Posts Tagged: "patent"

While in the Solicitor’s Office at the USPTO Chen’s notable Federal Circuit arguments included In re Bilski, In re Nuijten, and In re Comiskey. While I disagreed with the Federal Circuit decision in each of those cases I still believe Chen to be an excellent choice for the Federal Circuit. While some may look at the cases where Chen defended the Board, that was his job and I would caution reading to much into the briefs filed looking for a window into the judicial philosophy of Chen. Indeed, I have every reason to expect that he will align himself with the pro-patent wing of the Court.

As can be seen from Fig. 12, 25% of the cases brought against the retailer were actually brought by Producer companies. The other 75% of cases could indeed be classified as NPE suits. However, of these suits, 30% were by independent inventor or independent inventor related companies, and the other 45% of cases were brought by other NPEs. Interestingly of the “other NPEs”, we found all of the patents asserted against this retailer were patents originally obtained from Producers. Of these patents, one-third came from big corporate America and the remaining two-thirds from smaller Producing companies. That means nearly 65% of this retailers troubles, which it directly attributes to “trolls” asserting bad patents, are actually related to patents that derived from Producing companies. Of its cases that was resolved, pacer suggests none were tried and each was mutually dismissed within 4 months to 13 months.

1. Reed Tech takes over USPTO Contract from Google. 2. Pharma Patent Settlements Saved $25.5 Billion for US Health System. 3. Coffee Analysis Smart Phone App for that Perfect Brew. 4.FDA Approves Brain Wave Test to Assess ADHD in Children. 5. CAFC Copaxone® Patent Ruling Allows May 2014 Generic Launch. 6. A Permanent Injunction in a Patent Infringement Case! 7. Post-Grant Proceedings Treatise Publishes.

Myth 4: Patents of NPEs fare much more poorly in reexamination proceedings brought during litigation than those of Producers. Truth: When one includes independent inventors and independent inventors in the mix of NPEs, the patents being asserted by NPEs may be said to fare slightly more poorly in reexamination proceedings than those patents asserted by Producers. However, if one removes these independent inventor entities from the mix of NPEs, the patents held by non-independent inventor based NPEs were seen to do at least as well, if not better, than the average asserted patent of the Producers which was likewise thrown into reexamination during litigation.

There are many myths that are attached to the fable of the so-called “patent troll.” Acting like the MythBusters, we probed some of them. For example, the success rate of NPEs overall across 267 random cases indicates that the litigation outcome for NPE suits looks very similar to litigation outcome for Producer suits. However, when individual inventor suits and individual inventor company suits were removed from the mix of overall NPEs, we found that non-independent inventor NPEs had an outcome profile that looked significantly better than the Producers, both in very likely favorable and likely unfavorable outcomes in litigation.

On July 1, 2013, I spoke on the record with Ray Niro, who is one of the most well known patent litigators in the United States. Throughout his career he has been a champion for the inventor who was facing long odds due to widespread patent infringement. So loathed was Niro, he was the one who was originally referred to as the “patent troll” by the media due to his representing innovators against giant technology companies. Of course, if you are going to call Ray Niro a patent troll you might want to also point out that he is extraordinarily successful, which means he has been very good at proving that large corporations have infringed valid patents, sometimes on fundamentally important innovations.

General Patent Corporation (GPC), a patent licensing and enforcement firm, announced on July 11, 2013 that its subsidiary, Data Distribution Technologies LLC (DDT) settled a patent infringement lawsuit against RE/MAX LLC. This settlement resolves Data Distribution Technologies LLC v. RE/MAX LLC (Case No. 2:12-cv-04877), which was filed on August 3, 2012, in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Similarly, GPC announced on July 3, 2013, that it resolved a similar lawsuit against Weichert Lead Network, resolving Data Distribution Technologies LLC v. Weichert Lead Network, Inc. (2:12-cv-04149), which was filed on July 6, 2012, also in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

With sequestration finally cutting the Republicans don’t seem to be in any rush whatsoever, so the Patent Office which really should be exempt is caught in the cross hairs. Although it is easy to point at Congressman Wolf, a Republican, and say the Republicans are to blame, that would be a mistake. Senator Coburn (R-OK) is a Republican and he fought to fully and fairly fund the USPTO. Furthermore, the reason the USPTO is bound by sequestration is thanks to the interpretation of the Office of Management and Budget. OMB is a part of the Executive Branch, so the President is in no way blameless. He has no trouble ignoring Congress when it suites him (i.e., the health care employer mandate delay) but when an argument could logically be made that the USPTO is not covered by sequestration no such argument was made. Thus, this is less a political issue than it is really bad kabuki theater.

Today in IPWatchdog’s Summer Fun series, we’re looking at a series of patent applications and issued patents protecting systems of improving protections from UV radiation. A number of these documents regard new systems of determining unsafe levels of radiation. One patent application has been filed to protect an apparatus that detects the level of sunburn developing on a person’s skin. Another application protects a reactive dye that changes color to indicate UV radiation levels. An issued patent protects a test strip kit that can also indicate unsafe UV levels prior to going outside. Treatments for sunburn are another major focus for developers of UV radiation protections. One issued patent protects an orally administered treatment that helps prevent against sunburns. A final patent application featured here has been filed to protect a topical ointment that can either prevent or treat sunburns while improving on prior chemical compositions for sunblock lotion.

A recent fire onboard a Boeing Dreamliner at London’s Heathrow Airport refocused concerns on the recently developed cruise liner, which was maligned with battery fire issues earlier this year. In early July, a high-profile Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco involving a Boeing 777 airliner has also troubled the company, although the investigation seems to be focusing on pilot error in that case. Still, when dealing with air transit there is zero margin for error. When errors do occur when an airplane is in use they frequently are catastrophic, so the search for safer technologies is a never ending pursuit. Today in our Companies We Follow series, we’re taking another look at Boeing, especially taking a look at their efforts to develop even safer systems of airborne transportation. Some of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office documents we feature here highlight Boeing’s improvements to emergency systems on aircraft.

I think these results show that the disclosure function of patents is working to at least some extent, at least in nanotech: patents can be a useful source of technical information, and willful infringement concerns are not preventing most nanotech researchers from looking at patents. But there are still problems with patent disclosure: the result that only 38% of patent readers think those patents are reproducible raises questions about whether disclosure ought to be improved just to meet current legal requirements.

As in the U.S., when drafting claims in China, one must describe the invention sufficiently to enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the claimed invention. For software patents, a flow chart and explanation should be included, along with drawings and description of associated hardware. Portions of the source code may be included for reference. Software claims may be drafted as either method or apparatus claims. However, Justin Shi, patent attorney at Sony Mobile Communications in Beijing, warns that apparatus claims may be deemed invalid if they are phrased only in means-plus-function language and fail to describe the apparatus or its embodiments.