Ali Sternburg
Ali Sternburg is Public Policy & Regulatory Counsel at the Computer & Communications Industry Association. After initially joining as a Legal Fellow in June 2011, she focuses on online copyright issues and other areas of intellectual property policy. She also works on DisCo (the Disruptive Competition Project). She received her J.D. in 2012 from American University Washington College of Law, where she was a Student Attorney in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, President of the Intellectual Property Law Society, Senior Symposium Chair and Senior Marketing Manager for the Intellectual Property Brief, and a Dean’s Fellow at the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property. She graduated from Harvard College in 2009 where she studied Government and Music, wrote her senior honors thesis on “Theoretical and Legal Views on U.S. Government Involvement in Musical Creativity Online,” and interned at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.
Recent Posts
June 14, 2013
Hi there! No, this week wasn’t quite as eventful as last week. (If you missed the big patent news, check out last week’s roundup.) But we still have some news you don’t want to miss.
First up, on Saturday June 8, our own Matt Levy’s Letter to the Editor was published in the New York Times, in which he explained the key takeaway of the administration’s proposal:
It’s important to understand the larger point of President Obama’s executive actions. The president has correctly identified software patents as the main fuel for the patent troll litigation wildfire. And he has proposed a reasonable solution: directing the Patent and Trademark Office to focus on limiting patents to what someone actually invented.
That refers to the functional claiming fix, which he explained in depth in a post last week. In a post yesterday, Matt Levy did a deep dive into another desirable reform, the expansion of the Covered Business Method (CBM) review program, found in Senator Schumer’s Patent Quality Improvement Act, and also in the President’s proposal. Senator Schumer also had a great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (paywall alert, sorry!) yesterday, where he explained the benefits of expanding CBM review:
If a troll knows he can no longer trap a defendant in expensive and lengthy litigation, his interest in the suit will diminish substantially. And American businesses can get back to the work of innovation and growth, rather than frivolous litigation defense.
This week, Matt Levy also did a line-by-line takedown of an op-ed in the Boston Globe by former Senator John Sununu, debunking all of his classic pro-troll arguments, like: “Patents Are a Constitutional Right”, “Sure, There’s Abusive Litigation, but Reform Is Hard. And Also Trial Lawyers!”, “Look! Over There!”, “But Universities!”, and “What About Individual Inventors?”
Also, although it’s an area of patents we don’t often cover on Patent Progress, I just wanted to point out that the Supreme Court’s Myriad decision came out yesterday, and SCOTUS unanimously held human genes aren't patentable. A few interesting excerpts are below:
To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention.
Groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy the §101 inquiry.
Did we miss something? Questions or suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment below, mention us on Twitter (@PatentProgress), or email us: patentprogress[AT]ccianet[DOT]org
June 7, 2013
Happy Friday, Patent Progress readers! Today was a big week for patent news. In case you missed it, on Tuesday the White House came out with a new plan to combat patent trolls — five executive actions and seven legislative proposals — as well as a new study from the Executive Office of the President. Our own Matt Levy had a post breaking down the Administration’s announcement — particularly the overlooked suggestion on “functional claiming” — that is a good starting point for getting up to speed. We’re excited about a lot of this, as are many business and consumer groups. Mashable’s Alex Fitzpatrick also had a great roundup of reactions to the announcement. Amusing coincidence alert: as Jeff John Roberts observed on GigaOM, Intellectual Ventures (subject of Matt Levy’s Dear Intellectual Ventures series) filed two new lawsuits on Tuesday.
On Monday Tim Wu came out with a great article in the New Yorker, provocatively entitled “How to Make War on Patent Trolls,” in which he discussed the Vermont AG’s new suit against patent troll MPHJ, and suggests FTC action. An excerpt:
It is time to declare total war on patent trolls. The federal government, and the states, should do everything they can to exterminate them and to make anyone regret getting into such crooked work. The existence of trolls is entirely a product of government: they abuse a government program (the patent law), and continue to exist only thanks to government inaction.
Finally, another recent piece of news is last weekend’s long-awaited follow-up episode of This American Life’s When Patents Attack! That, and the original from 2011, are worth a listen.
Did we miss something? Questions or suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment below, mention us on Twitter (@PatentProgress), or email us: patentprogress[AT]ccianet[DOT]org
May 6, 2013
Matt Levy, who you may remember from his guest post on Patent Progress in April, joined CCIA today, and will now be doing a lot of blogging on Patent Progress. More information about him is below, from CCIA's Press Release:
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has added to its strong intellectual property team by hiring Matthew Levy as Patent Counsel. Levy's legal background includes working for Hogan & Hartson; Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner LLP and most recently for Cloudigy Law, PLLC. He will handle legal, policy advocacy, and regulatory matters related to patents and be a lead blogger for CCIA’s Patent Progress.
Matt’s background brings unique qualifications. He has filed and prosecuted patents before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and he has first-hand experience in patent litigation, representing companies such as FedEx and Philips Electronics in U.S. District Courts. A number of those cases involved defending clients against patent trolls.
Before law school, Matt was a software engineer at IBM in Lexington, KY, as part of the team that developed and maintained Lotus Sametime, IBM’s real-time messaging and conferencing product. He is co-inventor on U.S. Patent Application 10/745,091, which was recently allowed by the PTO.
"We are excited to bring Matt on board. His background as a leading legal expert on patent law as well as a software developer brings an important skill set to our team as we continue the push for further reform of our malfunctioning patent system," said CCIA President & CEO Ed Black.
Matt graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center magna cum laude with the Order of the Coif, winning the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in Intellectual Property. He received a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky, where he won the Presidential Fellowship twice. His research at UK was in computational complexity theory and artificial intelligence. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern Maine.
Matt is still a software developer in his spare time. He developed an app for the iPad, Federal Local Rules, which is available on the App Store.
Matt has also been a professional blues guitarist, and he still plays in local blues jams most weeks.