Source: http://271patent.blogspot.com/2010/02/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 18:43:54+00:00

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Who Cares About Health Care Reform? Patent Reform is Back!
Senate committee has struck a rough compromise on a controversial patent reform bill that has been stalled for several months while Congress has debated health care. A Senator leading the charge for reform suggested the compromise keeps the draft bill alive by balancing calls for lowering damages in patent infringement suits with calls for improving the quality of patents.
"Today we can report that we have reached a tentative agreement in principle that preserves the core of the compromise struck in committee last year," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaking at an executive business meeting.
Apparently, the bill is a tweaking of the March 2009 copromise over damage apportionment. According to Leahy, "I expect that we will be able to release details as they are finalized in the coming days, after consultation with the House." Apparently, Director Kappos was involved in reaching the present agreement. It's still not clear when the draft patent reform bill will come to the Senate floor for debate or, if passed, how the bill would be reconciled with one in an earlier stage in the House.
Intellectual Ventures LLC continues to sell some of its vast patent holdings, recently selling patents to two companies that incorporated in Marshall, Texas, a favored venue for litigious patent-holding companies known as patent trolls.
WebVention LLC acquired five patents in November from Ferrara Ethereal LLC, an IV shell company. Headquartered in Marshall, WebVention is licensing one of the patents, which covers "structures and methods for organizing, presenting, and accessing information.
InMotion Imagery Technologies LLC, also of Marshall, acquired three patents that cover picture-based video-indexing technology from a different IV shell in November.
While neither company has filed suit (yet), many people get nervous when IV sells patents, as this strategy is part and parcel of the notorious "catch and release" tactic used by patent aggregators, where patents are obtained and shopped around for a limited period of time. After the time passes, the patents are then shopped to more aggressive holding companies for enforcement, while IV holds on to a "back-end" interest in the licensing revenue.
While InMotion does not have a website, WebVention does, and it can be viewed here (link).
See also earlier coverage of IV at the Prior Art Blog, including "Is Intellectual Ventures revving up its lawsuit machine? Will we know when it does?"
[R]ather than providing an original, complete description of Dr. Hannon's work, [the prosecuting attorney] instead relied upon copying extensive portions of text -- essentially verbatim -- from a prior patent application (WOI99132619) published by a team led by another researcher in the RNAi field, Dr. Andrew Fire (collectively, "Fire"), to at least, in part, describe Dr. Hannon's inventions. About one half of the "Detailed Description of Certain Preferred Embodiments" found in the three earliest filed Hannon Applications consists of text copied from the Fire application. As described below, [the prosecuting attorney] continued to rely upon this text to describe Dr. Hannon's inventions, and in particular, the shRNA technology that is the subject of the pending Hannon Applications. By relying extensively on the copied text, [the prosecuting attorney] failed to fully describe and distinguish Dr. Hannon's inventions from the different technology invented by Fire.
During the course of prosecution, [prosecuting attorney] filed numerous follow-up continuation and continuation-in-part ("CIP") applications, allowing several opportunities to properly re-draft the Hannon Applications in such a way that relied on an original description of Dr. Hannon's own work to accurately describe the shRNA technology that Dr. Hannon invented. Instead, [prosecuting attorney] continued to rely upon the text copied from the Fire application, which falsely implied that Dr. Hannon's shRNA technology was either something that Fire invented or was suggested by the Fire application.
[Prosecuting attorney's] failure to provide an adequate description of Dr. Hannon's technology in these applications seriously compromised the ability of these applications, in particular the '557 application, to serve as priority support for Dr. Hannon's patent claims. This fact has deprived CSHL of the opportunity to obtain allowance of claims covering Dr. Hannon's inventions entitled to the respective filing dates of these applications, based on the support from these applications.
Accordingly, the plaintiff is seeking "lost licensing opportunities for the Hannon technology, which is estimated to be worth no less than $36,500,000 to $81,500,000; and  disgorgement of all attorneys' fees paid by CSHL to R&G since 2001, which is estimated to be no less than $1,400,000."
“I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said"
- in the 3 most recent election cycles, IV contributed more than $1 million to Democratic and Republican candidates and committees.
