Source: https://patentlyo.com/?s=hyatt
Timestamp: 2020-08-07 16:02:26
Document Index: 273937269

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 145', '§ 145', '§ 141', '§ 145', '§ 112', '§ 1207', '§ 134', '§ 6', '§ 1207']

hyatt | Search Results | Patently-O
Search Results for: hyatt
May 22, 2018 PatentDennis Crouch
Gilbert P. Hyatt v. USPTO and Iancu (E.D. Va. 2018) (Hyatt – Mandamus Action Complaint)
Hyatt has filed a new mandamus action against the USPTO as the next step in the 40+ year battle over his microcomputer patent applications. Hyatt has over 300 patents applications pending before the USPTO.
According to the complaint, “Most of Mr. Hyatt’s applications have been pending for over 20 years, with about a dozen pending for over 35 years and three applications pending for over 40 years.” The complaint details:
[In the 1990’s then Commissioner Bruce] Lehman and other PTO officials falsely branded Mr. Hyatt a ‘submariner’ and unlawfully decided that the PTO would never issue him another patent. . . . Having made that decision, the PTO proceeded to carry it out. It acted almost immediately to withdraw from issuance four patents either issued or in the final stages of being issued to Mr. Hyatt—actions in which the PTO has acknowledged the unusual participation of Commissioner Lehman and other senior PTO officials. It applied unlawful secret procedures (since acknowledged by the PTO) to block the issuance of applications that examiners found patentable. Internal PTO documents reveal that these unlawful procedures prevented issuance of at least several patents to Mr. Hyatt. It put more than 80 of Mr. Hyatt’s pending administrative appeals on ice for up to a decade before terminating them by reopening prosecution and restarting the examination process from scratch. It secretly used what PTO officials called “Shadow Art Units,” “Phantom Art Units,” and “parking lots” to stow Mr. Hyatt’s applications and take them off the books. And it delayed actions across the board, with a degree of creativity that bespeaks the PTO’s enmity for Mr. Hyatt: issuing suspensions amounting to over a millennium of aggregate delay; secretly assigning his applications to management personnel who do not examine applications; dismissing his petitions imploring the agency to act on the false basis that his applications were already being expedited; leaving approximately 100 of Mr. Hyatt’s applications for a single examiner to process in his personal time, without pay; and manipulating its reporting systems to hide its failure to act on Mr. Hyatt’s applications. All the while, PTO officials spread the word high and low throughout the agency that Mr. Hyatt was a “submariner” and that he would never get another patent, poisoning the well against him.
More recently, the PTO created the “Hyatt Unit . . . “for the purpose of miring all of Mr. Hyatt’s applications in administrative purgatory until Mr. Hyatt gives up or dies.”
The Hyatt Unit began its work by restarting prosecution from scratch, throwing out years of work and enormous effort by Mr. Hyatt in the process. It blanketed Mr. Hyatt in what its leader described as a “boatload” of hundreds of burdensome Office Actions in just a few months, forcing him to scramble to make any response. And now it is in the process of systematically abandoning and rejecting his applications, piling on numerous, overlapping rejections on every patent claim and entering frivolous “objections” that take years to correct due to the PTO’s refusal to decide his administrative petitions for relief on a timely basis or at all. . . The Hyatt Unit has never allowed a single one of Mr. Hyatt’s claims in its more than-5 years of existence.
Finally, in an attempt to eliminate all of Hyatt’s claims, the PTO asserted prosecution laches against all of Hyatt’s applications. That approach has seemingly now failed with a 2017 district court decision rejecting the PTO’s prosecution laches case.
In this action, Hyatt is looking for several forms of relief — perhaps most pointedly is a mandamus action from the court ordering the PTO “expeditiously to conduct a fair, impartial, and timely examination of his applications in accordance with law, to allow patentable subject matter, to issue patents claiming such patentable such subject matter upon payment of the issue fee, to provide timely action on Mr. Hyatt’s petitions, and to permit Mr. Hyatt to obtain timely final agency action on rejections from the Appeal Board.”
In addition, Hyatt is requesting compensation for post-GATT patent applications whose potential term have expired due to PTO delay and issuance of those patents.
