Posts Tagged: "Apple"

On August 21, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) announced the release of its official app for mobile devices, titled IPOS Go, to the Apple App and Google Play stores. Among the services offered through the app are trademark filing services, making this particular app the world’s first for enabling the filing of trademark registration documents from a mobile device. IPOS expects that the introduction of this mobile app will help facilitate a growing number of trademark applications; the agency notes that trademark applications in Singapore have increased by 30% over the past five years. As reported by ZDNet, IPOS took in 50,035 trademark applications and registered 37,030 trademarks during 2017. A little over 20% of both filed applications and trademark registrations that year belonged to domestic entities in Singapore. The top foreign filers of trademark applications into Singapore included Amazon Technologies and Apple.

On August 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part, and remanded a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in the case between VirnetX and Apple/ Cisco, and separately denied Apple’s request for rehearing en banc in its appeal from the U.S.  District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruling awarding VirnetX nearly $440 million. In response, Apple quickly filed motions to stay and vacate those decisions, and requested leave to petition for a second rehearing. Most recently, on August 15, VirnetX filed its reply to Apple’s motions, arguing that the tech giant is merely trying to delay the case in order to give priority to continuing PTAB hearings.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has had a sordid history. Whether you are in favor of the PTAB allowing serial challenges that require patent owners to constantly fight dozens of petitions from a multitude of challengers or not, no one can or should excuse the PTAB from the egregious appearance of impropriety that continues to plague the institution. It is insulting and inappropriate. It is well past time for Director Iancu to put an end to Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) deciding petitions filed by former clients. We know direct conflicts where APJs are deciding petitions filed by former clients are still happening thanks to two orders entered on August 8, 2019 in IPR2019-00819 and IPR2019-00820. Through these orders, we learn that APJ Stacy Beth Margolies is sitting on a panel assigned to address inter partes review (IPR) petitions filed by Apple, Inc. against patent owner MPH Technologies OY. The problem is Margolies, while she was an attorney, represented Apple.

Last week, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued 23 institution-phase decisions in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, resulting in 14 IPR institutions and nine IPR denials. Two of the instituted IPRs were brought by Facebook, which is seeking to invalidate claims of a photo tagging patent asserted against it in district court by Blackberry. Apple saw two of three IPRs instituted against Firstface, but the consumer tech giant was still successful in challenging claims from both of the fingerprint authentication patents it was seeking to invalidate. Apple also saw two successful IPR institutions against Nartron after failing in a series of petitions challenging the same patent.

Just over 18 months ago, Andrei Iancu assumed control of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As the Director of the USPTO, Iancu has changed the tone of the conversation over patents in America. During President Obama’s second term the USPTO became aggressively anti-patent and anti-innovator. The speeches, policies and inaction of Director Michelle Lee led innovators and observers to correctly claim that the Obama Administration had come to champion the viewpoints of infringers, not the technology innovators. Director Iancu changed that almost overnight. Where Director Iancu has failed, however, is with respect to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). With great fanfare, Director Iancu created a Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) that we were told would result in more decisions of the PTAB being declared precedential on the entire PTAB. There was hope that the POP would address the most important issues, such as serial challenges to the same patent over and over again, the use of the same prior art over and over again, and once and for all require the PTAB to apply the Federal Circuit view of what it means to be a real party and interest. Unfortunately, real reform of the PTAB has not happened despite tinkering with the Trial Guide. In important ways the PTAB is worse, and the efforts that have been undertaken incorrectly form the appearance of reform.

In the latest stage of the nine-year VirnetX/ Apple patent saga, Apple has filed a Motion to Stay the Mandate and a Motion to Vacate in relation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s August 1 order denying Apple’s petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc. That petition related to the Federal Circuit’s previous Rule 36 judgment upholding a district court decision ordering Apple to pay VirnetX nearly $440 million.

Last week, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued 18 institution decisions based on petitions for inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, instituting 10 and denying eight. One of those denials ended a petition from Apple to challenge a touch screen patent owned by Nartron, although the PTAB instituted two other IPRs on the same patent the following Monday, giving rise to questions about whether the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is effectively dealing with the issue of multiple petitions at the PTAB. Elsewhere, a pair of KOM Software patents asserted in separate district court proceedings against NetApp and Hewlett Packard each had two IPRs instituted against them after the patent infringement defendants teamed up to file petitions.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last week affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part, and remanded a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in the long-running case of VirnetX Inc. v. Apple Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc. The case relates to three inter partes reexaminations maintained by Apple and Cisco. The PTAB found that Apple could proceed with its reexaminations under the America Invents Act (AIA) and held that claims of VirnetX’s patent numbers 7,418,504 (“the ’504 patent”) and 7,921,211 (“the ’211 patent”) were unpatentable as anticipated/obvious. These patents were directed to methods for “establishing a secure communication link between [computers] over a computer network, such as the Internet” and are “built on top of the existing Internet protocol.” Basically, the patents claim a way to create secure communication links via domain name service (DNS) systems.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: The Federal Circuit issues several precedential decisions, including one reviving the patent claims in VirnetX and another determining that America Invents Act (AIA) validity trials don’t violate the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause in Celgene. This week in Other Barks & Bites: The Federal Circuit issues several precedential decisions, including one reviving the patent claims in VirnetX and another determining that America Invents Act (AIA) validity trials don’t violate the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause in Celgene; the USPTO proposes fee increases to patent examination and AIA trials and issues a final rule on e-filing in trademark registrations; Katy Perry is ordered to pay $2.7 million for copyright infringement; free OTA TV service Locast is targeted in a copyright suit filed by Disney and other major broadcasters; Pfizer and Mylan consider creating a global giant in off-patent drugs; the University of California files patent suits against major retailers over LED light bulb technology; and patent applications listing artificial intelligence machine inventor are filed in patent offices across the world.

