Posts in IP News

The Court warned that by holding that EmeraChem did not have adequate notice or opportunity to respond, it was not holding that the Board is constricted in its final written decision to citing only the portions of a reference cited in its Institution Decision. “[W]ord-for-word parity between the institution and final written decisions” is not required; the question is whether the Board provided adequate notice and opportunity to respond… The Board must give a patent owner sufficient notice and opportunity to respond to its reliance on a particular use of prior art against particular claims. A general statement that lists all challenged claims and all asserted prior art is not sufficient notice of any and all specific combinations thereof which may arise.

Some of the reports most interesting findings involve which entities are most active at the PTAB as well as the law firms representing parties most frequently during PTAB proceedings… Statistics on administrative patent judges (APJs) at PTAB also render some interesting findings. The four most experienced APJs at PTAB each have more than 400 trials’ worth of experience while some APJs have far fewer cases in which they’ve served. Although the concentration of patent cases in the dockets of a few judges in U.S. district courts has been a topic of much discussion, statutory rules on requests for joinder in IPR proceedings may be naturally causing a concentration of PTAB cases in terms of judges deciding those cases. The PTAB report notes that it’s not unusual for judges to have 20 to 50 cases open at one time.

A $1 trillion a year industry not wanting to pay innovators less than a 1% royalty on the innovations they appropriate (i.e., steal) for their own profits seems like a terrible price to pay given the national security and economic consequences of forfeiting our world leadership to the Europeans and Chinese… Google and Uber are locked in a patent battle over self-driving automobiles, so does that make Google or Uber a patent troll? What about General Electric, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Whirlpool, Kraft Foods, Caterpillar, Seiko Epson, Amgen, Bayer, Genzyme, Sanofi-Aventis, and Honeywell, to name just a few?

Effective June 11, 2017, the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany has agreed to suspend the Presidential signature required for formal ratification of the UPC Agreement. This suspension will remain in place until the German Federal Constitutional Court (“Bundesverfassungsgericht”) has reached a decision in the ongoing expedited proceedings relating to an action (“Verfassungsbeschwerde”) challenging the ratification.

When just looking at the subset of final written decisions resulting from Apple petitions where APJ Clements was on the panel, 24 final written decisions deem all claims invalid while only one decision led to mixed claim findings. There are no cases where a panel including APJ Clements issued a final written decision in review proceedings petitioned by Apple where all claims have been upheld.

In two recent decisions following T. C. Heartland, district courts have applied two different methodologies in resolving motions to change venue… In the first decision a trial judge in the Eastern District of Virginia denied the venue motion, filed three days after T.C. Heartland but also on the eve of trial.  Cobalt Boats, LLC v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc. (June 7, 2017)… In the second decision, a district court in the Southern District of Ohio applied the standards in § 1400(b) and transferred the action because neither of two defendants resided in the district and neither had a permanent and continuous presence in Ohio.

Samar Shah, Esq. announces the launch of a new San Antonio based boutique law firm, Shah IP Law, PLLC.   The new law firm will concentrate on intellectual property counseling with an emphasis on patent portfolio development, patent prosecution, and other advanced prosecution strategies, such as appeals, reexaminations, and IPR proceedings.

This comprehensive legislation is exactly what is needed to strengthen our patent system, which will promote American innovation, competitiveness and job creation. For roughly a decade now, we have seen a steady weakening of patent rights in the U.S., undermining the ability of inventors to protect their innovations from infringement from large corporations and foreign entities. The STRONGER Patents Act says ‘enough is enough’ and ensures that patent rights are protected as a fundamental underpinning of our innovation economy.  

Patent lawyers are labeled as science geeks and somehow that has been associated with us having less interest in the emotional side of things.   As a former USPTO general counsel, I have seen more than a few patent lawyers get emotional about topics ranging from the meaning of inequitable conduct to the ability of the USPTO Director to raise fees.   However, in interactions with other people or in responses at meetings or public events we all need a healthy dose of emotional intelligence to be persuasive.

Russell has practiced intellectual property law for the last 23 years. Prior to his government service and work at Micron Technology, he was a design engineer for Honeywell.

A lot of law students and young attorneys aim to get into the field of “entertainment law.” Today, entertainment law is more of a combination of contract law, intellectual property law, accounting and just about every other area of law for which an individual or company requires legal services. So, if someone wants to work specifically in entertainment law, there are a few things he or she needs to do. 

Securing IP rights in China has been a priority for companies selling or manufacturing in China due to the country’s singular attitude to intellectual property, which has been much abused. Today 84.5% of counterfeits originate in either China or Hong Kong, and as the world becomes progressively more connected alongside the rise of e-commerce and cross-border exportation capabilities, increasingly there is a need for IP protection strategies of all companies to be adapted to Chinese policies.

Squire Patton Boggs has announced the appointment of partner Simon Jones, the former Leeds head of technology and global head of automotive at Eversheds Sutherland.

What’s even more impressive is the impacts on gross industry output and GDP are up 14% while  the number of U.S. jobs supported rose 12% since the previous report issued two years ago. That’s remarkable at a time when the overall U.S. economy has been treading water… While the attacks on Bayh-Dole (and the patent system) are largely driven by emotion, here’s some additional data BIO cited that’s worth considering: over the past 25 years academic inventions led to the formation of 11,000 startups and the commercialization of more than 10,000 new products.

Finjan will issue 153,000 shares of Series A-1 Preferred Stock at a price of $100 per share to Soryn HLDR. In connection with this transaction, the company will also issue to Soryn HLDR warrants to purchase two million shares of common stock at an exercise price of $3.18 per common share.