Posts Tagged: "The Patent Box"

Patent Quality Metrics: Finding Reliable Metrics Linked to Patent Value

We need to ask ourselves: what are the defining features of a “filler patent”? At least two things stand out. First, “filler patents” go through more rounds of prosecution than other patents. Secondly, the independent claims of “filler patents” are longer (have higher word counts) than other patents… A “round of prosecution” means an Office action from the USPTO and the applicant’s response. It is typical for “filler patents” to go through multiple rounds of prosecution, such as six or more rounds. At each round of prosecution, the claims are tailored, so that the scope of protection of the resulting patent is whittled down until essentially nothing is left. Then the application is allowed to issue.

USPTO to issue Apple patents for traffic data system, antenna and curing material next week

On October 27th, Apple will be issued a patent for a technology that analyzes a person’s travel plans to provide them with potential points of interest, laid out within U.S. Patent Application No. 20140223448, titled Dynamic Location Search Suggestions Based on Travel Itineraries. The amended first claim of this patent application will protect a method involving detecting itinerary information stored by a first application, identifying a travel destination based on the itinerary information, communicating the travel destination to a second application, storing the travel destination in a second application which is adapted to retrieve local information based on an identified geographic location, detecting the satisfaction of a triggering threshold for providing the local information, providing the local information for the travel destination in response to user interaction with the second application and in response to the threshold for the triggering event being satisfied, communicating the travel destination to a third application that retrieves local information based on an identified geographic location, providing local information of a first type through the second application at a time prior to the time of travel and providing local information of a second type through the third application at a time prior to the time of travel but after the time at which the information of a first type is provided. This innovation enables automatic updating of device application, such as weather or clock apps, in response to the detection that a user has travel plans. The file wrapper shows that this patent application did face a final rejection in March of this year for non-obviousness in light of a technology for data synchronization among widgets and the dashboard in a virtual environment.

The Advantages of Enacting a Patent Box Regime

The exact terms of a patent box will vary depending on what the drafter is trying to promote. For example, the tax preference could require that the profits be derived only from a patent secured in that country or that the patented product be the result of domestic R&D. The Boustany-Neal draft legislation is called the “innovation box” and would impose an effective tax rate of 10% on all innovation box profits by creating a deduction equal to 71% of a corporate taxpayer’s innovation box profit.

Surprisingly Short Patent Claims in Published Applications

But there are no doubt some bizarre patent applications that have published over the years, such as a method of walking through walls like a ghost. See Knowing When You Have Too Much Time on Your Hands. So you never know quite what you will get with a patent application, although the jokesters are typically kept at a minimum given the expense of filing a patent application… The real problem is that the failure to include claims or realistic breadth means that there will be no meaningful examination provided by the examiner in the first of two substantives reviews. If such obviously overbroad claims are the ones that are in the file at the time of first examination it will be virtually impossible to obtain a patent without at least one, perhaps multiple, additional filings and amendments, all of which cost time and money for the inventor/applicant. The old saying “garbage in, garbage out” comes to mind.

Patent Prosecution Nuances: The General Authorization

Of course, as is virtually inescapable at the USPTO, with every general rule there come exceptions. For example, according to 37 CFR 1.311(b), an authorization to charge the issue fee (37 CFR 1.18) to a deposit account may be filed in an individual application only after the mailing of the notice of allowance. 37 CFR 1.25(b) also makes clear that a general authorization made prior to the mailing of a notice of allowance does not apply to issue fees under 37 CFR 1.18. Thus, you must affirmatively do something after receiving a notice of allowance to accept the offer of a patent.