This op-ed was originally published at The Hill. The U.S. Supreme Court famously has the words “equal justice under the law” emblazoned above its front door. While the application of this phrase is subject to debate in the courtrooms, committee rooms, and kitchen tables of America, one point of agreement is that the law is supposed…
Tag Archive for patent transparency
USPTO Real Party in Interest Roundtable
by Brendan Coffman •
On Friday, January 11 the USPTO held a public roundtable to discuss proposed requirements for recordation of real-party-in-interest information throughout application pendency and patent term. The USPTO is considering imposing new requirements on patentees and assignees to better publicize the chain of ownership for patents. This is an important effort by the USPTO that mostly…
FTC Subpoena of Data Brokers May Be Good Model for FTC Study of PAEs
by Brendan Coffman •
On December 18, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has issued subpoenas to nine “Data Brokers” to provide the agency with information about how they collect and use data about consumers. Generally speaking, Data Brokers collect personally sensitive information about consumers from both public and non-public resources, and then sell this data to companies. The…
Intellectual Ventures’ Technology Speculation Is Not A Justification for Shell Companies
by Josh Lamel •
During last week’s Department of Justice/Federal Trade Commission workshop on Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), one of the panelists was Peter Detkin. Detkin is a founder of Intellectual Ventures, one of the PAEs we have been critical of on Patent Progress. In the run up to the workshop, Detkin authored a blog post attempting to issue…
Some Quick Reactions to the PAE Workshop
by David Balto •
Market participants, regulators, lawyers, and patent professionals gathered at the FTC yesterday for a very informative Workshop on Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs). We will be posting more this week about specific takeaways and action items for enacting true reform in this space, but I wanted to share some themes and reactions from the event: More…
USPTO Should Be Applauded for Notice on Patent Transparency
by Josh Lamel •
In a round of good news, the USPTO has published a notice that it will be holding a roundtable on January 11, 2013 to look into regulations to “require greater public transparency concerning the ownership of patent applications and patents.” The deadline for requesting to participate in the roundtable is December 21, 2012, and the deadline…