Source: https://www.patentdocs.org/2018/06/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:27:37+00:00

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will be offering the next webinar in its Patent Quality Chat webinar series from 12:00 to 1:00 pm (ET) on July 10, 2018. In the latest webinar, entitled "Improving Access to Global Patent Data," Nelson Yang, Acting Director of International Patent Business Solutions in the Office of International Patent Cooperation of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and Jocelyn Ram, Patent Business Analyst in the Office of International Patent Cooperation, will provide an overview of the Global Dossier concept and how the IP5 Offices (USPTO, EPO, JPO, KIPO, and SIPO) have been working together to provide additional services and functionalities. In particular, the new service, Citation List, will be highlighted to demonstrate its capabilities in prior art searching.
Additional information regarding this webinar can be found here. Instructions for viewing the webinar and additional information regarding the Patent Quality Chat webinar series can be found on the USPTO's Patent Quality Chat webpage.
The Rocky Mountain Regional Office and Technology Center (TC) 2600 will be holding a combined Customer Partnership Meeting from 8:15 am to 3:00 pm (MT) on July 17, 2018 at the Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Denver, CO. TC 2600 examination for patent applications including Communications.
The event is free, open to the public, and will be webcast to include viewing sessions at USPTO Headquarters in Alexandria, VA and USPTO regional offices in Dallas, Detroit, and San Jose. Those wishing to attend the meeting can register here. Additional information regarding the customer partnership meeting can be found here.
• Examine the ethical requirements for reviewing and signing documents and the role of non-legal staff members.
• Recent Rulings by the Court: Aqua, Regis Mohawk Tribe, and What Comes Next?
An agenda for the conference can be found here. A complete brochure for this conference, including an agenda, detailed descriptions of conference sessions, list of speakers, and registration form can be obtained here.
The registration fee is $2,295. Patent Docs readers are entitled to a 10% discount off of registration using discount code P10-999-PTD18. Those interested in registering for the conference can do so here, by e-mailing CustomerService@AmericanConference.com, or by calling 1-888-224-2480.
Patent Docs is a media partner of ACI's 4th Annual Post-Grant PTO Proceedings conference.
• Discover strategies for successfully and expediently handling sexual harassment problems in the workplace.
In addition, three pre-conference workshops will be offered on July 25, 2018, from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon, 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm, and 3:00 to 6:00 pm, respectively. The first workshop is entitled "'What I Wish I Had Known': Advice from Inspirational Life Science General Counsel," the second workshop is entitled "Networking as a Woman: Clear-Cut Tools for Enhancing Your Experience and Making it Count," and the third workshop is entitled "'POKERprimaDIVAS' Gain an Edge, Build Confidence, Develop Negotiating Skills – If you want to be in the game, you have to be at the table."
An agenda for the conference and additional information regarding the workshops can be found here. A complete brochure for this conference, including an agenda, detailed descriptions of conference sessions, list of speakers, and registration form can be obtained here.
The registration fee is $1,295 (conference alone), $400 ("What I Wish I Had Known" workshop), $199 each ("Networking As A Women" and "POKERprimaDIVAS" workshops), and $1,995 (All Access Pass: conference and all 3 Workshops). Patent Docs readers are entitled to a 10% discount off of registration using discount code P10-999-PTD18. Those interested in registering for the conference can do so here, by e-mailing CustomerService@AmericanConference.com, or by calling 1-888-224-2480.
Patent Docs is a media partner of ACI's 5th Annual Conference on Women Leaders in Life Science Law. In addition, Patent Docs notes that MBHB attorneys Alison Baldwin, Paula Fritsch, Lisa Hillman, Sarah Fendrick, and Jelena Janjic Libby will be attending this conference.
