Roundup of This Week’s Patent News: June 21 Edition

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Welcome, new readers who are joining us after yesterday’s event and big announcement!  Yesterday at an event co-sponsored by CCIA (which hosts this blog) and AAI (the American Antitrust Institute), FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez announced her intent to have the FTC do a 6(b) study on patent assertion entities, as the New York Times had predicted.  (Two weeks in a row with Patent Progress coverage in the NYT, oh hey!)  This event was Ramirez’s first public presentation as FTC Chair, and her remarks were very promising for fixing the systemic problems of the patent system.  As Mark Lemley noted, “the FTC focused on privateering and functional claiming, not just trolls.”  Ramirez’s conclusion and key takeaway was that “PAEs exploit underlying problems in the patent system to the detriment of innovation and consumers.”  Check out the #PAEantitrust hashtag for more coverage and live-tweeting.  A few other lines that were tweeted by several fellow live-tweeters were that PAEs are largely a symptom of underlying flaws in the patent system [@katmeresin, @eteichert, @sidhubaba], and that any benefits of PAEs are outweighed by their costs [@PatentProgress, @LPelican, @MarkBoTech].

Ramirez’s announcement was reported in a variety of sources, including Reuters, Bloomberg Business Week, AllThingsD, GigaOM, Adweek, The Hill, Ars Technica, and IT News.  In addition to the keynote from FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, yesterday’s event also included a panel with Michael Carrier, Professor, Rutgers School of Law; Bert Foer, President, The American Antitrust Institute; Lisa Kimmel, Attorney Advisor, Office of Chairwoman Ramirez, Federal Trade Commission; Frances Marshall, Special Counsel for Intellectual Property, Legal Policy Section, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division; Paul Saraceni, Senior Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Officer, RPX Corporation; and Ed Black, President and CEO, Computer & Communications Industry Association as moderator.

What else happened this week?  Intellectual Ventures filed more lawsuits, as reported by the Essential Patent Blog.  And just so you’re caught up on the other recent Patent Progress posts since last week’s roundup, Matt Levy took on ‘concern trolls’ expressing ‘concern’ about reforming covered business methods (CBM) review in a post that received the “Most effective use of music videos in a blog post about patent trolls” award from a commenter.  And last Friday afternoon, Brian Kahin came out with a #longread on the White House’s recent proposals.

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

Ali Sternburg

Ali Sternburg

Ali Sternburg is Senior Policy 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.

  • Eric J Weibel

    The decision in Ultramercial v. Hulu is in for the Federal Circuit.

    See: http://www.altageneral.com/ultramercial-v-hulu-decision.php

    The decision itself is not good. The court reversed the lower court decision holding the software patent invalid. But the decision was probably panel-dependent. And it may setup well for a Supreme Court appeal. It is more likely that this will be appealed than CLS v. Alice because I think the patent-holder in that case probably knows they won’t fair to well at the Supreme Court.