With the American republic having just had its 245th birthday, let’s take a look at an agency that’s charged with regulating trade with foreign countries, encouraging American industries, and protecting American labor. I’ve previously criticized the International Trade Commission (ITC) for having gone from being a trade court protecting U.S. domestic industry to being a…
Tag Archive for statistics
Despite Patentee Protestations, It Isn’t Expertise That’s Bringing Plaintiffs to Waco
by Josh Landau •
The meteoric rise of the Waco Division’s patent caseload is widely understood to be due to plaintiff-friendly policies on scheduling, transfer, and motions to dismiss. But recently, some patentees have taken a different tack. They’ve claimed that the reason cases are headed there is because litigants want to take advantage of Judge Albright’s experience as…
Changes Reducing IPR Institution Rate Have Increased Litigation Frequency and Cost
by Josh Landau •
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s precedential opinions on discretionary denial are the subject of significant attention—a withdrawn attempt by the Trump Administration to codify discretionary denial as a rule, a request for comments on rulemaking by the Office, and a challenge to the practice of discretionary denial as illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act.…
New Report Confirms IPR Has Had Significant Positive Impacts On U.S. Industry
by Josh Landau •
A recent report, prepared by economists at the Perryman Group, confirms what has long been stated to be the case—inter partes review (IPR) has positively impacted the U.S. economy. In 2017, on the five-year anniversary of IPR, I calculated an estimate of the legal savings that IPR had generated from 2012 to 2017. I estimated…
Much Ado About Injunctions
by Josh Landau •
It’s become an article of faith among those complaining that patent reform has gone too far that the 2006 eBay case must be overturned—so much so that Sen. Coons has included it in both editions of his STRONGER Patents Act (one of a multitude of reasons that bill is bad policy.) But, as with so…
Christmas (Tree Patents) In July
by Josh Landau •
It’s the week of the Fourth of July and that means that it’s time to talk about Christmas trees. Or at least about patents for creating an electric connection between different sections of artificial trees. In a pair of decisions yesterday [1][2], both dealing with a dispute between two companies over artificial Christmas trees, the…
CCIA Letter to Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee Members On Questionable Studies
by Josh Landau •
At last week’s Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee hearing, questioners referenced two studies. The first, on multiple IPR petitions, was conducted by Steve Carlson and Ryan Schultz of Robins Kaplan. The second, on venture capital and § 101, was conducted by Prof. David Taylor of SMU. But, as Twain said in a somewhat more colorful form,…
FTC Hearings #4: Patents, Intellectual Property, and Innovation
by Josh Landau •
This post has been cross-posted to DisCo. Last week, the FTC held the fourth in its set of hearings focusing on “Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century.” The first day focused on a review of the current landscape of intellectual property and competition. The second day featured a variety of panels focusing on…
IPR And Alice Appear Responsible For Reduced Patent Litigation Costs
by Josh Landau •
Patent litigation costs have dropped significantly over the past few years, after a steady series of increases over the previous decade. This drop has sometimes been attributed to the use of inter partes review and to the Alice decision. The chart below, created based on data from the AIPLA Report of the Economic Survey, shows…
Additional Studies Show IPR Is Not A Threat To Hatch-Waxman Process
by Josh Landau •
Over a year ago, I took a look at a study of the success rate for inter partes reviews (IPRs) of pharmaceutical patents. That study showed that drug and biologic patents are significantly more likely to be upheld at the PTAB than the average patent. Recently, there’s been a wave of additional studies looking at…