12 December

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Finally, the Supreme Court Agrees to Review the Federal Circuit’s Dangerous Decisions in Oracle v. Google

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Good news! The U.S. Supreme Court has finally agreed to review the Federal Circuit’s dangerous decisions in the long-running case of Oracle v. Google. The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to reverse the damage done by the Federal Circuit. The Court can explain why copyrighting Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is a bad idea and why—even if there is copyright protection—fair use applies. ...

12 December

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Recent USPTO Update Provides Blueprint for PTAB Patent Challenge Process

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Since the passing of the America Invents Act (AIA) and the implementation of the inter partes review (IPR) process, IPR has become a popular and important avenue for companies and individuals to challenge the validity of a patent in an administrative proceeding through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In the past five years, patent owners and challengers alike have presented new and sometimes novel challenges to the way the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), comprised of a panel of administrative law judges that review and decide cases, conduct trial proceedings, causing the PTAB to reevaluate and tweak the process...

13 November

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AI in Patent Law: Enabler or Hindrance?

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Filing a patent is the clerical equivalent of pulling teeth — at least in the U.S. It first requires inventors to determine the type of intellectual property (IP) protection they require (i.e., utility, design, or plant). Then they’re on the hook to conduct a United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database search for similar inventions. If and only if the novelty of their idea passes muster are they allowed to proceed to the next step, which is preparing an application and fees. ...

01 November

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Other Barks & Bites for Friday, November 1: CAFC Arthrex Decision Makes PTAB Judges Inferior Officers, USPTO Seeks Comments on IP Protections for AI Inventions and Reports to Congress on SUCCESS Act

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Bites (noun): more meaty news to sink your teeth into. Barks (noun): peripheral noise worth your attention. This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit hands out three precedential decisions; the USPTO sends its SUCCESS Act Report to Congress; the Copyright Royalty Board proposes royalty rates on ephemeral recordings for certain Internet transmissions; China unveils legislation to create a public blacklist for patent offenders; the Ninth Circuit revives a copyright case against Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”; Google agrees to buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion; and the USPTO seeks public comments on the type of IP protections that should be extended to...

31 October

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Practical Tips for Drafting Patent Applications After American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. v. Neapco Holdings

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The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided on October 3 to affirm the ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Delaware that the asserted claims of U.S. patent number 7,774,911 are directed to patent ineligible subject matter under Section 101 (American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. v. Neapco Holdings LLC ). Much has been written about the majority and dissenting opinions. Here, we concentrate on what the patent practitioner can do when drafting a patent application in light of the case. Explain How One of the findings is that the specification discussed types of attenuation in propshafts, and tuning of...

31 October

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The Latest and Greatest Halloween Patents for Your Perusal

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It’s a fun yet creepy day, so a fun and creepy patents post is in order. Hopefully you are reading this while dressed as a goblin, ghoul, or your favorite/ most hated politician. While I must admit that the USPTO database exhibited a dearth of Halloween-related patents this year, below are the few newer additions, along with some of the classics. Happy Halloween everyone! Halloween bag with pop-up surpriseUS Patent No. 10,364,068Issued July 30, 2019 This patent is described as follows: “A pop-up mechanism for use with a bag so that when operated by a user, a decorative object pops up from a...

31 October

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Panelists Warn Senate IP Subcommittee Against Drastic Measures on Patent Quality

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The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, headed by Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), yesterday heard from five witnesses on ways to improve patent quality at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Suggestions ranged from fixing patent eligibility jurisprudence to strengthening efforts on international work sharing, increasing patent application fees, and allotting more time for the examination process. The majority of panelists warned against the dangers of using patent quality as a means to simply block broad swaths of patents that particular industries or entities don’t like, and emphasized that clarifying U.S. patent law would likely go a long way to...

31 October

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Federal Circuit Says PTAB Judges Are Not Constitutionally Appointed

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in an opinion authored by Judge Moore, has ruled that the current statutory scheme for appointing Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution as it makes APJs principal officers. APJs are presently appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, but principal officers must be appointed by the U.S. President under the Constitution, Article II, § 2, cl. 2. To remedy this, the statutory removal provisions that are presently applied to APJs must be severed so that the Secretary of Commerce has the...

30 October

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The PPH Program at the USPTO: Favorable Stats Don’t Alleviate Big Risks

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Since 2006, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has participated in the Patent Prosecution Highway Pilot Program (the PPH Program). Generally, the program is designed to accelerate examination of a given patent application as a result of examination of a corresponding application at another PPH-participating patent office having reached a positive ruling more quickly. If an application is eligible for and accepted into the PPH Program, the USPTO expedites processing of the application. Examiners also have the benefit of drawing from another examiner’s assessment of corresponding claims. Generally, existing data on the PPH Program has indicated that it is associated...

30 October

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Keeping Up with Copyright Infringement: Copyright, Celebrities, Paparazzi, and Social Media

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Just two months after the end of her second copyright infringement lawsuit, fashion model Jelena Noura “Gigi” Hadid was sued for a third time, on September 13, for copyright infringement for posting paparazzi photos to her social media accounts without the license or permission of the photographer. Other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham and, most recently, Justin Bieber, have made news for the same situation. This trend falls into an interesting intersection of two significant tenets of law: a celebrity’s right of publicity in their own image and a photographer’s right to copyright their artistic work. Hadid Cases Hadid was first...

Finally, the Supreme Court Agrees to Review the Federal Circuit’s Dangerous Decisions in Oracle v. Google

Recent USPTO Update Provides Blueprint for PTAB Patent Challenge Process

AI in Patent Law: Enabler or Hindrance?

Other Barks & Bites for Friday, November 1: CAFC Arthrex Decision Makes PTAB Judges Inferior Officers, USPTO Seeks Comments on IP Protections for AI Inventions and Reports to Congress on SUCCESS Act

Practical Tips for Drafting Patent Applications After American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. v. Neapco Holdings

The Latest and Greatest Halloween Patents for Your Perusal

Panelists Warn Senate IP Subcommittee Against Drastic Measures on Patent Quality

Federal Circuit Says PTAB Judges Are Not Constitutionally Appointed

The PPH Program at the USPTO: Favorable Stats Don’t Alleviate Big Risks

Keeping Up with Copyright Infringement: Copyright, Celebrities, Paparazzi, and Social Media

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