Posts Tagged: "technology"

With the planet now awash in unused vaccines, efforts are underway to extend the TRIPS waiver to our COVID diagnostics and therapeutics (terms that are poorly defined). By the way, China is considered a “developing country” that could use the waiver. The U.S. Trade Representative asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate whether or not such an extension is justified. That effort includes seeking public comments, which are due by Friday, May 5, 2023. The Bayh-Dole Coalition, which I lead, just submitted to following letter to US ITC Secretary, Lisa Barton, laying out some of the many reasons why the extension would be a colossal blunder.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) held its East Coast Listening Session on AI Inventorship today, featuring both USPTO staff and patent stakeholder speakers contemplating possible approaches to patenting in a world in which generative artificial intelligence (AI) almost seems to have snuck up on everyone. While many speakers cautioned against moving too quickly to change the rules for AI-generated inventions, others warned that doing nothing could result in chaos for the USPTO and grave economic and innovation losses for the country.

One day before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is set to hold its first public listening session on AI inventorship, the U.S. Supreme Court today denied certiorari in the case of Thaler v. Vidal, which asked the Court to consider the question: “Does the Patent Act categorically restrict the statutory term ‘inventor’ to human beings alone?” Dr. Stephen Thaler lost his case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) last August, when the CAFC said the USPTO’s reading of the statute as clearly referring to inventors as natural person was “unambiguously” correct.

On April 20, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential opinion in FS.com v. International Trade Commission affirming the ITC’s determination that fiber optic cable distributor FS.com violated 19 U.S.C. § 1337 by importing goods infringing upon patent claims owned by Corning Optical Communications. This relatively short Federal Circuit decision dealt mainly with FS.com’s enablement arguments on appeal, which the appellate court nixed after finding that skilled artisans would understand an inherent upper limit to allegedly open-ended claims on fiber optic connection densities.

The European Union is reportedly considering sweeping new regulations for the licensing and litigation of standard essential patents (SEPs), which make fair-minded observers wonder whether any sane adults are in charge at the European Commission (EC). The EU’s proposed new regulatory regime is scheduled to be released on April 26 by the Directorate for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission (EC). And recently leaked drafts suggest that proposal will contain sweeping new regulations that will effectively put an end to the licensing and litigation of SEPs as it exists today.

There are often situations where a company has come into contact with intellectual property that it cannot allow to spread to a product in development. One example is a joint development project between two companies where the IP for the jointly developed product cannot seep into other products but where each company must develop products that interface with the jointly developed one. This situation can occur when groups create standards that involve IP from various sources.

In late March, news broke that the European Commission was drafting sweeping regulations on the licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs). Commentators predict the draft will be released in late April and, although this is an early draft that will likely evolve, below we offer the following initial observations. In its current form, the new regulatory framework would encourage increased transparency in SEP licensing through several new policies and procedures. In particular, the regulations would establish a “competence center” at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to act as a sort of clearinghouse for SEP issues (both technical and economic). The EUIPO does not currently have patent expertise; EP patents are the purview of the European Patent Office (EPO), which is separate from the European Union and includes non-EU members.

Although the mining and metallurgical sectors are still seen as environmentally unfriendly industries, innovation in these sectors has been increasing since the beginning of the century, including in the development of green technologies. Four years ago, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released a study measuring innovation in the mining industry with patents, “Mining patent data: Measuring innovation in the mining industry with patents”, showing a sharp increase in the number of correlated patent applications since 2005, which is a clear sign of the growth in investments in R&D and innovation made by these industries.

The Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) on Monday held a webinar featuring some big names in the IP world to clear up what the organization characterizes as misguided views on the use of Title 28 of the U.S. Code, Section 1498(a). The event was prompted in part by a recent U.S. government statement of interest filed in a patent infringement suit against Moderna, Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine. That statement argued that Moderna should be released from infringement liability under the terms of a government contract that “authorize[d] and consent[ed] to all use and manufacture” of any U.S. patented invention.

This week in Washington IP news, the Senate and House are back in session and holding a variety of hearings on departments’ 2024 budget requests, including for the Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Elsewhere, the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) is holding a webinar on proper use of Section 1498(a) of the U.S. Code; and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is hosting regional events in Central Virginia and Silicon Valley to promote resources available to prospective innovators and entrepreneurs.

On Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed a district court’s dismissal of a Florida vape company’s patent lawsuit against tobacco company Phillip Morris. Healthier Choices Management (HCM) filed the appeal to the CAFC after a district court ruled in Phillip Morris’s favor, dismissing the patent infringement case. HCM alleged that Phillip Morris infringed on its patent for an electronic pipe, U.S. Patent No. 10,561,170. The CAFC reversed the district court’s dismissal of the original complaint and its denial of HCM’s motion to amend the complaint. Additionally, the appeals court vacated the award of attorneys’ fees to Phillip Morris.

The European Union is considering a new regulatory regime for the licensing and litigation of standard essential patents (SEPs) that will destabilize the global telecommunications market. This proposed regulatory regime is unbalanced in favoring implementers over innovators, and thus it threatens to hamstring the explosive technological and economic growth in this vital sector of the modern innovation economy. Although the EU has finally awoken to the competitive and geopolitical threat posed by China, this regulatory proposal undermines efforts by the EU and the United States to sustain their global technological leadership.

Current artificial intelligence (AI) systems can generate an astonishing variety of content, including text-based works, audio, video, images, programming code, product designs, technical papers, etc. In many cases, the output from an AI system is virtually indistinguishable from that of a human. This trend is expected to continue at an ever-increasing rate in the coming years. Since content solely generated by an AI system is not available for protection under existing intellectual property laws, the following are practical guidelines for human creators who wish to protect content that was created with the assistance of an AI system.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday issued a precedential decision holding that SAS Institute , Inc. failed to establish copyrightability of its asserted software program elements. Judge Newman dissented, arguing the ruling “contravenes the Copyright Act and departs from the long-established precedent and practice of copyrightability of computer programs” and that it represents a “far-reaching change.”