One of the criticisms frequently leveled against inter partes reviews (IPRs) is that people file multiple IPRs; they file two, three, four IPR petitions in order to harass a patent owner. Complaints notwithstanding, the data shows just how infrequent a practice this is. The data also shows that the blame for the occasions when this…
Tag Archive for patent quality
It’s The Claim Language—Except When It Isn’t
by Josh Landau • • 1 Comment
Last week, the Federal Circuit handed down a decision in Visual Memory v. NVIDIA, deciding that the Visual Memory1 cache patents are patent-eligible under § 101. Unfortunately, in doing so the Federal Circuit makes the same mistake they’ve made a few times now—they’ve looked at the specification, not the claims, in order to justify finding…
The PTO’s § 101 Summary Report
by Josh Landau • • 2 Comments
One of the most important developments over the past few years is the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank – a decision that articulated a distinction between patent-eligible inventions, and patent-ineligible abstract ideas. The Alice decision has enabled many companies, including small businesses, to defend themselves from baseless patent infringement lawsuits based on…
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…
Bad Patents, Bad Results
by Josh Landau • • 4 Comments
Tomorrow morning, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet is holding a hearing on “The Impact of Bad Patents on American Businesses.” The impact of bad patents is a topic worth taking some time to examine, because it isn’t just about the direct impact from abusive troll litigation—bad patents…
The “Doubtful Validity” Type Of Case
by Josh Landau • • 2 Comments
“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…
ContentGuard: Validity and Privilege
by Josh Landau • • 0 Comments
Monday I summarized the history of the ContentGuard cases, and yesterday I described the process of claim interpretation. Today, we’ll turn to an issue that we’ve focused on recently, patent validity. ContentGuard convinced the jury that the ContentGuard patents were valid—can they convince the Federal Circuit? Abstract Ideas We’ve written a lot about patents on…
GAO Report on Patent Quality Summarized (Cartoon)
by Matt Levy • • 1 Comment
The GAO recently did a study on patent quality. It found that part of the reason so many patents are low quality is the pressures patent examiners are under to allow more patents.
GAO Identifies Ways for PTO to Improve Patents
by Matt Levy • • 2 Comments
The Government Accountability Office recently released two reports making recommendations on how to improve patent quality.