The complaint is an interesting read, but was filed partially under seal (based upon a protective order from a prior case), including the following paragraph:
A separate proceeding is ongoing in DC Federal Court Hyatt v. Iancu, Nos. 05-2310, 09-1864, 09-1869, 09-1872 (D.D.C.). In a recent briefing, the PTO explained its contention regarding the bulk of Hyatt’s patents:
Mr. Hyatt filed a patent application in 1984 that describes, in over 650 pages of text and figures, a system for manipulating images on a screen by rotating, sliding, and zooming. His explanation includes something that he called a “window” that is in the computer’s memory and is not visible to the user. Mr. Hyatt amended his claims a number of times and, fifteen years later, in 1999, filed the claims that are now at issue. By 1999, the term “window” had taken on a much different and more valuable meaning in computing and to the general public. Mr. Hyatt’s claims now recite a type of window that is visible on the user’s screen, can be overlapped to run multiple applications at once, includes interactive features such as menus and icons, and allows the user to interact directly with the display monitor by, for example, clicking on a pull-down menu or choosing a menu option. Those claimed inventions are not described in Mr. Hyatt’s original specification, and that lack of written description means the claims have correctly been rejected by the USPTO and should also be rejected by this Court.
USPTO Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law [04e9202c-6214-442a-998d-3b74156ca79b]
Example claim (1984 priority date):
Claim 131. A process comprising the acts of:
generating background image information;
generating a first window of three dimensional perspective image information;
overlaying the first window of three dimensional perspective image information onto the background image information;
generating a second window of three dimensional perspective image information;
overlaying the second window of three dimensional perspective image information onto the background image information overlapping with the first window of three dimensional perspective image information; and
displaying a background image overlaid by a first window of three dimensional perspective images and overlaid by an overlapping second
window of three dimensional perspective images in response to the background image information overlaid with the first window of three dimensional perspective image information and in response to the background image information overlaid with the overlapping second window of three dimensional perspective image information.
September 24, 2018 PatentDennis Crouch
Hyatt v. USPTO (Fed. Cir. 2018) (Judges HUGHES, Reyna, and Wallach)
This billionaire gets no respect! Gilbert Hyatt is the named invenetor on 70+ US patents and has 400+ pending patent applications “all of which were filed prior to June 8, 1995.” That date is critical because those “pre-GATT” applications will remain in force for 17-years from their issue date (if they ever issue). These applications claim priority back to the early 1970s. For the past 10 years, Hyatt has been trying to get his cases heard by the PTAB – but has been repeatedly foiled by PTO delays and unilateral reopening of prosecution. Here, the Federal Circuit sided with the PTO in Hyatt’s generalized challenge to this practice — finding portions of his his petition time-barred and that the substance of his challenge lacked merit.
The Big Deal for this case for the rest of us: If the PTO has spelled out an improper practice within the MPEP, an APA challenge on procedure or policy must be filed within six years of MPEP publication, if at all. Also, the Court says its fine for the USPTO to reopen prosecution rather than hearing the appeal. (more…)
January 16, 2014 PatentDennis Crouch
Gilbert Hyatt v. USPTO (D. Nevada 2014) (Download Hyatt v USPTO Complaint)
Inventor Gilbert Hyatt recently filed a lawsuit against the USPTO in his home state of Nevada asking that the USPTO be ordered to go ahead and examine his applications already. The complaint focuses primarily on two applications that have been pending "since the early 1970s – over 40 years." Hyatt's patents cover early microchip technology and have proven extremely valuable because of the ongoing explosion in that marketplace. Because these applications were filed prior June of 1995, they will have a patent term of 17 years from the issue date (assuming they eventually issue and their term not disclaimed). Hyatt keeps his pending applications secret and so we do not know which applications are at stake here, or the actual content of the file histories.
In the lawsuit, Hyatt alleges that these two applications have been pending before the USPTO Board of Appeals for a very long time (one more than twenty years):
In these two appealed patent applications – referred to herein as patent application Docket Nos. 104 and 112 – the PTO's patent examiners issued rejections of Mr. Hyatt's patent applications, which Mr. Hyatt timely appealed to the PTO's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, now known as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("Appeal Board"). In both cases, the PTO failed to file any response. Rather than decide the appeals, the PTO has left them undecided for more than 20 years (in the case of patent application Docket No. 104) and for more than five years (in the case of patent application Docket No. 112). Each of these two patent applications has been pending before the PTO for more than forty years. . . .
