Posts Tagged: "house subcommittee on ip"

Given that Lee testified that Mapbox has been a party to multiple patent lawsuits and only a single lawsuit can be located, coupled with Lee’s testimony that Mapbox has used the patent system as an applicant and no patents or applications can be found, Congress should question whether or not false testimony has been given in this case. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation, but based on publicly available information serious questions exist regarding the veracity of his testimony.

“I think at the end of the day, patents are either valid or invalid as a legal instrument and therefore it’s not very helpful to talk about quality or ‘good’ or ‘bad,” Judge Michel said. “They’re either valid or not valid and with respect to someone practicing the technology, the patent is either infringed as properly construed or it is not infringed.”

Why does Mapbox’s viewpoint on patent litigation echo in the halls of Congress given the fact that it doesn’t appear that it has faced abusive patent litigation? In fact, it almost looks like there is no merit to Lee’s statement that “Mapbox has had multiple experiences with patent trolls: non-practicing entities who file meritless lawsuits that are cheaper to settle than to defend.” Mapbox certainly hasn’t had multiple experiences with lawsuits… The one patent case Mapbox has faced as a defendant was filed last December by Shipping & Transit LLC, a company which itself has been very litigious against alleged patent infringement having been listed as a plaintiff in 172 patent suits. The one Shipping & Transit suit filed against Mapbox terminated in 92 days and has a total of nine docket items and the original complaint is all of six pages long.

Issa decried Judge Gilstrap’s “overreach” in denying a motion to transfer venue in a case coming after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, a decision which restricted the venue statute for patent infringement cases. “It is, in fact, an act that I find reprehensible by that judge,” Issa said… American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) noted that Issa’s further assertion that Judge Gilstrap was motivated by personal bias to promote community interests “extended beyond a challenge of the legal precedent to a personal attack on Judge Gilstrap and his integrity as a jurist.”

“Wrongdoing should be punished more severely so that IP infringers will pay a heavy price,” Xi said. At a time when President Xi is actively moving China’s IP policy to a place where infringers are met with harsher penalties, U.S. leadership in Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, seems to be opening their arms yet again to the efficient infringer lobby. Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House IP subcommittee, support legislation and poor narratives that continue attempts to further gut the U.S. patent system, allowing infringers a free holiday and the ability to infringe without consequence or penalty.

House IP subcommittee chair Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) led off the hearing by discussing the large number of interests who are often on Capitol Hill to discuss their issues with “patent trolls,” including the “genius ones” which have only been developed in recent years. Despite the intent of the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 to weed bad patents out of the system, “patent trolls” remain active. Issa felt there were a few reasons for this, including the fact that such entities make money and that good patents could still be used to assert unreasonable claims. “Why innovate when it’s far easier and more profitable to simply purchase a patent, acquire one, acquire the rights to a patent, perhaps one that has never been licensed, bully businesses into writing a check, go away without ever seriously litigating,” Issa said. He said that 80 percent of “patent troll” litigation focuses on small business. “Simply put, we should not confuse ‘Making America Great Again’ with ‘Making American Patent Trolls Richer Again,’” Issa said. Although Issa was pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision on patent venue in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, he recoiled at what he felt was an “overreach” by Judge Rodney Gilstrap from the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.); Issa felt that Gilstrap misinterpreted the Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland by denying a motion to transfer venue from E.D. Tex. in Raytheon v. Cray. “It is, in fact, an act that I find reprehensible by that judge,” Issa said.

Only $128,000 collected from a combined 13 cases? That is less than $10,000 per case, which doesn’t even approach the nuisance value the truly bad actors, the true patent trolls that Issa himself and so many others rail against as extortion artists seek to collect. Indeed, the FTC report on Patent Assertion Entities from October 2016 suggested that settlements of less than $300,000 suggested malicious and malevolent behavior that should raise suspicions of patent trolling. If that is true, what does this say about the ongoing enforcement campaign of Issa’s own patents? It would certainly seem that there are all the indicia of patent trolling that Issa so frequently enjoys pontificating about when he witnesses the behavior displayed by others.

