Good morning!
On Monday, Reuters reported that the International Trade Commission (ITCInternational Trade Commission) is taking steps to rein in frivolous litigation from patent trolls, by requiring “companies to prove upfront that they have a significant presence in the United States.” This is welcome news, as the ITCInternational Trade Commission can get abused by patent trolls. We will have a post all about the elusive ITCInternational Trade Commission soon, so stay tuned.
Two great opinion pieces came out this week. On Monday’s Timothy Lee from Washington Post’s Wonkblog had a post on the problem of abstract patents, in the context of the Ultramercial patent being upheld by the Federal CircuitSee CAFC, which the headline rightly called “one of the worst patents ever.” (Also just wanted to give a shoutout to Patent Progress reader Eric J Weibel, who commented on last Friday’s roundup about the Ultramercial v. Hulu opinion.) On Wednesday, Santa Clara law professor Colleen Chien had an article in Wired Opinion all about patent trolls, the problems they cause, and possible solutions.
Wednesday also featured a post by Brandon Bailey in the San Jose Mercury News tech blog Silicon Beat, which profiled Matt Levy and his optimism about proposed fixes to the patent system. Finally, yesterday Matt Levy came out with a post on the smartphone patent wars (remember those?) and privateering, complete with a Star Wars-inspired video introduction.
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