Source: http://techrights.org/2018/02/11/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 08:24:04+00:00

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THE existence of software patents at the USPTO gradually becomes more of a legacy. Sure, new ones continue to be granted, but few are asserted in a court of law. Some of them are regarded/considered to be next to worthless.
But the impact of today’s decision may be further-reaching than the other three. At the very least, it provides a degree of clarity as to the evidentiary standard applicable to a § 101 challenge on summary judgment. This may result in the USPTO having to update its § 101 guidance for examiners and the PTAB.
No, the same can be said for other sections. All that the court said was, sufficient evidence needs to be provided. That’s all.
“…Even the US government strives to eliminate what it perceives to be software patents…”In another long article (published at 11:20 PM by Joseph Herndon) the same site said that the “U.S. Government Fails in Attempt to Invalidate U.S. Patents under § 101″ (sounds promising for them, at least on the surface).
In a bit of an ironic outcome, the U.S. government was unsuccessful in invalidating U.S. patents under § 101. It seems odd that the government issued the patents on the one hand, and later, tried to invalidate them.
Plaintiff, Science Applications International Corp. (“SAIC”), claimed that the U.S. government infringed four patents by entering into contracts with plaintiff’s competitors for the procurement of specialized heads up displays (“HUD”) and night vision goggles that allegedly use SAIC’s patented technology. Defendant, the United States, moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), contending that Plaintiff’s patents claim ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
The patents at issue here are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,787,012; 8,817,103; 9,229,230; and 9,618,752. The four patents form two patent families due to the interrelatedness of the applications.
These aren’t software patents. They involve actual hardware. So ascribing this to a § 101 failure is misleading at best; this was a poor defense strategy/argument. We see lots of those.
“…the same court everyone likes to cite in relation to Berkheimer v HP has just eliminated another bogus patent (again using 35 USC § 101/Alice)”Remember that just because a defendant invokes § 101 does not guarantee success. Sometimes § 101 just isn’t relevant at all.
If you want an example of the kind of patent-eligibility question that is now easy to resolve under the Alice abstract idea test, look to the Federal Circuit’s non-precedential decision in Move, Inc. v. Real Estate Alliance, No. 2017-1463 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 1, 2018) (opinion by Judge Stoll, joined by Judges Lourie and Wallach). In this case, the court affirmed a lower court’s summary judgment of invalidity under 35 USC § 101 of claims of two patents directed to computerized methods for locating available real estate, i.e., property for purchase.
The Court strictly followed the Alice/Mayo test for section 101, and noted that this test is not concerned with whether an artisan skilled in the art can perform the method claimed by the patent nor whether the claim language is sufficiently definite, novel, or non-obvious, but rather whether the character of a claim as a whole is directed to a patent-ineligible subject matter. Taken on the face of the claims and the specification, the Court found that SAIC’s patents combine existing computer technology, sensors, and calculations in an unconventional way in order to reach a solution to the problem of alignment and consistently accurate display. Because SAIC did not stop at the concept of superimposition (in the abstract) but instead provided a solution for achieving accuracy and consistency in image registration, SAIC’s claims are not directed to an abstract idea.
That’s just more of the usual from CAFC. It’s an Alice/Mayo test. More such examples were mentioned in recent days.
“PTAB Reversed Examiner’s 101 Rejection of Robotic Software Claims,” to name one example (but this is merely an examination stage refutation). A much higher level decision wound up as usual: “Zouli v Google (Fed. Cir. 2018); 101/CBM Case; CAFC Affirmed PTAB” (goodbye bogus patent).
“Another showing of disdain for the legal system or for justice itself?”Earlier today Patently-O was bashing rejection of patents using cartoons (those are typically anti-Alice). Another showing of disdain for the legal system or for justice itself? Every lost patent is a tragedy? Some politicians say “corporations are people” and patent lawyers certainly act as though “patents are people”. Maybe one day they’ll carry around billboards that say “patent lives matter”.
The decision would look like a good candidate for a civil action challenge or appeal – except that the PTAB also found the claims obvious.
