Much Ado About Injunctions

It’s become an article of faith among those complaining that patent reform has gone too far that the 2006 eBay case must be overturned—but that assertion doesn't appear to be backed up by the facts.

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Granted In 19 Hours

Patent examiners have an extremely hard job.  They’re given a patent application—which could be anywhere from a page long up to hundreds of pages, with patent claims ranging from a…

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Latest Blog Post

Moving The USPTO From Red To Black

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IBM is famous for obtaining a lot of patents.  Year after year, they’re the top recipient of U.S. patents (or, once in a while, in second place when you account for related entities.)

But they’re also infamous among patent practitioners for abandoning a lot of patents after they issue.  Like, a lot of patents.  IBM actually abandons nearly 60% of their patents post-issue.

Why would you pay money to get a patent and then get rid of it?

The answer lies in some arcane details of how much the USPTO gets paid and when.  Bear with me here, we’re going to talk about unit costs and maintenance fees.

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Recent posts

Despite Patentee Protestations, It Isn’t Expertise That’s Bringing Plaintiffs to Waco

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The meteoric rise of the Waco Division’s patent caseload is widely understood to be due to plaintiff-friendly policies on scheduling, transfer, and motions to dismiss. But recently, some patentees have taken a different tack.  They’ve claimed that the reason cases are headed there is because litigants want to take advantage of Judge Albright’s experience as…

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Federal Circuit Nominee: Judges Should Judge The Cases They Have, Not Seek Cases They Want To Judge

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Tiffany Cunningham, President Biden’s nominee to the Federal Circuit—the first nominee to that court in six years—is incredibly well qualified to join the bench of the court she once clerked for.  She’s spent her career litigating patent cases for plaintiffs and defendants, working on high-tech and life sciences cases, and she’s universally well-respected by all…

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An IDEA Whose Time Has Come

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Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will mark up the IDEA Act.  IDEA, sponsored by Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), stands for “Inventor Diversity for Economic Advancement.”  One of the problems with researching diversity and patents, much less diversity and innovation, is that there isn’t good data on who invents—there are all kinds of proxy metrics that…

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World IP Day: Promoting Progress

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Cross-posted on the Disruptive Competition Project. Today, April 26, is World Intellectual Property Day.  And in the U.S., Congress is granted the power to create copyrights and patents—two key forms of intellectual property—in the Constitution.  Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, grants Congress the power to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by…

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