There’s been a lot of discussion about Qualcomm’s recent Chinese injunction against Apple. But that’s a distraction—the real story is, and remains, the trio of lawsuits against Qualcomm for anti-competitive practices that will be conducted over the first half of 2019. First, in January, the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit. Next, in April, Apple’s lawsuit. And…
Tag Archive for software patent
Increase In § 101 Rejections Due Almost Entirely To Rejected Business Methods
by Josh Landau •
Prof. Colleen Chien, along with her student Jiun-Ying Wu, recently published an analysis of the impact of § 101 on patent prosecution. While their analysis clarifies which art units are impacted by § 101 decisions like Alice and Mayo, the published article doesn’t clearly answer the question of how each art unit contributes to the…
Getting The Future Backwards: Iancu’s Comments On § 101 At IPO
by Josh Landau •
This morning, Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Director Iancu gave remarks at the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) Annual Meeting. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given IPO’s efforts to legislatively overturn the Supreme Court’s recent cases reinforcing the bar on patents on products of nature and abstract ideas, Director Iancu’s remarks focused on patentable subject matter—§ 101. While…
NPE Resurrects Canceled Patent To Go After Restaurants
by Josh Landau •
A few years ago, a company called MacroSolve stopped creating products and started creating patent litigation. Its tool was a patent that claimed to cover mobile questionnaires. But after several of their targets decided to fight back, filing an ex parte reexamination request that wound up cancelling all of the claims of its patent, MacroSolve…
More Evidence Is In—Alice Has Been Good For R&D
by Josh Landau •
Tuesday marked one milestone—utility patent number 10,000,000. But it also marked a far more important milestone—the 4-year anniversary of the Alice decision. Looking back on those 4 years, Alice has been a clear success in eliminating patents that never should have issued. It’s had a very limited impact on patent prosecution, with most applications entirely…
Icon Patents Shouldn’t Entitle The Patent Owner To Profits On The Whole Device
by Josh Landau •
An important part of the Apple v. Samsung trial is about the exterior casing design patents. But those aren’t the only design patents at issue—the other design patent in the case covers a colorful grid of icons with particular characteristics like rounded corners and variable icons: As a reminder, a design patent covers a “new,…
Courts Will Swipe Left On Tinder’s Suit Against Bumble
by Josh Landau •
Tinder swiped right on a lawsuit against Bumble last week, but their lawsuit has more than just surface flaws. Tinder’s lawsuit alleges a number of forms of intellectual property violations—but basically, it comes down to claiming that they own the idea and the design of swiping, especially for a dating app. A Brief History Of…
Innovation Is Alive And Well—R&D
by Josh Landau •
As part of Patent Progress’ series on innovation in the United States, we are examining ways to measure innovation. One useful metric, measuring the investment being made in the creation of new and innovative technologies, is research and development spending. This metric tends to show the investment in innovation, in particular by larger companies. And…
The Alice Drizzle—Barely Even Noticeable
by Josh Landau •
At the end of the year, I took a look at whether Alice really had a significant impact on patents as a whole. The answer was that Alice simply doesn’t affect that many patent applications. But several important questions were left unanswered. I also wanted to know whether the affected applications are really being affected…
Multiple Petitions? More Like Multiplicative Claiming And Assertion
by Josh Landau •
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…