Why is Steven Anderson citing his case as a reason why Congress must create stricter venue rules when he hasn’t even filed a motion to transfer venue? Anderson being trotted out as the poster child for venue reform is curious given he does business in EDTX and is seldom sued. Is this some charade? …. The company has only filed a motion to dismiss based on invalidity of the asserted claims under 35 U.S.C. Section 101. In fact, Culver filed an answer with affirmative defenses three weeks after the Supreme Court decided TC Heartland which notes that “Culver’s does not contest whether personal jurisdiction over it properly lies in this District in this case… Culver’s admits that venue may be proper, but denies that venue is convenient in this District as to Culver’s. Culver’s admits that it conducts business in this District.”

The day’s hearing focused on the patent troll narrative despite the lack of a substantive connection between that narrative and the TC Heartland case… Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House IP subcommittee, started his remarks by asking to what degree the Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland fixed a decade-old problem. Noting that new lawsuits have hit consumer electronics giant Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.), Issa went on to say that “patent trolls, in my opinion, are the scourge of the patent world. We have time and time again attempted to stop patent trolls while in fact being objected to by genuine innovators who feel that they will be trampled in our effort to stop the worst of the worst.” Issa also opined that the TC Heartland decision now likely makes businesses of all kinds avoid the jurisdiction of E.D. Tex. “Why set up shop in Eastern Texas if it creates venue for patent infringement,” he said.

The subcommittee convened a hearing to discuss issues of judicial transparency and ethics which affect the system of U.S. federal courts. Republican members of the subcommittee mainly focused on ways of making the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system and a wide array of court proceedings more available to the public… Perhaps the most contentious was Osterreicher’s support for increased electronic communications, especially where it involved cameras in the courtroom… Aside from privacy, some Members were concerned that introducing cameras into the courtroom would encourage grandstanding and playing to the camera.

The House Judiciary Committee will set the agenda for any intellectual property legislative reforms that will arise over the next two years during the 115th Congress, and the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet will take the lead for the full House Judiciary Committee. Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is once again Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and in that role will continue to have tremendous influence on any intellectual property related matters… At the start of the 114th Congress, Congressman Darrell Issa was made Chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. Despite being an inventor himself, the bombastic Issa has aligned himself with Google and other Silicon Valley elites. Issa is not viewed as a friend of independent inventors, and instead lambasts patents trolls as often as he can. While no one likes a patent troll, Issa has taken the unusual step to equate patent trolls with all patent owners who enforce their patents.

The Subcommittee is Chaired by Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who has been an outspoken advocate for the need for more patent reform in order to provide relief from those he believes are abusing the patent litigation system — those sometimes called patent trolls. Indeed, from the start of the Thursday’s hearing, the debate regarding patent infringement at the ITC was couched in the language of the patent troll debate. For example, during his opening statement Congressman Issa rather imperiously stated: “for purposes of my opening statement ‘plaintiff’ and ‘troll’ will be interchangeable.” Issa, himself a patent owner, was forced to litigate against companies that pirated technology covered by his patents. As a patent owner forced to sue at numerous infringers, it would seem that Congressman Issa believes that patent owner and inventor Issa was a patent troll.

On Monday, May 11, 2015, IPWatchdog will a co-sponsor a roundtable discussion on patent reform. This event will take place at the law offices of McDermott Will & Emery, which is located directly across the street from the U.S. Capitol. Bernie Knight, a partner with McDermott and a former General Counsel to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, will co-moderate the event along with me. We hope you can join us for this discussion.

According to Congressman Collins, who I spoke with via telephone on Friday, March 6, 2015, there was a great deal of treatment of the SEA at the subcommittee level during the 113th Congress, but now during the 114th Congress consideration will move to the full Committee level, which suggests a seriousness about getting something done. ”Music licensing will be an area where something bubbles up this Congress,” Collins explained. ”I’m hoping the industry will come together.”