In eagerly awaited news, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) determination that Personal Audio’s U.S. Pat. No. 8,112,504 is invalid based on an inter partes review petition from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). That’s right. The podcast patent is dead. And I feel fine. Stand(ing) Setting aside the merits of…
Tag Archive for inter partes review
A Blackbird in Many Forms
by Josh Landau • • 4 Comments
You might recall a few months ago I wrote about Blackbird Technologies, an NPE with a novel approach to patent litigation. Blackbird is a company owned by lawyers. It buys patents from patent owners, apparently with a share of any litigation wins flowing back to the owner. The lawyers who own Blackbird also litigate the…
Understanding The Questions Asked At The “Bad Patents” Hearing
by Josh Landau • • 2 Comments
The recent House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the Impact of Bad Patents on American Businesses addressed many of the points I made last week. But it also highlighted a few issues where there’s some dispute or simply a lack of understanding. In particular, I think that the hearing’s focus on the (1) “broadest reasonable interpretation”…
Comments to the USPTO on AIA Trial Procedures
by Josh Landau • • 1 Comment
On July 6, the Computer and Communications Industry Association submitted comments on America Invents Act (AIA) trial procedures in response to the PTO’s ongoing request for such feedback, most recently at the PTAB Judicial Conference in June. Our comments, briefly summarized, are that: The inter partes review (IPR) procedure has been successful in providing an…
The “Doubtful Validity” Type Of Case
by Josh Landau • • 1 Comment
“Death squads.” “Hanging judge[s].” A “reign of terror.” “Patent killing fields.” Even if we set aside the questionable taste shown in analogizing the review of patents to genocide, there’s some extremely overwrought rhetoric out there being used to describe the inter partes review (IPR) process. The rhetoric is based on a perception that the Patent…
IPR Statistics – Success Is Sector Specific
by Josh Landau • • 4 Comments
Yesterday, I published an extensive analysis of Senator Coons’ STRONGER Patents Act. As I said then, the bill would neuter the IPR process, removing any real reason to ever pursue one (assuming you could even file one after the changes to the estoppel, real party in interest, and standing provisions.) One of the reasons I’ve…
STRONGER Patents, WEAKER Innovation
by Josh Landau • • 8 Comments
Yesterday, Senator Coons introduced his STRONGER Patents Act. Senator Coons provided a section-by-section description of the bill, as well as the text of the bill. And after reading it, I have some concerns. Patent Progress previously covered Senator Coons’ STRONG Patents Act. Much of STRONG Patents wound up in STRONGER Patents, and our analysis back…
Should Abstract Ideas Be Unpatentable? The Answer Is A Snap
by Josh Landau • • 3 Comments
Tuesday, Kaldren LLC sued Snap. (According to RPX, Kaldren is affiliated with IP Edge, a notorious patent troll.) Kaldren sued over a set of expired patents on such wonderful ideas as: Printing out a machine readable symbol; Reading a machine readable symbol; Using an address in a machine readable symbol to retrieve information from that…
SCOTUS Taking Case On Partial Institution Of IPRs
by Josh Landau • • 0 Comments
One of the biggest changes coming out of the 2011 America Invents Act (AIA) was the creation of the inter partes review (IPR) procedure, which allows people to challenge the validity of patents after they’ve issued. Today, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether an IPR can be “instituted” on only some of the…
Patent Owners Don’t All Hate IPRs
by Matt Levy • • 1 Comment
Bloomberg BNA and AIPLA just released a nationwide survey of patent attorneys and agents asking about their experiences with inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board. Bloomberg BNA and AIPLA did a survey of attitudes towards inter partes review (IPR). Among attorneys representing patent owners, 48% said that they thought that over…