Posts Tagged: "patents"

A New and Improved and Expanded Patent Bar: It’s About Time

Gene Quinn and I have collectively been teaching patent bar prep for almost 60 years! In that time, we’ve had contact with many career-bound patent people. All had, without exception, a background in the sciences or engineering, or both. The list of qualifications has, over the years, been expanded as technology has expanded. In years gone by, degrees in Biology and Computer Science would not have qualified you to sit for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Registration Exam, but now they do, along with many other intersectional STEM qualifications, including, for the first time, advanced degrees in these disciplines. Good, I say. The more the merrier.

Public-Use Bar: What Startups Need to Know

Startups often face many competing pressures. Two such pressures that are frequently at odds with each other are the need to adequately protect the intellectual property that will be the basis for future revenue and investment, and the need to bring such revenue and investment into the business to allow for continued technology development and commercialization. Many startups are aware of how the on-sale bar interacts with these pressures and the associated need to file patent applications on any technology prior to offering or placing it on sale. However, fewer startups are aware of the public-use bar and how activities pursued with the goal of growing their businesses may unwittingly invoke it.

Patent Filings Roundup: Existing NPE Campaigns Dominate an Average Week; IP Edge Back from the Brink; GLS Capital Subsidiary Expands Campaign

It was a slow week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with just 18 new petitions—all inter partes reviews (IPRs); in district court, a slightly below average 54 new patent filings and 48 terminations rounded out the count. District courts saw continued filings in several large campaigns. Unwired Global Systems LLC (associated with high volume plaintiff, Jeffrey Gross) adds another seven defendants to its campaign, asserting a single patent related to home area network middleware interfaces and inventor-controlled Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC filed suit against six defendants asserting patents related to, not surprisingly, digital imaging, bringing the total number of defendants to seven.

Is the Food and Drug Administration Killing Chevron Deference?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday added another case to its docket that challenges the Chevron Doctrine, a decades-old principle instructing lower courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws. The Court said it will hear Relentless, Inc. v. Dept. of Commerce in tandem with an almost identical appeal brought by Rhode Island herring fishers. Mark your bingo card if you had “Rhode Island herring fishers.”

How the U.S. Chamber’s IP Principles Can Reset the IP Debate: A Conversation with Patrick Kilbride

Last month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) announced that it had joined with 30 other signatories to publish a framework of intellectual property principles designed to reshape the narrative around intellectual property (IP) rights and maintain America’s global lead in innovation. Broadly speaking, the principles focus on five primary goals to be achieved by American lawmakers and policymakers: 1) national security, 2) technological leadership, 3) fostering creative expression, 4) enforcing the rule of law, and 5) ensuring full access to the innovation ecosystem for all.