James Edwards

For the umpteenth time, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take a patent eligibility case on appeal. SCOTUS denied certiorari to Audio Evolution Diagnostics v. United States et al. on June 6. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims invalidated all of AED’s patent claims, “conflating novelty and obviousness under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 with patent eligibility under § 101,” according to Audio Evolution’s SCOTUS petition. Then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dialed it in once again, invoking Federal Circuit Rule 36 and disposing of the appeal with summary affirmance—one word—foregoing yet another opportunity to provide parties, inventors and others guidance on where the line lies between eligibility and ineligibility.

The position of director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is one of the most critical positions in the U.S. government. This is especially true if a key objective is to outcompete America’s most adversarial competitors (and trading partners) such as China. That’s why the reported leading candidate for USPTO director raises so many cockles and concerns. For America to out-innovate China, the incoming Trump administration’s USPTO director must come from the same cloth as the first Trump term’s USPTO director, Andrei Iancu. That is, he or she must meet and exceed such qualifications as being a patent attorney and having sufficient years of practicing patent law. Iancu set a very high bar. His superior level of excellence and dedication leading this agency didn’t escape notice, as these letters demonstrate.

If the essence of patent rights—the right to exclude—is ever to be restored post-eBay, a new legislative vehicle for doing so has arrived in Congress. The Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act is bipartisan and bicameral, as well as short and sweet—less than four pages.

The U.S. Supreme Court will this Friday, December 2, consider whether to grant certiorari in the case of Centripetal Networks Inc. v. Cisco Systems Inc. What began as a patent infringement case has swerved into judicial ethics waters, due to the ruling of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The cert decision holds significant consequences, particularly for patent owners and inventors who find themselves the target of patent infringement, sue to assert their patent rights, and whom patent infringers then pull into a litigation vortex between federal courts and administrative tribunals at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Thirty-one signatories from 29 center-right public policy organizations have written U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, urging him to deny a petition from Knowledge Ecology International that requests use of march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act against the prostate cancer medicine, Xtandi. The conservative organizations represented on the letter include some of the most prominent center-right groups, such as the American Conservative Union, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, FreedomWorks Foundation and Heritage Action for America. Conservatives for Property Rights led the letter initiative.