So what? That’s justice. It’s not “death squads” as the maximalists want us to believe. It’s just an invalidation of mere patents (or pieces of paper). No life or death at stake. Yet they use words like “kill”.
“Quite frankly, we don’t expect academic/scholarly honesty from these people. They’re in this occupation for the money, not principles.”At least he didn’t call that “Climate Change” like Dennis Crouch did (perhaps hoping to insinuate, as before, that patent rejection is the moral/scientific equivalent of climate change denial).
A little less than a year after finding that claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,474,159, directed to an inertial tracking system, were patent-eligible under the Alice abstract idea test, the Federal Circuit has affirmed a decision of the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that claims of the ’159 patent have not been shown to be obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Elbit Systems of America, LLC. v. Thales Visionix, Inc., No. 2017-1355 (Fed. Cir. Feb 6, 2018) (precedential) (opinion by Judge Wallach, joined by Judges Moore and Stoll).
The Federal Circuit sided with the patent owner, whose expert had explained the benefits of the two-step-method over the three-step method. And arguments that the PTAB improperly failed to acknowledge expert testimony that one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood prior art as disclosing the recited integration were merely an attempt to create legal error by looking at PTAB statements in isolation.
In its IPR final decision, the PTAB sided with the patentee – holding that Elbit had failed to prove that the challenged claims of Thales patent were obvious. On appeal, the Federal Circuit has affirmed – holding that “substantial evidence” supported the finding.
On appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the PTAB was the best position to determine expert credibility and thus declined to disturb those credibility determinations. Trs. of Columbia Univ. v. Illumina, Inc., 620 F. App’x 916, 922 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“The PTAB [i]s entitled to weigh the credibility of the witnesses.”) The challenger’s attorneys attempted to support their case with an explanation that PHOSITA would understand the meaning the prior art – That argument was rejected on appeal, however, as attorney argument rather than evidence based. Rather, to make the argument, the party should have actually presented evidence on the level of understanding of a person of skill in the art.
“We are still hoping that one day those loopholes too will be closed and patents granted owing to these loopholes be voided (like patents on plants and seeds in Europe).”Here in Europe and also in places like India and New Zealand loopholes were intentionally crafted to enable patenting of software by misportrayal thereof. Just claiming some algorithm to be executable/runnable on some particular machine does not change the fact that it’s abstract.
THE patent microcosm isn’t used to being publicly challenged. It is not accustomed to refutation. It just pays money to dominate the news feeds and spread its delusional vision. The EPO does this in Europe (because Battistelli has no qualm about corrupting media), but in the US it’s not the USPTO but the patent microcosm which does all this. This post is a quick debunking.
“The Federal Circuit is not the US Supreme Court, so whether that “sets new rules for fact finding” remains to be seen (in practice).”Important statement or important for the patent microcosm statement? Those two things aren’t the same.
The Federal Circuit is not the US Supreme Court, so whether that “sets new rules for fact finding” remains to be seen (in practice). A patent maximalist wrote: “The Fed. Cir. Held Today that the PTAB Does Indeed Need Facts, Not Just Official Notice, to Make a 101 Case” (he links to a site of a literal patent troll).
“Then came (separately from the above) the patent trolls themselves, attacking academics like Brian J. Love and his colleagues, who has just released this new paper about PTAB.”Notice the above headline. They maliciously imply that the courts have thus far rejected facts. That’s how patent trolls and extremists prefer to think of it.
No, SCOTUS belatedly (decades late) dealt with the issue and did the right thing. Sure, patent trolls aren’t happy about it, but nobody is happy about patent trolls, either.
He’s basically ranting about other things, still upset that PTAB eliminates many software patents. What we have here is a proponent of lawless patent trolls who use bogus patents (which PTAB tackles) for blackmail. There have been all sorts of other attacks on PTAB from his account this past week, e.g. [1, 2, 3], not to mention veiled advocacy of software patents. His online friend was all over Berkheimer v HP [1, 2], as well as another precedential new decision. What pretty much all the above have in common is that they make it about § 101, striving to almost cast it “irrelevant” and in need of deprecation.
