Posts Tagged: "IIPCC"

Iancu: USPTO Guidance Gets 101 Right; Time for Courts to Follow Suit

On Monday, the International Intellectual Property Commercialization Council (IIPCC) gathered patent office and Federal Circuit experts, including current USPTO Director Andrei Iancu and former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Randall Rader, at the Capitol Building to discuss “The State of Innovation in the Union.” The panel was moderated armchair style and resulted in some poignant questions and answers from a few of the best-known players in the patent world. I attended the event, and at the end of the panel on which he participated I had the opportunity to ask Iancu what he thought about the current roundtables taking place in Congress and the efforts to reform Section 101. I reminded him that, at this time last year, he was giving speeches and testifying to Congress, saying to anyone who would listen that 101 should be something that we are all talking about and considering from a variety of angle. Then, as a newly minted Director, Iancu would tell Congress that if and when they were interested in engaging on 101 reform he and the Office would be ready to offer any assistance necessary. Congress seems to be working on the precursor to what will soon become legislative language. So, where does the Director stand on the issue today? His response was both correct, and something of a wake-up call. The final takeaway I think was that Iancu’s the only hope we’ve got, at least for the foreseeable future.“In the end, all three branches need to be rowing in the same direction on something like 101,” Iancu said. An obvious if seemingly cautious statement, but he did not stop there.

Photo Diary: Meeting the Threat to America’s Economic Future: US IP & Innovation Policy

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. 

Looking Back on Five Years With IPWatchdog

Somewhere near the end of 2011, I responded to an ad that was left on Craigslist. A website called IPWatchdog.com was looking for a writer to contribute content on Apple’s patenting activities… Over the past five years, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be an inventor in today’s patent system. I’ve learned that, unless you have the deep wallets to create advocacy groups which beat the drums for further patent reforms in service to the efficient infringer lobby, you tend to get railroaded by the system… In short, I’ve learned that the United States of today is not the same country where the famed garage inventor can become a business success thanks to hard work and ingenuity. Today, the true beneficiaries of innovation seem to be those well-entrenched interests who can copy without great fear of reprisal, leaving the actual inventors without any true ability to commercialize and profit from their intellectual property.

How patent troll rhetoric has wrecked the U.S. patent system

The pressure to adhere to the patent troll rhetoric was difficult for people to grasp if they don’t live within Silicon Valley, Causevic noted. He noted a conference which he was invited to speak at which changed its title from “Have We Gone Too Far in Weakening Our Patent System?” to “Where Are We in Eradicating Weak Patents?”, a radical shift in focus. “The pressure is very personal,” Causevic said, citing a paper he had worked on which found that company directors were often pressured against telling shareholders to monetize their patents as it could hurt their chances at employment with an anti-patent tech firm later on. As Taylor would add, this pressure affects the “tens of thousands of little companies started by entrepreneurs” in that region which live under a cultural overhang created by the large Silicon Valley entities.

Former Cisco Executive Giancarlo peels back ‘false narrative’ on patent trolls, patent reform

The true agenda of those who support further reform of the U.S. patent system is as follows: to discriminate against entities which license technologies instead of manufacture; to increase the costs of asserting patent rights to the detriment of individuals and startups; and to stilt the conversations surrounding tech licensing in favor of the infringer bringing a product to market. “If you trip over our patent, you’re a thief. If we trip over your patent, you’re a troll,” Giancarlo said… “Let’s call patent reform for what it is: a blatant economic and power grab by tech firms to infringe on technology created by others,” Giancarlo said. In his opinion, the true trolls are the entities trolling Congress to get a competitive advantage over smaller entities.