Oppedahl Patent Law Firm LLC will be offering a webinar on "Biotech/pharma subject-matter -- Patentability at the EPO and how to avoid pitfalls for US based applicants" on July 17, 2018 from 7:30 to 9:30 am (Mountain Time). Sandra Pohlman of df-mp (Munich, Germany) and Klaus-Peter Döpfer, Director Biotechnology, EPO will look at the patentability of biotech/pharma subject‑matter under the European Patent Convention (EPC) and discuss exceptions to patentability. The webinar will enable participants to draft claims that comply with the EPC encompassing subject-matter such as plants/animals, (stem) cells, micro‑organisms, methods of surgery and diagnosis, antibodies and nucleic acids and medical uses thereof, personalised medicine and dose regimens. The webinar will also deal with PCT applications as the basis for European applications, including possible pitfalls.
While there is no cost to participate in the program, advance registration is required. Those interested in attending the webinar can register here.
• What impact will recent decisions have on label language?
• What impact will recent decisions have on claim drafting?
• How do use codes fit in?
• What strategic considerations should patent owners keep in mind when labeling drugs?
Most software inventions are functional in nature. The focus is not on what the invention is so much as what it does. The same physical hardware can be programmed by way of software to carry out an infinite number of different operations. Thus, it is not uncommon for software inventions to be claimed as methods. But when such inventions are claimed from the point of view of hardware carrying out a method, the patentee runs the risk of the claims being interpreted under 35 U.S.C § 112(f) (pre-AIA § 112 paragraph 6) as being in "means-plus-function" form. This, of course, can effectively narrow the scope of the claims to embodiments disclosed in the specification and equivalents thereof. Also, such claims can be found invalid if the specification does not disclose sufficient structure to support the embodiments.
Zeroclick sued Apple in the Northern District of California, contending infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,818,691 and 8,549,443. The District Court concluded that the asserted claims invoked § 112(f), lacked the necessary structure, and were thus invalid. Zeroclick appealed.
second by the completion of a subsequent movement of said pointer (0) according to a specified movement generates a 'click' event, thereby triggering one or more functions within the GUI.
the user interface code is further configured to cause one or more selected operations, which includes one or more functions available to the user interface code of the device, to deactivate while the user's finger is touching one or more locations on the screen.
While construing the claims, the District Court stated that the features of a "program that can operate the movement of the pointer (0)" and "user interface code being configured to detect one or more locations touched by a movement of the user's finger on the screen without requiring the exertion of pressure and determine therefrom a selected operation" were properly interpreted under § 112(f).
To determine whether § 112, para. 6 applies to a claim limitation, our precedent has long recognized the importance of the presence or absence of the word 'means.' The failure to use the word 'means' creates a rebuttable presumption that § 112, ¶ 6 does not apply. But the presumption can be overcome, and § 112, ¶ 6 will apply, if the challenger demonstrates that the claim term fails to recite sufficiently definite structure or else recites function without reciting sufficient structure for performing that function.
Furthermore, "[w]hen evaluating whether a claim limitation invokes § 112, ¶ 6, the essential inquiry remains whether the words of the claim are understood by persons of ordinary skill in the art to have a sufficiently definite meaning as the name for structure." This inquiry is to consider factual evidence both intrinsic and extrinsic to the patent. The Federal Circuit's main beef with the District Court is that the latter failed to carry out the inquiry or make any factual findings.
Notably, neither of the features that the District Court interpreted under § 112(f) used the word "means," which gives rise to the presumption that § 112(f) does not apply. Nonetheless, "Apple argued that the limitations must be construed under § 112, ¶ 6, but provided no evidentiary support for that position . . . [a]ccordingly, Apple failed to carry its burden, and the presumption against the application of § 112, ¶ 6 to the disputed limitations remained unrebutted."
Similarly, the District Court also failed to rebut the presumption, as "its determination that the terms must be construed as means-plus-function limitations is couched in conclusory language" and relied on Apple's arguments without providing any supporting evidence for its conclusion.
Because the use of the phrase 'user interface code' provides the same 'black box recitation of structure' as the use of the word 'module' did in Williamson, and the claim language provides no additional clarification regarding the structure of the term, the Court concludes that 'user interface code' constitutes a means-plus-function term.