THERE’S nothing new when it comes to PTAB bashing. It’s always the same people and we know what they are after. They want a trolls-friendly USPTO and they also lobby for the UPC along with EPO management (UPC would help patent trolls in Europe). We’re talking about sites like Watchtroll and Patently-O, which link to one another’s PTAB bashing. They try to create scandals even where none exists.
And for goodness sakes, don’t make any admissions! Admissions are unnecessary. Anything you may want to say in order to set up an argument you plan to make later can be argued later without making comparisons or unnecessary statements about the prior art in your patent application.
My guess is many celebrated inventors would be unceremoniously removed from the Hall of Fame if they were to have their patents reviewed as part of a quality enhancement program the USPTO calls the PTAB.
There are aspects other than age (gender and ethnicity) that are often exploited to construct such arguments. They try to associate patent maximalism with opportunity and diversity. Such nonsense from Watchtroll has become very common. They’re incredibly dishonest. How many inventors and startups were saved from trolls owing to PTAB? They don’t like to even entertain or discuss such an aspect.
SSH Communications must not be mistaken for the FOSS-centric Secure SHell (SSH). They just piggyback the brand. They did not invent and do not develop SSH. So good riddance to their lawsuit, no matter how evil Sony may be. These are software patents.
Miami-based UnitedCorp has taken on photo-sharing platform Instagram in a patent infringement lawsuit filed at the Federal Court of Canada.
According to an announcement released on Friday, February 2, UnitedCorp owns Canadian patent number 2,887,596, called “User content sharing system and method with automated external content integration”.
THE USPTO has a new Director. He comes from the patent microcosm and we therefore keep our hopes rather low. Thankfully, however, technology companies already urge him to shield PTAB, knowing perhaps that cynical oil giants pursue PTAB's abolishment. It’s not just oil giants, but it’s typically entities that are eager to destroy disruptive technology for litigation bucks.
Patent litigators are closely studying a new “improper Markush grouping” section that was quietly slipped into the latest revision of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last month, just days prior to the Senate confirmation of Andrei Iancu as the new director. The MPEP functions as an instruction manual for patent examiners, providing the current procedures examiners are required or authorized to follow in the examination of patent applications.
So this actually predates Andrei Iancu by a few days and is therefore unlikely to be his idea/manifestation. This isn’t post-grant like Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) — a subject explored by Patent Docs and by Watchtroll a few days ago (mostly just the usual PTAB rants, this time from David Thibodeau).
PTAB is, in general, ‘creeping in’ when examiners wrestle with applicants, when entities like trolls threaten litigation and also when there’s ongoing litigation (even calls for embargo through the ITC). PTAB keeps broadening its scope and its workload too is increasing. This, suffice to say, helps raise the bar for patents.
A few days ago, United for Patent Reform said that the CCIA “provides some suggestions for the new @USPTO Director, Andrei Iancu, to put at the top of his to-do list,” citing a blog post we wrote about before. The CCIA was far too soft and ‘diplomatic’; it did nothing in an attempt to stop this patent microcosm ‘coup’, instead sucking up to Iancu before his actual appointment (Iancu has history with Trump).
One is a banker, the other a lawyer. No scientists allowed in patent offices anymore?
The EFF has not said a thing yet. It never even mentioned Iancu at all (as far as we can see).
On Monday the Senate confirmed Andre [sic] Iancu as director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an office that most Americans barely know exists but that will deeply influence how well our country does at what it has long done better than anyone else — innovate.
An efficient, well-functioning patent system is among America’s most powerful levers for maintaining its global pre-eminence in R&D investment and productivity. But in this age of ever more sophisticated and complex technologies, the Patent Office is sure to make mistakes. Iancu’s challenge will be to maintain and strengthen two essential pillars of patent quality: efficient post-issuance review to weed out bad existing patents and rigorous examination of patent applications to strengthen the quality of new approvals.
YESTERDAY we published a couple of articles [1, 2] about how “China!” gets used as the catch-all excuse for patent maximalism. This upcoming webcast from Practising Law Institute (PLI) will, as usual, be about China. The title of it is “Chinese Patent Developments” and it’s not hard to imagine that they will say there.