Mr. Hyatt filed his patent applications and has prosecuted them in good faith and in accordance with PTO rules. Whether out of animus toward Mr. Hyatt or for other reasons, the PTO has demonstrated its determination not to allow Mr. Hyatt to obtain patents for his inventions. This Court's intervention is required to ensure that the PTO complies with the law.
Hyatt then asks the court to place strict deadlines on the PTO to decide his cases.
Hyatt makes the almost believable allegation that: "Several years ago, the PTO apparently determined that it would refuse to grant Mr. Hyatt any further patents, irrespective of the merits of his patent applications."
The complaint also highlights several other Hyatt applications where the PTO has "suspended examination" for very long periods of time:
At some point, rather than subject its decisions to review, the PTO apparently embraced a strategy of denying Mr. Hyatt any reviewable adjudication of his patent applications. Mr. Hyatt consequently has a large number of patent applications that have languished for years in various states of procedural limbo without an action on the merits or a decision on appeal.
In many cases, the PTO has simply ceased examination of Mr. Hyatt's patent applications on the merits. In many other cases, the PTO has refused to allow Mr. Hyatt's patent appeals to go to the Appeal Board for decisions.
For example, in seven cases that Mr. Hyatt filed in 1995, the patent examiners issued first office actions in 1995 or 1996, and Mr. Hyatt responded, yet the PTO has not issued an action on the merits in more than 17 years. Instead, the PTO repeatedly suspended action on these patent applications. Mr. Hyatt filed numerous "Petition[s] For An Action On The Merits" in these patent applications, but the PTO summarily dismissed those petitions.
For another set of applications, Hyatt walks through the PTO churning that involves repeated withdrawal of final rejections following appeal-brief filings by Hyatt.
For the past 40+ years, the PTO has seen Hyatt as something of a pesky thorn in its side. The "problem" is that Hyatt takes full advantage of the law, hires excellent lawyers, and does not give-up. It turns out that it is the PTO's job to deal with Hyatt and to issue him the patents that he deserves.
Pre-GATT Applications
September 15, 2016 PatentUSPTO DirectorDennis Crouch
One small aspect of Director Michelle Lee’s testimony to congress was that the number of pending pre-GATT applications still pending has been reduced to only 20 – not counting those owned by Gill Hyatt. (She did not mention Hyatt by name, but it was clear who she was talking about.) The PTO has 14 full time patent examiners going after these remaining applications that were all filed prior to June 7, 1995.
These pre-GATT applications are important because they retain the 17-year-from-issuance term. An example is Patent No. 9,376,478 that was recently issued to the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research and broadly claims: “2. Recombinant Human fibroblast β1 Interferon.” The application was filed June 5, 1995 and looks to be enforceable until 2033. (This particular case was delayed by an interference proceeding).
Gilbert Hyatt apparently continues to have a substantial number of pre-GATT applications pending and is fighting multiple lawsuits against the Government regarding the applications. According to his own court filings, Hyatt has more than 400 pending applications, most of which have been pending for over twenty years and more than a dozen pending for more than 35 years.
In Hyatt v. OMB, Civ No. 16-1944 (D.Nevada, Filed August 16, 2016), Hyatt explains that he “has experienced first-hand the unnecessary, duplicative, and overly burdensome information collection demands that the PTO imposes on individuals seeking patents.” The lawsuit asks for an order that the OMB consider Rules 111, 115, and 116 (37 C.F.R. Sections 1.111, 1.115, and 1.116) and hold them subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act.
In Hyatt v. USPTO, Civ. No. 16-1490 (D.Nevada, Filed June 22, 2016), Hyatt asks for injunctive relief to stop the PTO from repeatedly ‘reopening prosecution’ in his cases and consequently shielding the cases from judicial review by either the PTAB or Article III courts. Hyatt is experiencing the common reality of examiners reopening prosecution once an appeal brief is filed.
