Posts Tagged: "Google"

On October 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that Google failed to meet its burden of establishing that Koninklijke Philips’ patent claims at issue were unpatentable on either of two grounds: 1) anticipation by Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) International Application Publication No. 98/52187 (the Tucker invention), or 2) obviousness over Tucker in view of the prior art. n 2016, Google petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for inter partes review (IPR) of Claims 10-16 and 20-21 of U.S. Patent No. 6,772,114 (the ’114 patent) owned by Philips, entitled “High Frequency and Low Frequency Audio Signal Encoding and Decoding System.” In 2018, the PTAB issued a final written decision holding that Google had not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 10-16, 20, and 21 of the ‘114 patent were unpatentable.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: new patent collective for video technology launched; inventor rally to be held during live IPR hearing at AIPLA meeting; the White House indicates that the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal will focus on IP; the USPTO shifts burden of proving patentability in PTAB motions to amend to the petitioner after Aqua Products; the House of Representatives passes the CASE Act in a 410-6 vote; the EU invalidates the three-dimensional trademark to the Rubik’s Cube; Power Integrations settles its patent infringement litigation against ON Semiconductor; Intel files an antitrust suit against SoftBank over patent acquisition and assertion activities; Amazon.com posts its first year-over-year earnings loss in more than two years; and the Federal Circuit overturns Google’s challenge to a Philips patent on appeal from the PTAB.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: US Inventor will host an inventor rally during AIPLA’s Annual Meeting to protest the PTAB; the Federal Circuit vacates dismissal of infringement case against Sirius XM; the USPTO updates subject matter patent eligibility guidelines, changes TEAS access, and seeks participants for a beta release of the Patent Center; WIPO reports that China received half of all patent application filings in 2018 while the United States saw its first patent filing decline in a decade; Google files a supplemental brief at the Supreme Court in its case against Oracle; Katy Perry files a motion to overturn the “Dark Horse” copyright verdict against her; the FCC approves the merger between mobile wireless firms T-Mobile and Sprint; and U.S. Customs proposes rulemaking to improve its detention of copyright-violating goods imported at the U.S. border.

On September 24, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its decision in case C-507/17, Google v. CNIL regarding the territorial scope of the “right to be forgotten”. Google Inc. had filed an appeal with the French Council of State (FCS), the Highest Administrative Court in France, requesting the annulment of a decision by the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL), which imposed a penalty of EUR 100,000 (approximately USD 110,300) on Google. The case arises from a request to Google by a natural person for deletion of certain links from the list of results displayed following a search of his name (“request for de-referencing”). In response, Google refused to remove certain content from all versions of the domain name of its search engine (i.e., worldwide), leading to the penalty imposed by the CNIL. The FCS then made a request for preliminary reference to the CJEU for guidance on the interpretation of the “right of de-referencing”, popularly known as the “right to be forgotten”.

This past week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit issued precedential decisions affirming the invalidation of patent claims covering osteoarthritis treatments and a costs award to Facebook, but reversed the PTAB on a reasonable expectation of success finding; the U.S. Supreme Court issued orders denying certiorari to several intellectual property cases; North Korea acceded to the Geneva Act of WIPO’s Lisbon Agreement; the Dollywood theme park was hit with a copyright suit over use of the Peanuts’ “Christmas Time is Here”; Nokia announced 2,000 patent families declared as 5G SEPs; former CAFC Chief Judge Rader has called on China to move forward with promised pharmaceutical patent reforms; 2019’s third quarter showed growth in the global PC market; and the USPTO announced that it has met its patent application pendency goals as well as a new senior-level position for an AI expert.

This past week in Other Barks & Bites: the USPTO delays the effective date for mandating electronic trademark application submissions and issues a proposed rulemaking on Patent Term Adjustments in light of Supernus; UKIPO report shows that women inventors represent only 12.7 percent of inventors worldwide; trademark dispute leads street artist Banksy to open a retail store; the Federal Circuit upholds the invalidation of method of manufacture claims as being directed to a natural law over a dissent from Judge Moore; the screenwriter of The Terminator files a copyright termination notice; Tesla stock drops after missing analyst expectations on car sales; Seinfeld beats copyright case over Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee; and the Department of Justice tells the Supreme Court not to review Google’s appeal over the ability to copyright Java code.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear the first of six IP cases granted cert last term. On Monday, the Court will hear Peter v. NantKwest, in which the question presented is “Whether the phrase ‘[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings’ in 35 U.S.C. 145 encompasses the personnel expenses the USPTO incurs when its employees, including attorneys, defend the agency in Section 145 litigation.” The Court will heard other IP cases in November and December, while Google v. Oracle, Berkheimer v. HP, and Hikma v. Vanda await a decision on cert, and petitions in Straight Path IP Group, LLC v. Apple Inc., et al. and Athena Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Services have the patent world holding its collective breath.

