Source: http://patentagentone.com/category/uncategorized/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 16:29:45+00:00

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If it is too silly, is it still Trademark Infringement?
Fat Lady in the Limelight?
J.D. Salinger was famous for saying (in Catcher in the Rye) “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.” This posting is about the August 13, 2015 en banc decision from the CAFC in Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc. The CAFC heard the court on remand from the Supreme Court.
The remand order itself was covered in an earlier posting.
For those readers that have not been following the case, in the original CAFC en-banc decision of August 31, 2012 that court “…reconsider[ed] and overrule[d] the 2007 decision of this court in which we held that in order for a party to be liable for induced infringement, some other single entity must be liable for direct infringement. BMC Resources, Inc. v. Paymentech, L.P., 498 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2007). To be clear, we hold that all the steps of a claimed method must be performed in order to find induced infringement, but that it is not necessary to prove that all the steps were committed by a single entity.
On June 12, 2014 the Supreme Court remanded the Case to the CAFC indicating: “The Federal Circuit seems to have adopted the view that Limelight induced infringement on the theory that the steps that Limelight and its customers perform would infringe the ’703 patent if all the steps were performed by the same person. But we have already rejected the notion that conduct which would be infringing in altered circumstances can form the basis for contributory infringement, and we see no reason to apply a different rule for inducement. In Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U. S. 518 (1972), a manufacturer produced components of a patented machine and then exported those components overseas to be assembled by its foreign customers. (Theassembly by the foreign customers did not violate U. S.patent laws.) In both Deepsouth and this case, the conduct that the defendant induced or contributed to would have been infringing if committed in altered circumstances: in Deepsouth if the machines had been assembled in the United States, see id., at 526, and in this case if performance of all of the claimed steps had been attributable to the same person. In Deepsouth, we rejected the possibility of contributory infringement because the machines had not been assembled in the United States, and direct infringement had consequently never occurred. See id., at 526–527. Similarly, in this case, performance of all the claimed steps cannot be attributed to a single person, so direct infringement never occurred. Limelight cannot be liable for inducing infringement that never came to pass.
The May 2015 panel concluded , of course, that the district Court’s JMOL of non-infringement was proper.
(2) where the actors form a joint enterprise.
So the fat lady has sung only the rules for infringement. Final decision in this case will (apparently) come from a future CAFC panel. Time will tell whether the Supreme Court approves of the new rules they invited the CAFC to suggest.
This posting is the result of the serendipitous appearance of a “Business Insider” article entitled “Apple has filed a patent that could completely reinvent the idea of a mixtape” in my inbox. The patent application referred to is US20150220634. A quick look at the claims in the application surprised me for two reasons.
The first reason for surprise is that the claims are all directed towards user side implementation (i.e. playback of a “digital mix tape” by a recipient after someone else has prepared it).
The second reason for surprise is that although the application was filed in April 2015, the claims indicate no effort to avoid a §101 rejection as being directed towards an abstract idea.
This means that Apple, and their legal representatives, were following accepted practice when they filed US 13/481,405 in May of 2012. The fact that the “manifestly evident” doctrine of that first CAFC panel would subsequently be overturned by an en banc re-hearing which was subsequently validated by the Supreme Court was blissfully unknown to all when Apple filed their first “Digital Mix Tape Application”. Unfortunately for Apple, by the time the first Office Action in that case was issued (August 12, 2014) the “manifestly evident” doctrine was only a fond memory and the Examiner stated unequivocally that the claims were directed towards an abstract idea because the method steps are not performed by a machine and/or because “providing a compilation of media tracks to a consumer as a gift” is an abstract idea. The Office action also contained §112 (indefinite) rejections and a §102 and several §103 rejections.
Looking at the wrapper for the parent case (13/481,405) provided insight about the first reason for surprise in the continuation application (claims are all directed towards user side implementation). In a response filed on November 12, 2014, Apple cancelled all of the claims in the parent case and entered new claims. This made short work of all the rejections of record. However, the Examiner found the amendment non-compliant because the new claims are directed towards user side implementation (i.e. playback of a “digital mix tape” by a recipient after someone else has prepared it) while the original claims were directed towards server side implementation (i.e. preparation of a “digital mix tape” by the server in response to a request followed by transmission to a recipient).
These new “user side” claims became the subject of the April 2015 application which was the subject of the Business Insider article.
Since we would all like to have a portfolio like Apple’s what can we learn from their handling of the case?
The most obvious thing is “minimize estoppel”. Once Apple decided they were unlikely to get an allowance in the original case, they did not provide any substantive answers to the rejections offered by the Examiner.
The next, less obvious, thing is that having an application pending in the US is valuable. Apple spent several thousand dollars to file a continuation application with only user side claims which will be tricky to enforce if granted. Presumably this is largely a ploy to allow them to return to the more commercially relevant sever side claims in the future if they develop a product around this concept.
The least obvious thing is enrich your specification with unclaimed detail. Claims like: “…presenting a first name for the first media item before playing the first media item for the first time; and presenting a second name for the first media item after playing the first media item for the first time, where the first name is a fake name and the second name is an actual name of the first media item.” are presumably supported by the specification of the parent application, although they were not claimed. Even the independent claims in the April 2015 continuation application have features that were not present in the parent application. This forces the Examiner to reveal the best references available. Apple can then assemble a set of features that they feel is patentable over the art and draft a server side claim to be filed in a subsequent continuation application.