Hyatt on Patently-O
US Government Asks for Increased Deference When Patent Applicants Challenge BPAI Decisions in Court
April 11, 2011 PatentAIA Trials, anticipation, Enablement, Federal Circuit En Banc, Licenses, obviousness, PGR, Supreme Court, Venue, Written DescriptionDennis Crouch
Kappos v. Hyatt (On petition for writ of certiorari, 2011) ﻿(Download Hyatt.GovtBrief)
Although the US﻿ Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have been at odds on the issue of the patent eligibility of genetic material isolated from a living organism, the two agencies are speaking with one voice against the Federal Circuit's recent decision in Hyatt v. Kappos. In that en banc opinion, the court broadened a patent applicant's rights associated with the "remedy by civil action" provided by Section 145 of the Patent Act. Under § 145, an applicant can file a civil action in DC District Court whenever "[a]n applicant dissatisfied with the decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences."
In a 6-2-1 decision, the Federal Circuit reversed its prior precedent and held that a patent applicant is allowed to introduce new evidence in a Section 145 civil action filed to challenge a USPTO refusal to grant patent rights and that the issues implicated by the new facts must be considered de novo.
Judge Moore wrote in the majority opinion that:
The particular significance of a § 145 civil action is that it affords an applicant the opportunity to introduce new evidence after the close of the administrative proceedings—and once an applicant introduces new evidence on an issue, the district court reviews that issue de novo.
However, the Court also held that an applicant may still be barred from presenting new "issues" in the civil action and that, when no new evidence is presented, that BPAI findings and rulings should be given deference under the Administrative Procedures Act.
Petition for Writ of Certiorari: In its petition to the Supreme Court, the US Government argues that the Federal Circuit decision is faulty because it "disregards fundamental principles of administrative law" and diverges from the traditional understanding of the statute.
Getting from the PTO to the Court: After losing at the Board, an applicant has two primary avenues for challenging the Board's decision: (1) Appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit under 35 U.S.C. § 141; or (2) File a civil action in district court under 35 U.S.C. § 145. In Dickinson v. Zurko, the Supreme Court held that Federal Circuit direct review of BPAI decisions under Section 141 must follow the deferential standards that govern judicial review of final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). 527 U.S. 150 (1999). In that decision, the Supreme Court distinguished between Section 145 and Section 141 actions – noting that Section 145 actions "permit the disappointed applicant to present to the court evidence that the applicant did not present to the PTO." However, the court did not address the particular circumstances in which new evidence may be permitted nor did it address how the new evidence should be treated.
Here, the government asks the Supreme Court to fill the gap in Zurko by holding that:
The plaintiff in a Section 145 action may not introduce new evidence that could have been presented to the PTO in the first place; and
When new evidence is introduced, the district court should still give deference to the prior decisions of the PTO.
Background: Gilbert Hyatt is a well-known inventor and successful patentee. Hyatt filed a civil action in 2003 after the BPAI sustained written description and enablement rejections for seventy-nine of Hyatt's claims. The examiner had issued "2546 separate rejections of Mr. Hyatt's 117 claims" based on the doctrines of inadequate "written description, lack of enablement, double patenting, anticipation, and obviousness." The Board reversed all of the examiner rejections except for the § 112 p1 arguments. Complicating this case is the fact that the application's claimed priority date is 1975. Hyatt has aggressively pushed the bounds of USPTO practice. This decision is one of more than a dozen Federal Circuit decisions focusing on Hyatt's patent rights. If the Supreme Court takes the case, it will be the second for Hyatt who won a 2002 case against California income tax collectors. In that case, California was pursuing Hyatt for tax revenue for his patent licenses. Hyatt took the case to the Supreme Court and eventually won a $388 million judgment against the state of California for invasion of privacy.
Appealing a BPAI Rejection: Can the Applicant Present New Arguments and New Evidence to the District Court?