[I]nvention’s stepchild status is reflected in the way it’s typically funded, which I call the charity model. The entities that provide the vast majority of research funding to U.S. universities—mostly government agencies like the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense, along with private donors—do so without any expectation of a financial return. In other words, research grants are gifts, not investments.
Hyatt filed for an application in the USPTO that was rejected for lack of adequate written description and lack of enablement, among other reasons. The BPAI upheld the rejections.
Hyatt appealed the rejection by filing a district court action under 35 U.S.C. § 145 against the Director. During the district court proceedings, Hyatt tried to introduce a declaration with new descriptions to support his filed claims, but the district court denied the submission, stating that Hyatt had an “affirmative duty” or “obligation” to disclose this evidence to the PTO earlier in the process. On appeal, the Federal Circuit upheld the district court, finding that Hyatt "could have" submitted the evidence earlier, but didn't. As a result, the declaration was properly excluded.
In this case, the majority blurs the line between an appeal pursuant to § 141 and the civil action of § 145. The admissibility of new evidence is exactly what distinguishes § 145 from § 141. “We must be vigilant to preserve to patent applicants the alternative procedures that the law provides, and to preserve the historical distinction between them.” Fregeau, 776 F.2d at 1041 (Newman, J., concurring-in-part). The legislative history and Supreme Court precedent make clear that the hallmark distinction is the admissibility of “all competent evidence,” “to build up a new record,” “to start de novo in court,” “and file testimony bringing in evidence that they could have brought in before [the PTO] but did not bring in before.” This evidence, admissible in this civil action, should be governed as the Supreme Court indicated by “equity practice and procedure,” i.e., the Federal Rules of Evidence and Civil Procedure.
Since only the presence of new evidence invokes the de novo standard of review (otherwise the district court will give the Board fact findings substantial evidence deference, see Fregeau, 776 F.2d at 1038), the majority’s decision in this case makes the § 145 action virtually indistinguishable from an appeal under § 141. This version of a “civil action” under § 145 is contrary to Congressional intent and to the Supreme Court’s rulings. While it is sound policy to encourage full disclosure to administrative tribunals such as the PTO, we are not the body that makes the decision of how best to do this. Congress held numerous hearings over this legislation, considered the concerns over permitting a civil action, and decided to enact the legislation despite these concerns.
(i) Does the Administrative Procedure Act require review on the agency record in proceedings pursuant to section 145?
(ii) Does section 145 provide for a de novo proceeding in the district court?
(iii) If section 145 does not provide for a de novo proceeding in the district court, what limitations exist on the presentation of new evidence before the district court?
(b) Did the district court properly exclude the Hyatt declaration?
The Federal Circuit also indicated that "Briefs of amici curiae will be entertained, and any such amicus briefs may be filed without leave of court but otherwise must comply with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 29 and Federal Circuit Rule 29."
PatentFreedom has identified and profiled over 315 distinct NPEs and claims that, since 1985, these NPEs have been involved in litigation with nearly 4,500 different operating companies in over 3,100 distinct actions. Furthermore, nearly 75% of the suits between these NPEs and operating companies were filed since 2003.
According to PatentFreedom, NPE lawsuits dropped from 500 cases, to just over 450 cases in the last year.
Sabasta sued Buckaroos on a patent relating to roll-bending dies used to make saddles for pipe insulation. Just prior to filing the patent, Sabasta discovered that specially-fabricated dies used in conjunction with a "two roll-bending machine" could efficiently produce pipe saddles of interest. Based on this discovery, Sabasta purchased an "Acrotech Model 1618" and worked with Acrotech to fabricate specially designed dies. These dies were ultimately the subject of Sabasta's patent.
Examiner has indicated in  the Office Action that the prior art of record fails to teach or adequately suggest the claimed features of claim 6 together with the base claim and any intervening claims. Therefore, claim 1, by virtue of its incorporation of the limitations of claim 6 and any intervening claims, is believed to be allowable.