As we noted last month, Koch-funded (Big Oil) think tanks are pushing hard against PTAB, i.e. they strive to lower patent quality at the USPTO in order to foster litigation. China is their excuse. 4 days ago Watchtroll said that a “Letter to President Trump on China IP Probe is Latest Sign of Conservative Support for Private IP Rights” (3 words that just allude vaguely to things like patents).
What conservative pundits? These ones?
As it turns out, there’s another upcoming event (a “seminar” from patent maximalists in New Jersey) and among the topic covered they have Oil States Energy Services, LLC v Greene’s Energy Group, LLC (a SCOTUS case regarding PTAB).
We can just about imagine what agenda will be pushed there. Big Oil companies certainly seem to be on the hunt for patents and lawsuits. It’s not entirely surprising.
Halliburton Co. isn’t content to limit its battle for market share with Schlumberger Ltd. to the oil field these days. It’s opened a new front in an unlikely place: the patent office.
THE concept of patents is pretty much universal, but not all patents are created equal. There are different sorts of patents (“families”) pertaining to or belonging to different domains. Speaking of them all as though they’re the same is the recipe for meaningless debates. Not all patents, for example, are a matter of life or death. Ethical aspects apply in some cases; sometimes pure economics.
Shares in Scancell Holdings PLC rose sharply on Friday morning as the company said its Moditope immunotherapy platform is to be granted a European patent.
Scancell shares were up 11% on Friday at 13.54 pence per share.
How good is this European Patent (EP)? Well, there’s lack of certainty under Battistelli, so Scancell Holdings PLC might be the next Forward Pharma (a one-day collapse).
What we have here is a cross-continental fight taken up to the ITC and failing, having heavily relied on a patent from the USPTO.
We’ve written previously about ex parte decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) affirming patent eligibility rejections that seem to be inconsistent with the USPTO’s Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance. Apparently, applicants should be wary about appealing any rejection of a diagnostic method claim, because the PTAB may enter sua sponte patent eligibility rejections even if the examiner did not make a § 101 rejection.
In the litigation, Hospira argued both (1) that the MedCo patents were invalid and (1) that Hospira’s proposed generic Angiomax drug would not infringe. The district court sided with MedCo on the first point (patents not invalid) but with Hospira on the second (patents not infringed). On appeal, the Federal Circuit has affirmed the non-infringement ruling but reversed on the on sale issue. The interesting portion is the on sale question.
Benjamin Anger and Jacob R. Rosenbaum wrote about it some days ago (very detailed).
“They get what they paid for. It’s pure lobbying/marketing.”As one can expect, the litigation ‘industry’ isn’t particularly happy about that. Many patents are being invalidated, which must be causing decrease in demand for patents and lawsuits (their main “offerings” or “services” or “products”).
There’s a “Pharma and Biotech IP Summit” being organised by IAM and as one can expect, the bill for this lobbying event is being footed by the main participants. “Finnegan is a Gold sponsor of IAM Magazine,” it says. There’s therefore a paid-for ‘talk’ (marketing). This not only helps Finnegan control the ‘debate’; it also keeps IAM on their ‘good side’ (maybe IAM will give Finnegan some more of these bogus ‘rewards’ or ‘endorsements’). “Jen Roscetti will present “The View from the United States” at @IAM_magazine’s #Pharma and #Biotech #IP Summit in London,” Finnegan wrote the other day. They get what they paid for. It’s pure lobbying/marketing.
“Either way, “Pharma and Biotech IP Summit” is an IAM sham. It’s sponsored by and dominated by the patent microcosm.”With all honesty, more people ought to speak out about IAM’s “business model”, which involves collecting cash, pushing agenda (in the form of ‘news’ or staged ‘debates’), offering bogus ‘endorsements’, and issuing 'studies' for people like Battistelli (bolstering his lies). There’s nothing benign about it. IAM is effectively a think tank and even some less senior insiders must have realise it. Several of them left, only to be replaced by relatively young and inexperienced writers. Tim Lince, it should be noted, is still listed as a writer at IAM, but he wrote nothing this year and only 1 (one!) blog post last year. Many writers left and perhaps associating with people Battistelli (as we last noted last night) won’t save them but only cause further harm.

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