February 17, 2010 PatentAffirmed Without Opinion, anticipation, Enablement, Federal Circuit En Banc, obviousness, USPTO Director, Written DescriptionDennis Crouch
The Federal Circuit has ordered an en banc rehearing of its August 14 decision. The appeal focuses on evidentiary and procedural limits of an appeal of a BPAI decisions to a District Court under 35 USC 145. The Court framed the en banc issues as follows:
Background: Hyatt's district court action was originally filed in 2003 as Hyatt v. Rogan after the BPAI sustained written description and enablement rejections for seventy-nine of Hyatt's claims. The examiner had issued 45 separate rejections of Hyatt's claims based on the doctrines of inadequate "written description, lack of enablement, double patenting, anticipation, and obviousness." Complicating the case is the fact that the application's claimed priority date is 1975.
The issues in this appeal case arose when Hyatt filed a civil action in DC District Court to challenge the BPAI decision. In the civil action, Hyatt submitted a new declaration offering additional evidence of enablement and written description. However, the district court excluded that inventor-declaration from evidence based on Hyatt's "negligence" in failing to previously submit the information to the PTO.
Writing for the majority in the original panel opinion, Judge Michel affirmed the exclusion of evidence – holding that the district court may properly exclude evidence that Hyatt should have produced to the PTO. Judge Moore penned a compelling dissent in support of the patent applicant's right to a full civil action including the right to submit additional evidence when challenging a PTO decision.
Briefing: Hyatt's en banc brief will be due around March 31 and the USPTO's response due 28-days later. Briefs of amici curiae may be filed without leave of the court, but must otherwise comply with FRAP 29 and Fed Cir R 29.
I posted an article earlier on Gil Hyatt’s ongoing disputes with the USPTO. He also has ongoing disputes with the California Tax Board that reach back to his early licensing revenue from his 1990 microprocessor patent. The case is back before the Supreme Court for the third time. See Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt (Hyatt I), 538 U.S. 488 (2003); Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt (Hyatt II), 136 S.Ct. 1277 (2016).
The basic issue is that a Nevada jury found that California had used improper aggression in pursuing Hyatt for taxes that were not really owed. At trial, the jury awarded Hyatt $300 million in damages. The punitive damages were reduced however by the Supreme Court.
The question that the court will focus on again this year:
Whether Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410 (1979), which permits a sovereign State to be haled into another State’s courts without its consent, should be overruled.
In its 2016 decision, the Supreme Court was evenly divided on the same question.
The board has asked us to overrule Hall and hold that the Nevada courts lack jurisdiction to hear this lawsuit. The Court is equally divided on this question, and we consequently affirm the Nevada courts’ exercise of jurisdiction over California.
This time though, that tie is potentially already broken with the addition of Justice Gorsuch.
Read more at ScotusBlog: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/franchise-tax-board-of-california-v-hyatt-2/
July 1, 2007 PatentWritten DescriptionDennis Crouch
Under MPEP guidelines, the addition of new claims limitations lightens the examiner’s burden of proving inadequate written description. In particular, Section 2163.04(I)(B) provides for a Section 112 rejection of a newly amended claim where “Applicant has not pointed out where the new (or amended) claim limitation ‘____’ is supported, nor does there appear to be a written description of the claim limitation in the application as filed.”
April 15, 2019 PatentDennis Crouch
Gilbert P. Hyatt v. Andrei Iancu (Supreme Court 2019)
The following is a fairly typical pattern within the USPTO:
After final rejection, applicant files a PTAB appeal notice and brief;
Rather than pursue its side of the appeal, the Examiner withdraws the pending rejections — and then re-opens prosecution with a new set of rejections.
Although few cases go through this more than one cycle. Gilbert Hyatt has long been an exception — both in terms of how he treats the PTO and how he is treated by the PTO.
Going back to the my typical pattern above — note that the Manual of Patent Examination Policy (MPEP) expressly permits cycling by the examiner, although it requires SPE approval:
The examiner may, with approval from the supervisory patent examiner, reopen prosecution to enter a new ground of rejection in response to appellant’s brief.
MPEP § 1207.04.
Hyatt’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court argues that a patent applicant has a right to appeal — and that this examination cycling violates his statutory rights. In particular, Hyatt points to 35 U.S.C. § 134 and § 6.
134(a). An applicant for a patent, any of whose claims has been twice rejected, may appeal from the decision of the primary examiner to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, having once paid the fee for such appeal.
