Posts Tagged: "patents"

In Part I of the interview we discussed Judge Linn’s early interest in patent law and how he found himself appointed to replace the recently deceased Judge Giles Sutherland Rich. We then discussed engaging as a lawyer with civility while still zealously representing clients. That brought us to a topic near and dear to the Judge’s heart — the Inns of Court and the many patent focused Inns across the country that together make up the Richard Linn Inn Alliance. In Part II of the interview we pick up with the discussion of the Inns of Court and further discuss civility and “Rambo style of lawyering,” which Judge Linn explains was really the genesis behind the forming of the Inns of Court.

Recently, we have seen two examples where the use of patent analytics have had a significant impact on the economic valuation of a collection of patents. The first involved a doubling of the value of RIM’s patent portfolio by a major Canadian bank after it was mentioned as having a stand-out portfolio in a patent study. The second involved the analysis of AOL patent assets where two different sets of analytics provided very different results. In the AOL case, when it came to the eventual purchase by Microsoft, one of the valuations matched almost exactly the price that was paid. Both of these cases demonstrate how important well thought out analytics are to providing signals of value when working with patents.

At inovia we often speak to universities about the challenges that they face when it comes to international patenting filing. Many of our university clients face budget and cost pressures and will often abandon technologies when there’s no licensee in place, even though they may have already spent thousands of dollars drafting the application and filing the PCT.

At the recent Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) annual meeting, inovia’s founder Justin Simpson moderated a panel on the topic of “Controlling Patent Costs while Protecting More Technologies,” and was joined by three university experts to address some of these challenges.

Logically, if the application does not describe an invention in terms that allows one skilled in the art to make and use it, then the Patent Office should not have sufficient information to suggest that the application is not novel or obvious. In order to determine something is not novel or obvious you first have to know what it is. I have no objection to the Patent Office putting a 35 U.S.C. § 112 (a) and novelty/obviousness rejection in the same Office Action, where the PTO explains that to the best of their understanding of the invention it would not be novel or obvious for the following reasons.

Those in the industry know that Judge Linn is one of a small group of Judges who are patent attorneys. He is one of us in so many ways. He is a very real and genuine person, he is a great believer in the patent system, and he has long been a friend to patent groups and a mentor to many. Judge Linn started his a career as so many patent professionals have — as the newest patent examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We spent approximately 60 minutes on the record with my iPhone recorder on, meeting in his chambers at the Federal Circuit, which overlooking Lafayette Park. Judge Linn recently took senior status, and lives full-time in Florida. He returns approximately every other month, sometimes more frequent, to hear cases. He will soon be giving up this office once the President’s appointments to the Court are confirmed.

Did you know that there is clothing available to assist jails, mental hospitals and others with the prevention of suicide? Special protective wear has been issued to inmates and patients with suicidal tendencies for years. As a matter of fact, you can go online and see a variety of items that are available for facilities that might need them — much of which is made out of a very uncomfortable, yet strong nylon shell that is held together with nylon thread. However, that type of material can be quite rough on the skin and quite irritating to the wearer in the long run.

On February 19, 24 members of the 27 European Union signed a unified patent court agreement in Brussels, Belgium. Bulgaria is expected to sign once it completes internal administrative procedures, but because the single patent will only need to be in English, German or French, only the countries of Poland and Spain have so far refused to join in the effort.

Those that do the complaining erroneously state that they speak on behalf of the entire industry. But I know they don’t speak for IBM, or Qualcomm or Tessera or the many other innovative companies that exist in the high-tech sector. They certainly don’t speak for the pharmaceutical industry that absolutely needs strong patents to survive, and they don’t talk for the biotechnology industry where start-ups and even large companies largely have little in the way of asset value outside their patent portfolios. And they absolutely don’t speak for the independent inventor who needs a patent system to protect their innovations from being ripped off by… well by those same Silicon Valley elite who so hate the patent system.

While it is easy to point to patents and blame the industry and international trade agreements for barriers to access to medicines in developing nations, the reality of the situation is more nuanced and not nearly so straightforward.  In the debate over barriers to access, the focus must be broadened to include other important factors such as poverty, taxes and tariffs, corruption and pharmaceutical counterfeiting.  Each of these elements inhibits access to medicines, through financial challenges, higher prices, shortages, and spurious products.  For the most vulnerable populations it is essential to address all of the key barriers to access, and improve procurement and monitoring systems.  Without a wider focus and a solution to these problems, it is unlikely that efforts to improve access will succeed.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the AutoHarvest Foundation today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to spur innovation and generate jobs in advanced manufacturing. The two organizations will collaborate on the creation of an online environment for innovators to exchange information, facilitate technical discussions, and encourage the growth of entrepreneurial activities. The USPTO opened its first-ever satellite office in Detroit in July 2012, and the MOU is part of the agency’s outreach into the community.

In January 2013, Taiwan’s InnoLux Corp. filed an appeal with the Federal Circuit, requesting the Court to overturn an award of enhanced post-judgment (“ongoing”) royalties that appeared to be enhanced, at least in part, because the trial judge took offense at an out-of-court remark made by the defendant’s CEO, after losing at trial. Following the verdict, the defendant’s CEO was quoted in a Taiwan newspaper as having said, “The issue of patent infringement is being taken too seriously sometimes.”

The last day of February was a big one for Apple at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, as the USPTO published 35 patent applications filed by the electronics manufacturer on Thursday. Apple has been preoccupied with the world of handheld electronic devices for a long time now, and they’re still devising improvements to battery systems and other utility features. This week, we also see some of Apple’s planned improvements to one of the most basic forms of computer software: the spreadsheet program.

The Supreme Court tried to simplify the issue by concentrating on whether the state-law claim raised a substantial and disputed federal issue, which a federal forum would be able to entertain without disturbing the approved balance between federal and state jurisdictional responsibilities. The Supreme Court went on to note that “federal jurisdiction over a state law claim will lie if a federal issue is: (1) necessarily raised, (2) actually disputed, (3) substantial and (4) capable of resolution in federal court without disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress. Where all four of these requirement are met, we held, jurisdiction is proper because there is a ‘serious federal interest in claiming the advantages thought to be inherent in a federal forum.”