Posts in Guest Contributors

The dilemma for developing countries is primarily a function of two things: lack of access to existing medicines and absence of innovation on the treatments and cures that are needed. Admittedly each of these can be linked to intellectual property rights, but poverty is at the heart of both issues. Fundamentally, drugs are not available because there is no market for them and the necessary market incentives are absent. To facilitate innovation, especially on ‘diseases of poverty’ the UN and member states need to commit to cultivating market incentives and removing obstacles.

Addressing the problem would be responsive to the overwhelming bulk of commenters who expressed opinions on the PTO’s most recent July 2015 Update on Subject Matter Eligibility (Section 101), who have agreed that the PTO has been applying Alice too vigorously and has been making more rejections than warranted, and that the excess rejections are reflected in the statistics. Examiners would welcome such efforts, because they would better know whether and when to make Alice-type abstract idea rejections under Section 101, in contrast with current guidance, which allow them to find reasons to make such rejections in virtually all cases. A more systematic approach to consideration of such rejections might look like this…

In a January 29, 2016 decision, the Federal Circuit vacated a jury judgment of non-infringement and ordered the District of Delaware to conduct a new trial where construction of a claim term based on prosecution history disclaimer was found to be too narrow. In rejecting the district court’s construction as too limiting, the Court emphasized the high standard for finding prosecution history disclaimer of claim scope. Examining the two prosecution history passages said to be a disclaimer, the Court found that each was readily susceptible to a narrower reading than the one needed to support the district court’s conclusion.

Waters argued that Agilent could not appeal, because Aurora was the third-party requester of the reexamination, not Agilent. The Court held that the relevant question was whether Agilent was a member of a class of litigants that may enforce a legislatively created right under 35 U.S. C. § 141 (reexamination appeals). If so, that party has a ‘cause of action’ under the statute, and this cause of action was a necessary element of his ‘claim.’ See Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 239 (1979). The Court held that both 35 U.S. C. § 141 and 35 U.S. C. § 315(b) confirm that the right to appeal an adverse reexamination decision is reserved only to patent owners and third-party requesters.

Lenders and investors like Gerchen Keller and Fortress, among others, have provided capital to or are partnering with private and public NPEs. These business are well suited to assessing market conditions, especially value, and calculating risk for given rights in a specific industry. That they are still willing to fund activities and co-invest in this climate is a testament to the durability of good patents. Also, there is some expectation that we are at or near bottom, and that there are more opportunities now.

In 2008 the surrogates did at least increase the emphasis on having some form of post grant challenge procedure in the bill that would pass Congress and be signed into law. Their work began to surface in March 2008 by way of surrogates speaking at public and private events focused on innovation related issues. While the campaigns today may not spend many bytes on patent policy soon enough surrogates will be convening at events around the country to discuss innovation policies. If innovation policies or broader tech issues matter the time to get involved is now. As the field of candidates continues to narrow it will become increasingly more difficult, and more costly, to influence policy.

Donald Trump argued at the New Hampshire debate that our nation’s infrastructure would not happen without eminent domain. While economic development as a justification for eminent domain has been severely criticized, there does not seem to be a similar criticism associated with stripping property rights from patent owners in order to allow technology adopting infringers to distribute what they did not themselves innovate without paying the property owner for the privilege.

If you were buying patents in 2015, you likely did better than any previous year. The patent market, and, in particular, the brokered patent market, continues to be a robust market for buying and selling patents. Prices are down unless an EOU is available. Sales rates are up, and sales are tending to happen earlier. Caselaw impacted the market but not as much as you might have expected (Alice impacted fintech patents much more than software patents). With an estimated $233M in patent sales, we think the patent market will continue to provide interesting opportunities for both patent buyers and sellers.

It is poor patent policy to have broad areas of technology deemed patent-ineligible entirely, or ineligible without the high cost of attorney time to argue, and likely appeal, amorphous Alice-type rejections. This is particularly so as to technology that is central to the United States economy. Invention is central to U.S. economic might, and as our economy moves away from the “old line” manufacturing strength of the past, the U.S. has become especially strong in fields dependent on software technology and business methods. Strengths of the current U.S. economy include social media, the Internet, and the service economy, especially financial services. We are also strong in biotech. Yet those are precisely the fields most heavily damaged by Section 101 Alice-type rejections.

Alice certainly has dealt a huge blow to patent market, reversing the growth momentum of most market players, big or small. However, the decline in patent sales revenue has significantly decelerated to 5% in 2015, based on the estimated data. Not all segments of IP industry have weathered the Alice storm equally well. Most NPEs have seen their share prices plunging half to nearly 100%. There will be more restructuring and further consolidation in NPE business in 2016.

This month, Inventors Digest features interviews with two heavyweights in American enterprise: Priceline inventor and chair of Walker Digital, Jay Walker; and Mark Cuban, founder of Broadcast.com, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a regular on the popular TV series Shark Tank. Both men are billionaires who believe the patent system is flawed, but for different reasons. Both want to “fix” the patent system—with diametrically opposing methods.

Many of my clients are not patent specialists. Providing an opinion will help them in deciding on the action to take. Uncertainty about what to do often leads to procrastination by the client, which I want to avoid. Finally, the call to action is simply a sentence asking for client instructions. I used to finish my client communications with “Please provide instructions at your earliest convenience/by some date”. I found that this was too vague and demanded too much effort to process. When the client is at the end of the email, he is often starting to think about the next thing to do on his agenda. I use much more precise calls to action, such as “Please confirm that you will pay the next maintenance fee” or “Let me know if you want me to prepare a response to the office action”.

The volume of electronic data and the costs involved in collecting, culling and reviewing electronically stored information (ESI) are critical considerations in any litigation, large or small. Parties to a lawsuit are inevitably faced with significant litigation costs, due in large part to the burden of responding to overly broad discovery requests relating to ESI. To maximize the value of the e-discovery process, corporate counsel should ask how outside counsel plans to efficiently analyze ESI and reduce the expenses associated with e-discovery. Here are some specific questions to consider.

The plaintiff moved to strike the re-asserted invalidity defense under §101 as not made with good cause and as unfairly prejudicial. The defendant argued that the change was made in view of the Supreme Court’s §101 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, which was decided two months before the final invalidity contentions were served. The district court agreed that the Alice decision was sufficient cause to re-assert the §101 defense in the final invalidity contentions.

Pfizer argued that the original restriction requirement, because it was incomplete, created a delay by failing to provide Pfizer with adequate notice of the basis for rejecting its claims. The District Court ruled that the initial restriction requirement, while arguably incomplete, did in fact place Pfizer on notice of grounds for rejecting its claims, therefore satisfying § 132 and justifying denial of additional term adjustments. The Federal Circuit affirmed.