6(b). Duties.—The Patent Trial and Appeal Board shall— (1) on written appeal of an applicant, review adverse decisions of examiners upon applications for patents pursuant to section 134(a).
In a remarkably parallel situation from the early 1900’s the U.S. Supreme Court held that mandamus was appropriate where the examiner refused to forward cases to the Board. U.S. ex rel. Steinmetz v. Allen, 192 U.S. 543 (1904).
Thus, Hyatt’s Question Presented:
Whether MPEP § 1207.04 violates patent applicants’ statutory right of appeal following a second rejection.
This is a well presented case and you can read the brief here: [USSCPetitionforWritofCertiorari]
Gilbert Hyatt: BPAI Erred in Aggressive Grouping of Claims
December 28, 2008 PatentWritten DescriptionDennis Crouch
Hyatt v. Dudas (Fed. Cir. 2008)
Gilbert Hyatt has been famous for his early microprocessor patents. This appeal “concerns the patentability of approximately 2,400 claims in twelve related patent applications … that claim priority … to the early 1980s or before.” Since being filed, all twelve applications have also been “amended to add hundreds of claims that were not included in the original applications.”
The PTO examiner rejected all the claims in all twelve applications – most commonly for lacking proper written description. On appeal, the BPAI refused to independently review each of Hyatt’s claims, and instead only considered the twenty-one claims that he had discussed in the “Summary of the Invention” section of the BPAI briefs. Appealing that decision, Hyatt convinced the DC district court that the BPAI had improperly selected the representative claims. The PTO now appeals that district court decision.
On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed – finding that the BPAI cannot create a representative claim by simply grouping all claims rejected for lacking written description under the same “ground of rejection” “unless the claims share a common limitation that lacks written description support.” 37 CFR 1.192(c)(7).
“[T]he applicant can waive appeal of a ground of rejection, and can waive the right to demand additional subgrouping of claims within a given appealed ground. But the applicant cannot waive the Board’s obligation to select and consider at least one representative claim for each properly defined ground of rejection appealed.”
Affirmed. On remand, the BPAI must consider “all grounds of rejection challenged by Hyatt. . . However, the Board is free on remand to apply the rule of waiver to any grounds of rejection not contested by Hyatt in his initial appeals to the Board, provided that such grounds do not become relevant on remand due to realignment of the representative claims or other aspects not previously at issue.”
2400 claiming priority thirty years back…
Bits and Bytes No. 125: Comments on Comments
August 14, 2009 PatentInequitable Conduct, Trade Secrets, USPTO DirectorDennis Crouch
Gil Hyatt’s attorney contacted me this morning and asked that a few “offending” comments be removed from the post associated with his case. I agreed that they were potentially problematic and removed them. Two discuss LL’s role as an examiner of HYATT’s cases. Because Hyatt’s applications were filed before 1995, those files are likely still secret and thus should not be publicly discussed. I also removed the “sleazeball” comments. As a reminder to commenters – you may appear anonymous, but a well heeled plaintiff could probably track you down unless you take special precautions. I have thus-far successfully resisted providing any identifying information to interested parties. However, I would obey a court order.
For PTO Examiners who Comment Regularly. I enjoy your comments and they helpfully reveal aspects of PTO operations that would otherwise be hidden. You should, however, occasionally re-read MPEP 1701: “Public policy demands that every employee of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refuse to express to any person any opinion as to the validity or invalidity of, or the patentability or unpatentability of any claim in any U.S. patent, except to the extent necessary to carry out (A) an examination of a reissue application of the patent, (B) a reexamination proceeding to reexamine the patent, or (C) an interference involving the patent. “
Fraud not Inequitable Conduct: IPO executive director Herb Wamsley (writing as the IP LANGUAGE CURMUDGEON) argues that the term “Inequitable Conduct” is misleading. The doctrine does not follow a traditional balancing of the equities, but is seated in fraud. Thus, Wamsley “proposes scrapping the term ‘inequitable conduct’ in favor of ‘fraud,’ a term that is not very well defined in law either, but which better conveys the idea that patents should be unenforceable only if serious misconduct has been proven. If courts had to find ‘fraud’ before they could hold a patent unenforceable, perhaps they would apply the doctrine now called inequitable conduct only in cases of very clear intent and materiality” as the law requires. I think that Wamsley’s suggestion makes perfect sense.
