Patent examiners have an extremely hard job. They’re given a patent application—which could be anywhere from a page long up to hundreds of pages, with patent claims ranging from a couple sentences to pages of description—and expected to understand the technology behind the application, look for any possible examples of prior art, describe how the…
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Innovation Is Alive And Well—Patenting Activity
by Josh Landau •
After examining the evidence for U.S. innovation as shown by startups and venture capital, and by R&D spending, I want to look at patenting activity—new patent applications and new patent grants. Particularly given accusations that the U.S. patent system has fallen behind other systems worldwide—accusations based on extremely questionable analysis—it’s worth looking at what patent…
Chamber of Commerce Patent System Ranking Is Built On A Shaky Foundation
by Josh Landau •
The Chamber of Commerce produces a yearly ranking of intellectual property systems around the world. This year, they dropped the U.S. patent system to 12th. If I thought their rankings had any merit, I might be concerned by this change. Unfortunately, their analysis is flawed and based on complete misrepresentations of reality. So, What Happened?…
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…
Patent Links and Articles To Read By The Fire
by Josh Landau •
With the weather as cold as it’s been in DC lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading by the fire. And what better way to use that time than to read about patents! For those of you, like me, for whom that sounds like fun—here’s a few things I’ve run across lately that…
The “Alice Storm” Is More Of A Drizzle
by Josh Landau •
You might be familiar with Bob Sachs’ term “Alice Storm.” Sachs and his co-authors over at Bilski Blog argue that “Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank has had a dramatic impact on the allowability of computer implemented inventions.” I disagree, and some newly released data from the Patent Office seems to back me up. Alice has…
The “Doubtful Validity” Type Of Case
by Josh Landau •
“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…