Posts in Government

PTAB decisions are predominately given one of three classifications: precedential, informative or routine. Only precedential decisions are to serve as binding authority. Informative decisions may serve as an authority but are not binding. Routine decisions may be cited as relevant but are not to be cited as an authority. Recent research indicates that, of the 20,631 ex parte appeal decisions issued in fiscal years 2013 or 2014, less than 0.04% (more specifically, 7 of the 20,631) were precedential or informative.

The United States Supreme Court is commonly known to resolve difficult issues of law. Yet, Alice v. CLS Bank[ii], last year’s unanimous Supreme Court decision, has caused confusion about whether computer-implemented business methods and software innovations are patentable under 35 U.S.C. §101. The question of patentability of software-related innovations – even those involving merely implementations of business-related innovations – seemed…

A push for innovation to solve the water crisis has been kickstarted this summer in some part due to an executive order from California Governor Jerry Brown that initiated a drought technology program intended to accelerate the development of innovative water and energy saving technologies.

On August 10th, the rights to sell Daraprim were bought from Impax Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ:IPXL) of Hayward, CA, by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company with headquarters in New York City and Switzerland. Shortly after acquiring Daraprim, Turing CEO Martin Shkreli raised its price by more than 5,000 percent, from $13.50 per pill up to $750 per pill for a medication that’s not usually prescribed by itself; it’s typically part of a larger regimen for AIDS and cancer patients. As the result of public outcry, Shkreli announced several days ago that the price would drop from $750 a pill to some unspecified level. He pointed out that at $13.50 a pill the drug was not profitable to sell. Still, the damage has been done to an industry everyone loves to hate because drug prices in the U.S. are perceived to be outrageously high already.

you continually hear from Members of Congress, Staffers and those giant companies pushing for weaker patents that the goal of the bill is nothing more than to keep small business owners from getting sued for using pieces of equipment that they purchased. The truth, however, is far different. The small businesses that Congress claims they want to protect are just political pawns in a much larger game of chess. The people funding the effort to enact further patent reform are not small businesses; rather they are Google, Cisco, J.C. Penney, and other giant corporations. The interests important to these giant corporations are driving the push for more reform, not a deep-rooted concern for the plight of American small businesses.

The stark reality of how government operates leaves us with a patent system that will be perpetually on the brink. Giant corporations have become effectively insulated from any consequences associated with stealing patented innovations, yet they continually want more and more help from Congress, which they dress up and roll out as “reform.” Even if they fail this time these companies will return, with more lobbyists and special interest groups demagoguing innovators as inherently evil, Satan practically. Rather than recognize the critical role patents play in the innovation ecosystem and in the U.S. economy, Congress is poised to flush the patent system down the drain because there are a handful of giant tech corporations that believe they would benefit.

Territoriality has been a difficult aspect of public international law to apply to the Internet and information technology sectors. It’s a central aspect of the current flap between Google and CNIL, which wants Google to remove listings purged under the right to be forgotten from its main Google.com domain, which Google sees as its American property. Another issue discussed at the conference include the need to finalize safe harbor privacy principles which would establish rules for U.S. or European Union businesses which store customer data, bridging the gap between differences in data privacy standards in the two jurisdictions.

Unlike Big Bear Lake, which will collect the runoff snowfall or rain, much of the rest of southern California is ill equipped to take advantage of El Niño rains. Those familiar with southern California will know that in beach towns there are signs on or near drains warning people not to dump things into the gutter because whatever goes into the drain will be released into the ocean. That, of course, also means that water that falls in beach communities in southern California will not be collected, or even useful. Due to perpetual poor government planning, even if El Niño does drop large amounts of rain water on southern California much of it will simply wind up in the ocean.

This is the final segment of my interview with Drew Hirshfeld, Commissioner for Patents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In this segment we get to know Hirshfeld personally, as a father and New York Knicks basketball fan.

Like a lemming running off a cliff, Fortune author Jeff John Roberts ignores easily verifiable historical truths in what can really only be described as a hit piece on the patent system and patents in general. The lack of intellectual integrity, or even intellectual curiosity, is astonishing… It is absolutely necessary to quash any suggestion that here is a “short supply” of medical miracles today. Medical research is still turning up incredible findings. A quick scan of health news shows plenty of academic innovation leading to tomorrow’s medical miracles. That the author could make such an utterly absurd statement has to call into question the broader motivations. Of course, authors do unfortunately sometimes exaggerate, misrepresent and even lie. What is truly astonishing is how the Editors of Fortune allowed such a falsehood to be published. Do they do no fact checking at all at Fortune?

Drew HIRSHFELD: ”One thing that really can move the ball toward a higher quality patent is again the clarity of the record, and the amount of information that’s in there so that third parties can really tell what the patent was about. So quality has, as you’ve identified before, many ways to look at it. But when I leave this position, whenever that time is, certainly if I can have a more clear record, more full explanations on the record, I think the system would be in a better place and that is one of my goals.”

The patent system our government has created over the last decade incentivizes stealing patent rights rather than engaging in an arm length negotiation. This is antithetical to basic, fundamental principles embedded throughout American law. The laws in the United States are supposed to be certain, stable and understandable. By minimizing externalities and keeping transaction costs low bargaining of rights will ensue, which will lead to an efficient outcome. Obstacles to bargaining and/or poorly defined property rights lead to an inefficient marketplace. To fix the patent system we must return to certainty and strong patent rights, which will push actors into arm-length negotiations rather than into costly patent litigation.

I will moderate what should be a lively discussion on the PTAB and inter partes review. I will be joined by Erich Spangenberg, advisor to Kyle Bass and the person some have described as “the most notorious patent troll in America.” Also joining me will be Q. Todd Dickinson, former Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and current partner at Novak, Druce. Among other things we will discuss: (1) What will become of the Kyle Bass IPR petitions? (2) USPTO proposed rule changes and pilot programs (3)
Is Congress likely to legislatively reform IPRs?

HIRSHFELD: “[Y]ou caught my attention with quality means we issue a few patents. So let me address that first. We’ve always focused on quality as far as I’ve been here. What we have been asked to do in recent years is ask how can we take a more “out of the box” approach to quality, right? Is there anything that we could be doing with the goal of continuous improvement? And so to me that’s an absolutely wonderful position to be in for anybody asking how can you do your job better. And so I don’t look at quality as saying we want to issue more patents or less patents, we want to do a better job, a good job in the process as we’re moving forward. Things like clarity of the record. That does not mean we’re going to issue more or less, it means that we’re going to take extra steps to make sure we’re on the same page as the applicant. Or make sure we’re creating a good record so that a third party down the road can evaluate the application history, the prosecution history and tell exactly what took place. Certainly there is not a sentiment to try to reject more or less. Our goal is to do what the courts are asking us to do but we want to make sure that we’re thinking about all the ways we can do that in the most effective, efficient and clear way.”

Powering Cassini towards the sixth planet of our solar system, and helping it to perform the braking techniques required to pull the craft into orbit around Saturn, is a propulsion module constructed by Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT). This module, the largest U.S. planetary spacecraft propulsion system ever constructed, was fired up 16 times while Cassini traveled to Saturn and will be used more than 100 times over the entire course of the already extended mission. Lockheed also built the Titan IV/Centaur rocket that launched Cassini-Huygens into space back in 1997.