Posts Tagged: "patent filings"

On March 16, the European Patent Office (EPO) released the Patent Index 2020, which gives the public a snapshot view of the filing activities going on at the EU’s patent granting agency during the past year. Total patent application filings declined only slightly during 2020 to just over 180,000 patent applications, a reduction of 0.7% compared to the EPO’s 2019 patent filing totals. Despite a 4.1% decrease in patent application filings at the EPO, the United States still held the top spot among individual countries with 44,293 EPO patent filings. Patent application filing totals also dropped in Germany (down 3% to 25,954 filings) and Japan (down 1.1% to 21,841). The United States, Germany and Japan were ranked first, second and third, respectively, in the EPO Patent Index 2020.

Novel and non-obvious can be easily used to describe the events of 2020, both here in the United States and around the world. Despite all the challenges, there have been positive developments in the way we conduct business—and that certainly was true at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Below we recap some of the most significant developments at the USPTO in 2020 and topics to keep an eye on in 2021.

The Western District of Texas continues to explode in popularity with non-practicing entities (NPEs); an operating company is the most prolific filer of patent disputes in district court for the first time; and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings are up by 16%, found Unified Patents’ Q3 2020 Patent Dispute Report. Despite the pandemic, both district court and PTAB filings are up, with combined patent disputes on track to increase by 12.7% over 2019, said the report. It added: “The third quarter saw a 13.7% decrease in litigation from last quarter, but assuming this stays the same, 2020 litigation is set to reach its highest level since 2017, largely driven by an increase in NPE litigation.”

Hirshfeld explained to me that he is well aware of all of the portfolio reasons why continuations are very important, but the Office does really want to minimize RCEs, which makes all the sense in the world. An RCE is not a new application, is essentially just payment for additional consideration by an examiner. RCEs, while sometimes necessary can and do become inefficient and attempts to streamline the prosecution process have long tried to make them unnecessary in whole or in part to the extent possible.

Bitcoin was touted as the world’s first decentralized digital currency. It basically is a cryptocurrency which uses peer-to-peer technology to provide payment network gateway. Bitcoin is deliberately designed for public use by making it an open-source. Therefore, nobody owns or governs or control Bitcoin and everyone can be a part of it. Bitcoin financial infrastructure follows decentralized and automated systems which overcome the inefficiency of the traditional financial system. The unique feature of Bitcoin is that no one can block you from transferring money from anywhere in this world. Further, this makes whole transaction process irreversible. These transactions are recorded in a public distribution ledger called a blockchain.

For as long as I can remember, in order for a nonprovisional utility patent application to be awarded the all important filing date you had to file a specification that adequately described the invention, at least one patent claim and at least one drawing if a drawing would facilitate in the understanding of the invention. Spec, claim, drawing was beaten…

The popular story goes that Alexander Graham Bell and the second man to file USPTO paperwork related to invention of the telephone, Elisha Gray, did so on the same day, Feb. 14, 1876, when time of day of receipt was not recorded. The exact order in which their paperwork was received that day by the chief patent examiner and how remains in dispute even now, according to the prologue of The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876. Over time, historians seem to have sided with Bell, and Gray has more or less faded into a footnote of history.

BlueIron’s non-dilutive financing for startups pays all of the patent costs, including filing fees and attorney’s fees, using a conventional commercial “lease-back” arrangement. This model has been gaining traction since its first release in the fall of 2014. After financing professional poker player Phil Gordon’s patent for his new software startup, Chatbox, BlueIron has made investments in startup companies in software, hardware, biotechnology, medical devices, financial services, and agriculture.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced earlier today that the overall number of European patent applications filed at the EPO rose in 2015 to 160,000. This represents an increase of 4.8% compared with 2014, when the EPO saw a record high 153,000 patent applications filed… Many within the U.S. patent industry are openly talking about protection being better, fairer and more attainable in Europe, and Europe is rapidly becoming a preferred venue for litigating patent disputes. With the unitary patent and European Patent Court on the horizon, the continued self-inflicted wounds being leveled against the patent system in America makes it all but certain that the EPO will continue to experience ever more filings moving forward.