordinary remedy to control the docket of Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas, ordering him to transfer cases. Reading these decisions is becoming nauseating. The resentment of the Federal Circuit built up toward Judge Albright is palpable, yet at the same time the Federal Circuit ignores first principles and well-established law in an attempt to move patent cases from the forum selected by the patent owner plaintiff to a forum decidedly in favor of the defendants.

Earlier today, U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the Ranking Member and Chair of the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee, introduced a pair of bipartisan bills that the Senators say are aimed at improving the participation Americans from all backgrounds in the patent system and ensuring that the public knows the true owners of patents. If enacted, the Unleashing American Innovators Act (UAIA) would require the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to establish another satellite office within three years somewhere in the Southeastern region of the nation, which the bill specifically defines as Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Of course, given that the main campus of the USPTO is located in Alexandria, Virginia, it would seem unlikely that Virginia would be the final destination of any Southeast Region satellite office. The UAIA would also require the Director to determine within two years whether any additional regional satellite offices are necessary to— in the words of the bill— “achieve the purposes described in section 24 23(b) of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act… and increase participation in the patent system by women, people of color, veterans, individual inventors, or members of any other demographic, geographic, or economic group that the Director may determine to be underrepresented in patent filings.”