According to the Federal Circuit, the District Court erroneously "treated 'program' and 'user interface code' as nonce words, which can operate as substitutes for 'means' and presumptively bring the disputed claims limitations within the ambit of § 112." The appeals court found three distinct problems with doing so.
"First, the mere fact that the disputed limitations incorporate functional language does not automatically convert the words into means for performing such functions." Notably, many structural components or devices are named after the functions they perform.
"Second, the court's analysis removed the terms from their context, which otherwise strongly suggests the plain and ordinary meaning of the terms." Particularly, the terms "program" and "user interface code" were not used in the claim as nonce terms, but instead refer to "conventional graphical user interface programs or code, existing in prior art at the time of the inventions." And as explained in the specifications, the claimed invention was an improvement to such interfaces and code.
"Third, and relatedly, the district court made no pertinent finding that compels the conclusion that a conventional graphical user interface program or code is used in common parlance as substitute for 'means.'" The Federal Circuit suggested that use of a broader term, such as "module", in place of "program" and "user interface code" would have likely have invoked § 112(f).
On Friday, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Federal Circuit in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. Justice Thomas (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kagan) held that, based on the "focus" of 35 U.S.C. § 284 of the Patent Act (the general damages provision) when read in light of domestic infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(2) (barring exportation of components specifically adapted for a patented invention), a patent owner could recover lost foreign profits. The decision overruled the Federal Circuit's general practice of interpreting damages under § 271(f)(2) in the same fashion as § 271(a) (the general infringement provision, which does not allow patent owners to recover lost foreign profits).
The case arose over patent owner WesternGeco LLC's four patents relating to positioning systems for marine seismic streamer technology deployed behind ships to create three-dimensional maps of the ocean floor to facilitate natural resource exploration and management. See U.S. Patent No. 7,293,520; 7,162,967; 7,080,607; and 6,691,038. WesternGeco uses the technology to perform services for oil and gas companies based on these three-dimensional maps both domestically and abroad, but does not sell or license this technology.
In 2007, ION Geophysical Corp. began selling a competing system by manufacturing the system components in the U.S. and shipping them to companies to assemble abroad. Once assembled, ION's competing system performed services indistinguishable from WesternGeco's and thus was able to successfully compete with WesternGeco in foreign markets.
In 2009, WesternGeco sued ION in the Southern District of Texas for infringing all four patents under §§ 271(f)(1) and (f)(2). At trial, WesternGeco proved that it had lost at least ten specific survey contracts due to ION's infringement. After a three and a half week trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of WesternGeco, finding that ION had infringed all four patents under §§ 271(f)(1) and (2) and awarded $93.4 million in lost profits based on the foreign contracts and a reasonable royalty of $12.5 million for the patented article. ION's post-trial motion to set aside the $93.4 million in foreign lost profits portion of the verdict led to the instant appeal, where ION argued that WesternGeco could not recover damages for lost profits because § 271(f) does not apply extraterritorially.
The District Court denied the motion but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the award of lost-profits damages, citing its previous precedent in Power Integrations, Inc. v. Fairchild Semiconductor Int'l, Inc., 711 F. 3d 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2013), barring the recovery of lost foreign profits under § 271(a). Specifically, the majority of the appellate panel (Judges Dyk and Hughes) reasoned that § 271(f) should be interpreted similarly to how the Court had interpreted § 271(a), as both were "designed" to put patent infringers "in a similar position" under § 284. Judge Wallach dissented, noting that the majority's view was unduly rigid for the foreign impact of domestic infringement under § 271(f), as it barred the District Court from "considering foreign lost profits even when those lost profits bear a sufficient relationship to domestic infringement," which "encourages market inefficiency and threatens to deprive plaintiffs of deserved compensation in appropriate cases." WesternGeco successfully petitioned for certiorari.
