Posts Tagged: "standard"

Rejection of proposal did not obviate requirement to disclose inventions to standard setting body

The Federal Circuit, however, found the district court’s enforceability finding to be unsupported by evidence. The rejection of Nokia’s proposal did not obviate Nokia’s requirement to disclose inventions that might be essential to the standard. Dr. Walker’s uncontroverted testimony explained that patent applications are to be disclosed at the time proposals are presented. “[A]n ETSI member’s duty to disclose a patent application on particular technology attaches at the time of the proposal and is not contingent on ETSI ultimately deciding to include that technology in an ETSI standard,” Bryson explained. Notwithstanding, the Federal Circuit elected to vacate this ruling rather than electing to reverse the district court because the existence of an implied waiver is an equitable defense.

Gene Quinn & Steve Brachmann

August 22, 2018

ITC institutes Section 337 investigation into Hisense Wi-Fi TVs infringing on Sharp patents

On Wednesday, September 27th, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it had decided to institute a patent infringement investigation against Chinese electronics manufacturer Hisense (SHA:600060). The investigation, which follows from a Section 337 complaint filed by Japanese electronics firm Sharp (TYO:6753), will seek to determine whether certain Wi-Fi enabled devices and their components, specifically televisions which are capable of wireless Internet connectivity, which are imported into the U.S. by Hisense infringe upon two patents covering similar technologies held by Sharp.

Steve Brachmann

October 1, 2017

Curing the PTAB: How 3 Fixes Will Make a Better, Fairer Process

When the America Invents Act (AIA) was being formulated, from about 2005 – 2011, nothing was more subject to change bill-to-bill than the proposed “1st look” and “2nd look” procedures for issued US patents. Should the U.S. have a regular opposition procedure, or should existing inter partes reexam just be tweaked? The AIA final result is the universally dis-liked post grant troika known as PGR, IPR, and CBM… For today I will confine my remarks (and associated fixes) to three truly bad ideas that in practice have played out as particularly egregious. More specifically: (1) the lack of standing required for inter partes review (IPR) challenges; (2) the lack of any real ability to amend claims during a post grant proceeding; and (3) the trivially low threshold (i.e., reasonable likelihood) that initiates an IPR.

John White

December 20, 2016

Inventions Make a Standard Competitive

When a standard faces competition, it is essential to be the first on the market with products and to establish the highest market share. The network effect will make it increasingly difficult for competing standards to get a foothold. Two competing standards will, therefore, be under pressure to gain market share in the early stages of adoption by getting to market first, with superior performance, and with the lowest price. In view of the network effect, getting to market first is usually the highest priority. But in the early stages of adoption, being a little bit later with superior performance is still viable.

Menno Treffers

May 15, 2016