Earlier this summer, Intel announced that some 8,500 patent assets (i.e., issued patents and pending patent applications) would be auctioned. Approximately 6,000 assets related to 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular standards, while 1,700 assets relate to wireless implementation of cellular standards. According to initial reports from IAM, Intel was hoping to sell these patents separately from the smartphone modem business, although they were open to the possibility that a prospective buyer might seek to acquire both the patent assets and Intel’s smartphone modem business. Shortly after the Intel patent assets were announced as available for sale, Intel abruptly took the assets off the market in favor of negotiating with a single interested suitor. Very quickly, news broke that the negotiations with that unidentified suitor were quite advanced, suggesting that the Intel auction announcement was nothing more than a negotiating ploy to get the unidentified suitor back to the table and for the suitor to realize that they could lose the patent assets if they did not play their hand correctly and misidentified the leverage involved in the negotiation. It has recently come to light that the unidentified suitor for the Intel patent assets was none other than Apple, just as IAM has predicted in its initial reporting. So, now we know that Apple will buy the majority of Intel’s modem business, including the patent assets, for $1 billion. 

Case filings at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), a popular venue for resolving intellectual property disputes, reached record levels in 2018, and 2019 appears likely to be another busy year. In fact, there have already been a number of important decisions, including one in Qualcomm’s high-profile battle with Apple relating to the public interest, one making it clear that the ITC has jurisdiction over those only indirectly involved in infringement, and an opinion addressing the overlap between the ITC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as  the ITC’s ability to police misleading advertising and labeling of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and dietary supplements.

Management of trade secrets is fraught with competing interests. There is the tradeoff between security and inconvenience—for example, the annoying wait for a special code to allow “two-factor identification” when you already have your password handy. There is trusting your employees while knowing they might leave to join a competitor. And there is the tension between corporate secrecy and the public interest, such as when the fire department insists on knowing what toxic chemicals are used in your facility. And now we have the cloud (like “internet,” its ubiquity merits lower case), which offers unparalleled convenience and flexibility to outsource corporate data management to others. But moving IT functions outside the enterprise creates new vulnerabilities for that data, which happens to be the fastest growing and most valuable category of commercial assets. So understanding this environment has to be a high priority for business managers.

A hearing of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law held yesterday examined whether big tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple—are becoming too powerful and deterring innovation. In “Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 2: Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” Subcommittee Chair, Representative David Cicilline (D-RI), said that Google controls search, Amazon controls nearly half of all online U.S. commerce, Facebook captures over 80% of global social media revenue, and Apple has total power over their customers’ devices. In his opening statement, Cicilline took issue with the 30% commission Apple charges on every developer sale in the first year, and 15% thereafter, pointing to this year’s Supreme Court decision in Apple v. Pepper which held that iPhone owners can sue Apple for monopolizing the retail market for the sale of apps, thereby raising prices for consumers. “A former Apple executive who oversaw app store approvals for seven years has also described Apple as having ‘complete and unprecedented power over their customers’ devices and using this power as a weapon against competitors,’” Cicilline said.

The United States is looking to antitrust law to break up big tech. Later today, for example, the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law will be meeting for a hearing on “Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 2: Innovation and Entrepreneurship.” Unfortunately, this may have become necessary, but it will not solve the problem of big tech monopolies. That can only be solved by understanding how big tech creates megamarkets and how they use shadow patent systems to regulate and perpetuate their monopolies—a power traditionally reserved for sovereigns. A patent is nothing but an exclusive right. All it can do is remove an infringer from the market. That incredible power enables startups to attract investment, commercialize new technologies, and challenge incumbents. The value of a patent is dependent on demand and market size. Since national borders establish the market size, the larger the country, the larger the market, and the more valuable a patent can become. But big tech markets are not restricted to national borders, so they get larger. Apple has 1.4 billion active devices reaching four times the 327 million population of the United States.

When it was announced that I would be testifying to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on IP about Section 101, I was surprised. Not only did they grant a critic of the 101 roundtables a chance to speak, but not one inventor who used patents to fund a startup has testified in any patent-related hearing in decades. This gave me faith that Senators Tillis and Coons are serious about fixing 101 right by considering what inventors need. When the hearing was announced, several inventors contacted me. They wanted to personally tell their stories to Congress. They trusted the government to protect them, but instead lost their careers, their secrets, and their investments of hard work and money. A few even lost their families, their home, or their health. The inventors were happy about eliminating all 101 exceptions, but the draft language of 100(k) and 112(f) transfer the damage to those sections.