Judge Wallach's criticism of the rigidity with which the Federal Circuit applied this rule, when read in context of what § 271(f)(2) was crafted to address (end-around foreign assembly and infringement of U.S.-exported components), was pervasive in the cert. petition and the proceedings before the Court. Of particular impact was the focusing of domestic infringement under § 271(f)(2) that led to domestic harm to U.S. patent owners in foreign markets. An important analogy that focused the Court's attention at oral argument (and one that may well have carried the day), was given by Zachary Tripp, Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, in which he argued that a hypothetical French tourist left unable to work in France due to injuries sustained while visiting the U.S. would still be able to recover damages under U.S. tort law—even though the lost wages would occur in France.
In line with this reasoning, as well as Judge Wallach's criticisms of the rigidity of the Federal Circuit's analysis of § 271(f)(2), the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit's decision below. In its decision, despite the "presumption against extraterritoriality" in the enforcement of federal statutes, the majority exercised its discretion to bypass the first prong of RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 136 S. Ct. 2090, 2101 (2016) ("whether the presumption against extraterritoriality has been rebutted"), and found under the second prong ("whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute"), that foreign lost profits due to domestic acts of infringement under § 271(f)(2) should not be categorically barred.
Specifically, the majority reiterated the facts presented and that "the focus of § 284, in a case involving infringement under § 271(f)(2), is on the act of exporting components from the United States." WesternGeco, at 7 (emphasis added). In this context, because the infringing act happens domestically, any lost profits (foreign or otherwise) based on that domestic infringement were merely a domestic application of § 284. Id. at 7-8 ("domestic infringement [under § 271(f)(2)] is 'the objec[t] of the statute's solicitude' in this context . . . [and t]he conduct in this case that is relevant to that focus clearly occurred in the United States . . . [t]hus, the lost-profits damages . . . were a domestic application of § 284").
Furthermore, in the majority's view, to receive adequate compensation for such domestic acts of infringement under § 284, patent owners such as WesternGeco can and should recover damages that "'plac[e] [the patent owner] in as good a position as he would have been in' if the patent had not been infringed"—i.e., "the difference between [its] pecuniary condition after the infringement, and what [its] condition would have been if the infringement had not occurred." Id. at 9. Thus, because WesternGeco demonstrated the loss of at least ten specific foreign contracts based on ION's domestic act of supplying the components that infringed WesternGeco's patents, the Court held that the foreign lost-profits damages that were awarded to WesternGeco were permissible—as a domestic application of § 284 vis-à-vis § 271(f)(2). Id. at 9-10.
The majority, however, emphasized the narrowness of the holding by expressly declining to address the permissibility of such damages due to extraterritorial inducement (i.e., the intersection of § 284 and § 271(f)(1)) and/or "the extent to which other doctrines, such as proximate cause, could limit or preclude damages in [this or other] cases." See, e.g., id. at 3 n.1, 7 n.2, and 9 n.3.
None of the current Supreme Court Justices can fairly be said to be particularly pro-patent; indeed, it seems that the Justices are more comfortable with the pervasive effect of antitrust principles, particularly academic ones, and their application to patent law analysis (see, e.g., FTC v. Actavis). Justice Gorsuch, the newest Justice, evinced the same penchant for construing patent law within the narrow confines of its antitrust boundaries in his dissent to Justice Thomas's majority opinion in WesternGeco LLC v. Ion Geophysical Corp., in his reasoning, his diction, and his partner in dissent, Justice Breyer (who authored, among other decisions, Actavis and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.).
The dissent is just slightly shorter than the majority opinion (albeit not by much), and in it Justices Gorsuch and Breyer take issue with the majority's decision permitting a patentee to be sued for damages for the use abroad of a patented article infringed under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(2). His language evokes the classic concerns about the effect of patents on competition, writing, inter alia, that "[a] U. S. patent provides a lawful monopoly" in the U.S. only, and that WesternGeco "assumes it could have charged monopoly rents abroad" based on its U.S. patent. "Permitting damages of this sort would effectively allow U. S. patent owners to use American courts to extend their monopolies to foreign markets," he warns, and this "would invite other countries to use their own patent laws and courts to assert control over our economy" (a legitimate worry if this is indeed the impact of the majority's decision). Justice Gorsuch believes the majority erred, despite the Congressional intent that § 271(f) impose patent infringement liability for acts occurring abroad that have the statutory predicate basis in activities occurring within the U.S.