The last thing is, alas, all too obvious. You want to have a budget like Apple’s so you can play these games with numerous applications in a diverse portfolio.
Feedback on how those of us with more modest budgets might employ a similar strategy will be appreciated.
The USPTO has issued a supplementary set of guidelines on subject matter eligibility of July 30, 2015. The new material includes a Federal Register Notice, a main document entitled “Update on Subject matter Eligibility”, Appendix 1 (Examples), Appendix 2 (Index of Examples), Appendix 3 (Court decisions) and a “Quick reference sheet”. The stated purpose is to respond to feedback from the public.
The diagram makes it seem like any method of correlating or comparing is unlikely to be patentable. We learned from Alice that dressing these methods up as computerized systems is unhelpful.
Hopefully the USPTO is sending us the message the Supreme Court wants us to get.
Since the CAFC’s third decision in Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC. which found the claims in that case patent ineligible, the CAFC has rendered only one decision in which the claims of a computer implemented invention were held to be patent eligible subject matter [DDR HOLDINGS LLV v HOTELS.COM].
The Apparent dichotomy between those rulings left many of us hoping that the Supreme Court would grant certiorari in the Ultramercial case. Those hopes were more like wishes, since the Supreme Court had already granted/vacated and remanded (GVR) twice after the two initial CAFC decisions were deemed unacceptable.
On June 29, 2015 the Supreme Court denied certiorari in the Ultramercial case, leaving the wish ungranted.
It is not all clear whether we should be wishing for a grant of certiorari inn the DDR HOLDINGS case or not. DDR HOLDINGS is the only post Alice V CLS Bank case dealing with “software” implemented claims that went in favor of the patentee. If the Supreme Court offers their insight, there may be no favorable § 101 decisions in the software field, although those insights might make the case law more uniform and easier to understand.
Venture Capitalists (VCs) like Intellectual Property (IP) but see very little of it. Most entrepreneurs seeking funding file a provisional patent application so they can tell one or more VCs they have some IP. Since VCs typically don’t have legal expertise, they usually don’t take a closer look at these provisional applications (PPA). However, VCs are entitled to ask for quality IP.
Here is a list of five things to focus on in a provisional patent application to get a rough idea of its potential value. Both inventors and VCs should focus on these points when preparing/reviewing a PPA as indicators of potential value.
1) Are there claims? This is a yes or no question. “Yes” means the inventor made an effort to define their idea as an invention. “No” means they did not make the effort. If they did not make the effort, one might ask why.
2) Who do you sue? This is difficult (but not impossible) to answer if there are no claims. If there are claims, ask if everything in the claim is likely to be done by a single party. The answer must be yes for an infringement lawsuit to be possible. Since IP derives its value from the potential to sue, this is a critical point in estimating potential value.
3) Is there a real world effect? We live in a world where a “telephone” is actually a technological Swiss army knife. A lot of the features though are purely software. Once the application is installed, the phone acquires new capabilities. While cool apps have great business potential, they are difficult to patent. Software per se has always been un-patentable. The most reliable way around this is to show that the software, when run on the device, has a real world effect. One type of real world effect is that the software improves performance of the machine on which it is running (e.g. makes it run faster, cooler or more reliably or extends battery life). Another type of real world effect is control of a non-computer component. Demonstration of a real world effect can be the key to convincing the patent office that the invention is in a field which can be patented. If you cannot convince them, there will be no patent and therefore no value from the IP.
4) Does the invention go beyond business? This is a corollary to (3). The patent office does not believe that accounting functions like billing are “real world effects”. If the description of the invention focuses on business related activities it is difficult to convince the patent office that the invention is in a field which can be patented. Again, if you cannot convince them, there will be no patent and therefore no value from the IP.
5) Did you say “Wow!” when you read the application? The patent office searches computerized databases to find publications on related technology. For the initial evaluation, it is sufficient to use your gut reaction. If you read the application and said “So what?” there is no breakthrough described. If you said “Wow!” you perceive a breakthrough. The casual reader’s impression of a breakthrough is not a guarantee that the patent office will feel the requirements for getting a patent have been met, but if the casual reader cannot see a breakthrough, the patent office almost certainly will not. That means no “Wow!” probably no patent and probably no value from IP.
Items (1) and (2) in the list relate to evaluating the approach the entrepreneur takes to IP portfolio development. Those that don’t put much into it are unlikely to get a lot out of it. Items (3) and (4) relate to an understanding of the rules for what is potentially patentable. Unfortunately, a lot of potentially valuable product ideas are simply not eligible for patent protection. Investors in technologies that are deficient with respect to items (3) and (4) need to develop a plan for holding on to market share that does not rely on the exclusivity provided by patent protection. Development of brand recognition is the obvious choice here. Item (5) relates to an instinctive evaluation of the legal requirement that an invention be new and non-obvious to be patentable. Again, if it seems unlikely that the application will become a granted patent, branding is an appropriate alternative.

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