[T]he Plaintiff relied on the mounting portion/cam roller limitation to overcome the Patent Examiner’s rejection of the as-submitted claims. To overcome the Patent Examiner’s rejections, Plaintiff explicitly stated that it believed the independent claims to be allowable based on the incorporation of the formerly dependent claim limitation providing that the die comprise “a pair of mounting portions” that extend from the opposite ends of the die and that are designed to engage cam rollers on a roll-bending machine for purposes of maintaining the die’s alignment. . . . After receiving this amendment, the Patent Examiner subsequently approved Plaintiff’s patent application. Given these facts, the Court has no doubt that prior art teaching a die that comprises mounting portions to engage preexisting cam rollers on a two-rollbending machine would be considered by a reasonable patent examiner to be important in a determination of whether to allow an application to issue as a patent.
The Federal Circuit has squarely held that “a trial court may infer deceptive intent based on a showing that a patentee withheld references with which it was intimately familiar and which were inconsistent with its own patentability arguments to the PTO.” Agfa Corp., 451 F.3d at 1378. That is precisely the case in the present matter. It is undisputed on the record that Plaintiff was fully aware of the Acrotech machine and manual, and that Plaintiff was well acquainted with the features of the Acrotech machine, including those of the Standard OD Attachment. . . .
[T]he record likewise demonstrates that Plaintiff relied specifically on the addition of the mounting portion/cam roller recitation to overcome the Patent Examiner’s rejection of Independent Claims 1 and 15 . . . Coupled with the fact that Plaintiff designed the die of the ‘995 Patent to be used, specifically, in conjunction with the Acrotech 1618 Machine, these factors provide strong support for a conclusion that Plaintiff knew or should have known that the Acrotech machine and manual were material not only to his assertion that the mounting portion/cam roller limitation would make patentability “allowable,” but also to the general prosecution of his patent application. Finally, it is apparent on the record that Plaintiff did not disclose the Acrotech machine or manual to the USPTO, despite knowledge of both the prior art and its materiality.
WIPO reported today that, despite the economic turmoil in 2009, PCT applications experienced a mere 4.5% drop for the year - provisional data indicates that 155,900 applications were filed in 2009 as compared to the nearly 164,000 applications filed in 2008.
Declines and advances in PCT filings also varied by technology area. The greatest declines related to computer technology (12,560 applications, down 10.6% on 2008); pharmaceuticals (12,200 applications, down 8.0% on 2008) and medical technology (12,091 applications, down 5.9% on 2008). The largest growth rates were experienced in micro-structural and nano-technology (+10.2%), semiconductors (+10%) and thermal processes and apparatus (+ 7.2%).
In the litigation, the court made a preliminary finding of infringement against defendants, which was affirmed on appeal. The accused devices were not taken off the market, however, and the case proceeded to trial based on the court's finding, upon a more developed record, that genuine issues of material fact precluded entry of a summary judgment as to infringement. A jury ultimately determined that certain Boston Scientific products infringed Cordis' patents.
It cannot be emphasized enough that the litigation process is a complicated one, comprising multiple steps and moved forward by multiple decisions, ranging from resolving a discovery dispute to a case-dispositive motion. Consequently, I am very uncomfortable with characterizing administrative and court decisions as "objective evidence" for presentation to a jury. As recognized by counsel, a jury is going to give such evidence great weight, even when the procedural and substantive bases for most such decisions will not be apparent to the jury. This strikes me either as the kind of evidence better suited for review by a court or as eliciting the kind of hindsight review that is so strenuously discouraged in other aspects of patent law. See KSR Intern. Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,421 (2007). Therefore, consistent with the reasoning of the Seagate decision as a whole (and its emphasis on prelitigation conduct), generally only evidence regarding the prelitigation landscape of the dispute will be admitted.
Inventors and companies would face a new 15% surcharge on patent fees under the Obama administration's proposed budget, with the funds going to help the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to "improve the speed and quality of patent examinations."
The head of the patent office floated the surcharge proposal late last year. The proposal would require congressional approval.
The funds would allow the administration to hire more examiners and upgrade technology under the Patent and Trademark Office's proposed $2.3 billion budget for fiscal year 2011.
[O]verall, the Commerce Department's proposed $8.9 billion budget would represent a 36% decrease from fiscal year 2010. Last year's budget was higher than usual because of billions of dollars set aside to hold the 2010 Census.

References: § 145
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