Other Barks & Bites for Friday, June 12: Republican Lawmakers Urge USITC to Block TSMC Chips; Bipartisan Bill Targets Digital Platform Abuses; and Most EU Consumers Would Pay More for Better Design

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This week in Other Barks & Bites: Senators Chuck Grassley and Amy Klobuchar introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act into Congress; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office waived the petition fee for the Streamlined Claim Set pilot program; the Council for Innovation Promotion publishes a study on the impacts of intellectual property rights in cultivating technology ecosystems; the EUIPO updates staff guidelines on responsible generative AI use to protect private information; Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman along with other patent law experts call on industry stakeholders to unite on promoting stability in U.S. patent law; a group of Republican lawmakers in U.S. Congress call upon the U.S. International Trade Commission to block infringing chips being imported into the U.S. for sale by TSMC; and the European Union Intellectual Property Office publishes the results of a survey showing that nearly three-quarters of EU consumers would pay more for better design.

Bites 

Senators Grassley, Klobuchar Introduce American Innovation and Choice Online Act – On Thursday, June 11, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), a bill designed to give authority to federal agencies and state attorneys general to target exclusionary conduct amounting to abuse of market power by large digital platforms. If enacted as drafted, the AICOA would prohibit platforms having at least $175 billion in annual revenue and reaching at least one-third of American adults from unfairly favoring their own products and services, blocking businesses from moving data between digital platforms, and misusing non-public business data to compete against small businesses.

Republican Lawmakers Urge USITC to Block Infringing TSMC Chip Imports – On Thursday, June 11, news reports indicated that U.S. Representatives Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and U.S. Senators Tim Sheehy (R-MT), Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Bernie Moreno (R-OH) sent a letter to U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) Chair Amy Karpel urging the agency to block computer chips manufactured by TSMC that have been found to infringe patent claims owned by Longitude Licensing and Marlin Semiconductor. Those companies asserted patents originally owned by TSMC rival United Microelectronics Corporation and cover non-x86 semiconductor devices 7 nanometers (nm) in size and smaller and downstream products, with an initial ruling on infringement expected to be published by the USITC this month.

Nearly Three-Quarters of EU Consumers Would Pay More for Better Product Design – On Wednesday, June 10, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published the results of a new survey on the importance that product design has on purchasing decisions for EU consumers, finding that 73% of EU consumers are willing to pay more for products that feature better design, 72% consider design an important factor in choosing what to buy. According to the EUIPO’s survey results, design influence is particular important for younger consumers aged 18 to 24, 38% of which said that better design was an important factor in purchasing decisions, although counterfeiting remains a major concern with knockoffs in the EU’s clothing sector alone accounting for €12 billion in annual losses for that industry.

C4IP Opposes Prohibiting Adversarial Patents Act, Releases Technology Ecosystems Report – On Wednesday, June 10, the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) issued a press release voicing significant concerns with the Prohibiting Adversarial Patents Act introduced into Congress by a trio of Republican lawmakers, including Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), which would deny U.S. patent rights to entities on federal security watchlists, but could conflict with U.S. treaty obligations in ways that would lead other countries to pass reciprocal laws. Two days earlier on Monday, June 8, C4IP published the results of a study into IP rights cultivating technology ecosystems authored by Professor Jonathan Barnett of USC Gould School of Law, which found among other things that robust IP rights promote disruptive innovation at idea factories and enable those entities to monetize their R&D investments through contractual relationships.

Barks

USPTO Waives Petition Fee for Streamlined Claim Set Pilot Program – On Wednesday, June 10, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it sua sponte waived the fee paid for petitions to make a U.S. patent application special under the agency’s Streamlined Claim Set pilot program, which advances certain pending non-continuing utility applications out of turn for a first office action if those applications include no more than one independent claim and 10 total claims.

EPO Names Rainer Marquardt as Lifetime Achievement Laureate – On Wednesday, June 10, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that German professor Rainer Marquardt, developer of modular multilevel converter (MMC) technology that has become important infrastructure for long distance power conversion, will be honored as the Lifetime Achievement laureate at the European Inventor Award ceremony hosted by the EPO in Berlin on July 2. 

Copyright Office Starts Tenth Triennial Review of DMCA Section 1201 Rulemaking – On Tuesday, June 9, the U.S. Copyright Office announced that it published a notice of inquiry and request for petitions to officially begin the tenth rulemaking proceeding for temporary exemptions to prohibitions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as codified at 17 U.S.C. § 1201, with any exemptions from the previous triennial rulemaking having an expedited process for renewal.

EUIPO Updates Staff Guidelines on Responsible Generative AI Use – On Monday, June 8, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) announced that it had updated staff guidelines on the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including clearer rules on prompting and handling information as well as distinguishing between public and restricted, confidential and secret information.

This Week on Wall Street

Quarterly Earnings – The following firms identified among the IPO’s Top 300 Patent Recipients for 2024 are announcing quarterly earnings next week (2023 rank in parentheses):

• Monday: None
• Tuesday: None
• Wednesday: None
• Thursday: Accenture plc (t-281st)
• Friday: None