Posts in Interviews & Conversations

We have a new edition to our annual article series, which looking backward with reflections on the biggest moments of the year that has passed and which offers wishes for the year ahead. This year we also asked industry leaders if they would care to take a stab at predicting the future. Of course, if I’m going to ask others…

It is one again time to take a moment to look back on the year that was, reflecting on the biggest, most impactful moments of the year. For us that means looking backward at the most impactful events in the world of intellectual property. Unlike in years past where we would get a variety of different perspectives from industry insiders, there…

LITAN: ”But let’s go back to the main point again from our paper, which is that we need to switch the national conversation about patents to doing a better job of exploiting what we have as opposed to arguing so much about what the standards should be going forward. If we did that, maybe we’d get some greater bang for the buck our of our innovation system. Because there are a lot of unexploited patents out there that could be commercialized. Of course, your point that a lot of patents will drop off because the maintenance fee won’t be paid in the four year period. That’s true for some patents, but certainly not all. In our paper we call the unexploited patents singles and doubles. Our current patent system is set up really only to reward home runs. It’s because of the costs and risks of commercializing the singles and doubles that we don’t see enough of them.”

LITAN: ”Cross industry variation in the use of patents shouldn’t mean that we should just junk the patent system. As I said, the alternatives to go to a system of trade secrets which has very, I think, suboptimal social implications relative to patents. Indeed I think when people object to patents they don’t think about well what else would firms rely on for protecting their hard-earned IP. Indeed, even companies that are heavily involved in the open source world are using patents as a ‘currency’ through which they can achieve collaboration with other firms. That’s why you see big firms like Microsoft and IBM cross license. They do it not only to insulate themselves from infringements against them but because patents are the tickets through which can collaborate with other parties to innovate, make better products and so on.”

Doug Croxall is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Marathon Patent Group, which is a patent acquisition and licensing company. I met Croxall in New York City in November 2014 at the IP Dealmakers Forum. Croxall has been successful in the patent monetization business for years and had a unique prospective on patents as an asset. “If you are going invest your family’s fortune, I don’t think you will put all your money in one equity,” Croxall explained on the panel so it is the same thing with respect to an asset or a portfolio of assets.” He would go on to say that Marathon Patent Group has learned from “what worked in other asset areas and applied it to this one.”

Sherry Knowles: “If a company identifies a weak patent now, it might file an inter partes review or post grant review at the U.S. Patent Office. Ten years ago I don’t think any of us would have imagined that the best jurisdiction in the world to invalidate a patent would be the United States.”

Kristina Dinerman is Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Yahoo! Inc. Dinerman handles business and legal affairs for media, marketing and the Yahoo Studio, which means that dealing with the many thorny issues associated with rights of publicity are on her daily radar. In this interview we discuss how the Internet generally, and social media more specifically, has changed the landscape with respect to rights of publicity, raising a number of interesting questions about what is, and what is not, commercial speech.

Avid skateboarder Alexei Novitzky was at the festival to display his unique invention. As a graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering program at USF, Alexei wanted to solve his problem of needing to carry around a backpack in addition to his skateboard.  For many students bicycles or scooters are an effective and efficient way to travel from class to class, especially when one is short on time or running late.  But Alexei, like many others, chose to ride a skateboard.  He didn’t like the idea of having to wear a backpack or having to carry items in his pockets, so he decided to combine the two items he needed, a skate board and backpack, into one item and his invention, the Skatecase, was born.

This theme reemerged later when we talked generally about computer implemented innovations. Judge Linn explained that wrestling with patent eligibility as it applies to innovations that require machine intervention “is a very complex issue,” which is made more complicated when you try and rationalize opinions from the Supreme Court. “I have great difficulty rationalizing the Supreme Court’s opinions in Flook and Diehr, and in many regards I think those decisions are irreconcilably in conflict,” Judge Linn said… “I don’t look at it as a low point. I look at it as an indication of the complexity of the issues,” Linn said. He went on to explain that the Court was “trying to resolve this complex issue in a way that made sense but reflected the precedent we had before us from the Supreme Court. In the end we just couldn’t agree. We got to the point where we recognized that the Supreme Court would have to give us the answer.”

Siegel: “I think this effort to destroy the value of intellectual property is a bigger wet towel on innovation. When startup companies, after they get their angel investing, go out to try and raise funds on round Bs and round Cs, one of the things that investors look at is whether or not that company has an innovation that is different and protectable so that the investors know that number one there is something in there that’s protectable so that they can protect their investment. And when companies, small companies that make the investment into intellectual property portfolio development it sends a signal, two signals. It sends a signal that, number one, they’re progressive enough and smart enough to think about protecting their innovation. And, number two, it provides collateral for the investments that the investors are making into the company. So if the company were to not be successful in its business, they would have this asset of an IP portfolio sitting there that could still be sold or otherwise monetized to help the investors recoup their investments.”