As in the majority opinion, the dissent looks to other provisions of the patent statute for support for Justice Gorsuch's position. And of course the Justice finds such support, because but for the § 271(f) exception, the Patent Act is replete with limitations against extraterritorial extension of U.S. law, both implicit and explicit. The real issue between the majority and the dissent is whether the damages accruing from Ion Geographic's infringement find a patent law remedy. The majority believes that the predicate infringement under § 271(f)(2) entitles WesternGeco to those ancillary damages; Justices Gorsuch and Breyer do not.
The Justice points out that the Court has decided against permitting extraterritorial extensions of U.S. patent law before, all occurring before passage of § 271(f). These include Brown v. Duchesne, 19 How. 183 (1857) (infringement happening on board a ship on the high seas), despite unavailing argument to the contrary by the Solicitor General ("I am unpersuaded," Justice Gorsuch writes, in a footnote); Birdsall v. Coolidge, 93 U. S. 64 (1876); and Yale Lock Mfg. Co. v. Sargent, 117 U. S. 536 (1886) ("the leading case on lost profits damages"). Justice Gorsuch also rejects the argument that § 271(f)(2) provides an exception; the Justice thinks that the statute merely "modifies the circumstances when the law will treat an invention as having been made within the United States" but does not broaden the scope of activities for which a patentee can seek compensation in damages. The dissent characterizes as a "bedrock rule that foreign uses of an invention (even an invention made in this country) do not infringe a U. S. patent" (emphasis in the dissent) and that § 271(f)(2) does not (and cannot) change that.
Under the terms of the Patent Act, the developer commits an act of infringement by creating the prototype here, but the additional chips it makes and sells outside the United States do not qualify as infringement. Under WesternGeco's approach, however, the patent owner could recover any profits it lost to that foreign competition—or even three times as much, see §284— effectively giving the patent owner a monopoly over foreign markets through its U. S. patent.
This (over)application is an invitation for foreign patentees to act reciprocally against U.S. industries, creating infringement liability enforced by foreign courts that will harm the U.S. economy.
There is certainly some validity in Justice Gorsuch's apprehension of how the inferior courts might improperly expand the majority's opinion beyond its scope. That has certainly been the case regarding the Court's recent decisions on other provisions of the statute (see Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., for example). But in many ways this case is an outlier, wherein infringement of the claimed device gave the infringer the ability to compete with the patentee for services rather than for sales of the infringing article. And this distinction may make all the difference in whether Justice Gorsuch's apprehensions come to pass.
For the time being, one practical consequence of this decision is that U.S. patent owners may now recover foreign lost profits tied to domestic acts of infringement under § 271(f)(2).
 WesternGeco L.L.C. v. ION Geophysical Corp., 837 F.3d 1358, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (Wallach, J. dissenting), cert. granted sub nom, WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., 138 S. Ct. 734 (2018), and rev'd sub nom, WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., No. 16-1011, 2018 WL 3073503 (U.S. June 22, 2018).
 For further analysis on this point, see, e.g., Dennis Crouch, WesternGeco v. Ion Geophysical: Foreign Damages and a French Tourist, PatentlyO (April 17, 2018).
Practising Law Institute (PLI) will be holding its "Advanced Patent Prosecution Workshop 2018: Claim Drafting & Amendment Writing" on July 11-12, 2018 in New York, NY, on August 16-17, 2018 in San Francisco, CA, and on September 27-28, 2018 in Chicago, IL. Patent Docs author Donald Zuhn will chair and Patent Docs author Kevin Noonan will be presenting at the Chicago workshop.
A complete program schedule, including descriptions of the presentations and a list of speakers for each seminar can be found here.
The registration fee for each conference is $1,895. Those interested in registering for the conference can do so here.
• The relevance of the Read factors (Read Corp. v. Portec, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 1992)) for egregious behavior in light of the fact that enhancement needn't always follow a finding of willfulness.

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