Something has happened at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over the past six months. After inching forward in a positive direction on patent eligibility, the entire court, including those judges who had been on the pro-patent eligibility wing of the court, have fallen, slipped, or just given up. The precisely correct characterization remains elusive given the traditional, characteristic and appropriate secrecy that surrounds judicial tribunals. As constitutional officers charged with independently deciding cases, judges take few speaking engagements. Even when they do, they generally speak off the record, and never speak about specific issues or cases that may at some point come before them. In this industry, that means little discussion is had between the bench and bar relating to matters of patent eligibility outside the record, which is itself unfortunate. If the judges of the Federal Circuit would sit through a conference exploring patent eligibility as it applies to the software and biotechnology industries, they would learn much about the uncertainty their decisions are causing. Still, something undeniably has changed.

Tesla recently filed two lawsuits for theft of trade secrets. In March, the auto maker sued several former employees and the two companies they joined, Zoox and Chinese EV automaker Xiaopeng. The trade secrets involved their driverless vehicle technology. Haliburton just sued a former employee for stealing information, getting a patent on it, and then trying to sell it back to Haliburton. Phillips is suing a former employee for stealing secrets that will give competitors a “decades long head start.” Waymo, Google’s self-driving car program, settled with Uber for theft of trade secrets. The settlement was reported by CNN Business to be a portion of Uber’s equity, estimated at $245 million. In In August, the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Northern District of California charged former Google employee Anthony Levandowski with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google under 18 U.S.C. § 1832 of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA). These cases, and many more like them, involve employees leaving and taking trade secrets with them. Employees come and go, but they shouldn’t take your valuable secrets. You can stop them if you have systems in place, but you have only yourself to blame if you don’t.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit issued precedential decisions regarding secondary considerations of non-obviousness, limits to design patents and collateral estoppel of antitrust claims in patent cases; the CASE Act moved out of the House Judiciary Committee towards a floor vote; AIPLA reported increasing prices for trade secret and pharmaceutical patent lawsuits; the PTAB designated a pair of precedential decisions that limit IPR institutions; the DOJ identified two foreign nationals in GE Aviation trade secret case; LeBron James and Ohio State University lost their respective trademark bids; USPTO Director Iancu talked about balancing innovation and preventing hold-up in the SEP context; Google agreed to a $1 billion fine over European tax evasion; and the UKIPO reported lower patent application filing levels for 2018.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Chinese government announces stricter punitive measures in its IP system; the Federal Circuit says state sovereignty principles do not allow the University of Texas to bring suit in an otherwise improper venue; Congressional leadership asks Google to expand copyright protections under its Content ID tool; Google and Facebook to face antitrust probes from state AGs; George Mason University to create an Innovation Law Clinic; Ariana Grande files a copyright and trademark infringement suit against Forever 21; the Hudson Institute publishes a report on China’s 5G developments; and South Korea’s government has reportedly been collecting copyright payments for use of North Korean TV broadcasts.

In August, the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Northern District of California charged a pioneer of self-driving car technology, Anthony Levandowski, with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google under 18 U.S.C. § 1832 of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA). According to the indictment, Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 files containing critical information about Google’s autonomous-vehicle research before leaving the company in 2016. The indictment alleged that Levandowski then made an unauthorized transfer of the files to his personal laptop. Some of the files that Levandowski allegedly took from Google included private schematics for proprietary circuit boards and designs for light sensor technology, known as Lidar, which are used in self-driving cars. Levandowski joined Uber in 2016 after leaving Google when Uber bought his new self-driving trucking start-up, “Otto.” Levandowski has repeatedly asserted that he never disclosed the download, nor made use of the information while he was at Uber.

Eight members of Congress have sent a letter to Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai requesting that the company participate in “a roundtable with Congressional offices and members of the creative community” to discuss its responses to a series of questions relating to Google-owned YouTube’s Content ID tool. The tool is meant to prevent copyright infringing material from appearing on YouTube but has come under scrutiny for its failings in recent years. In the letter sent September 3, the Congress members questioned whether the tool was effective for all users. “We have heard from copyright holders who have been denied access to Content ID tools, and as a result, are at a significant disadvantage to prevent the repeated uploading of content that they have previously identified as infringing,” said the letter.

During the week of August 12 – 16, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), issued 26 institution-phase decisions in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. Nine IPR petitions were denied institution while 17 were instituted; nine of the instituted IPRs were joined to other proceedings that are already ongoing at the agency. Pfizer saw a lot of success last week in having seven IPRs instituted against Sanofi-Aventis, challenging four injectable insulin treatment patents that are at the center of district court infringement litigation between the two parties. The PTAB also instituted IPRs on a series of three LifeNet patents covering tissue graft technologies, which have been asserted against RTI Surgical, including one patent which helped LifeNet earn a multimillion-dollar award for patent infringement in district court.

Last week, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued 39 decisions regarding petitions for inter partes review (IPR) patent validity proceedings, instituting 26. Eight of those proceedings involve major tech firms Samsung, ZTE, Huawei and LG Electronics, all of which won on motions to join previous Google IPRs filed to challenge a pair of Cywee Group patents. Qualcomm also faces a trio of IPRs brought by Intel to challenge the validity of a patent involved in the now-settled legal battle with Apple.