IPO’s annual meeting is Sept 13-15 in Chicago: Link. Over 500 individuals (including yours truly) are already signed-up to attend this patent law powwow. This is probably the largest mixer of in-house patent counsel and patent attorneys in private practice. The only problem is the cost: IPO members pay $950; Non-Members pay $1,450; Inventors and academics pay $500.
Update on the Faculty Position at the University of Utah Law School : They are hiring, but may not have received your e-mail. “Due to a server switch, the email address facultyrecruitment@law.utah.edu was not functioning correctly for a few days in August. We sincerely apologize for this error. As of today, August 14th, the email address is once again fully functional. We encourage interested applicants to send their materials to us at that email address, particularly those who sent, or attempted to send, materials in the past two weeks, so that we can be sure that we received them.” [Read the Job Listing] [Klarquist Sparkman is also looking for an O-Chem Patent Attorney or Agent]
The Timeliness of the En Banc Rehearing of Hyatt v. Kappos
February 18, 2010 PatentEnablement, Federal Circuit En BancDennis Crouch
The pending en banc case of Hyatt v. Kappos is more important now than ever before because the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI or Board) is deciding more appeals than ever before. The chart below reflects the number of applications with completed appellate briefing that are pending resolution at the BPAI. As active patent prosecutors are well aware, this chart only reveals a small portion of a complex problem. Appeal briefing has largely become an ordinary part of patent prosecution practice. Most cases where appeal briefs are filed do not actually reach a BPAI decision. Rather, in most cases the examiner withdraws the standing rejection rather than pursue the appeal. In this system, appeal briefs have largely become a priced commodity rather than an all-out factual and legal effort.
In Hyatt v. Kappos, the en banc Federal Circuit is focusing on the amount of new evidence that can be presented when challenging a BPAI decision in Federal District Court under 35 USC 145. The panel decision held that the district court properly refused to allow Hyatt to submit additional expert testimony that went beyond the arguments presented to the BPAI. Judge Moore dissented from that holding and instead argued that the right to a “civil action” under Section 145 includes a right for a de novo consideration of patentability.
The issues raised in Hyatt v. Kappos are now important for many patent applicants because of the cost-pressures of appeal briefs and the high-likelihood that rejections will be withdrawn based on the briefing. Typical Applicants do not submit substantial additional evidence of patentability during the appeal process. However, under Hyatt, the applicant would be barred from substantially adding to the record in a subsequent civil action.
June 27, 2011 PatentFederal Circuit En Banc, Personal Jurisdiction, Supreme CourtDennis Crouch
The Supreme Court has granted writs of certiorari in two pending patent cases.
In Kappos v. Hyatt, the Supreme Court will decide (1) whether a patent applicant who files a Section 145 civil action has a right to present new evidence to the Federal District Court that could have been (but was not) presented during the proceedings before the USPTO and (2) when new evidence is presented, whether the court may decide the related factual questions de novo and without deference to prior PTO findings. An en banc Federal Circuit previously sided with the applicant, Hyatt, and held that the district court must allow new evidence and that factual conclusions affected by the new evidence must be decided de novo even if previously determined by the PTO. Judge Kimberly Moore penned the en banc opinion after dissenting from the original panel that had arrived at the opposite conclusion. This is Hyatt’s second case at the Supreme Court. He won the first against the State of California who was attempting to tax his receipts from patent licensing awards. Hyatt’s patents are related to computer micro-controller designs and claim a 1975 priority date.
Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd. v. Novo Nordisk A/S is a brand versus generic pharmaceutical dispute involving the scope of a generic company’s right to counterclaim against the brand based upon a brand’s overbroad description of claim scope submitted to the FDA. The Federal Circuit held that the Hatch-Waxman Act only allows for deleting of improperly listed patents while the petitioner here argues that the Act also allows for correction of misstatements for patent scope.
The Supreme Court today also decided two personal jurisdiction that could have some impact on how foreign entities are treated in US patent cases. In J. McIntyre Machinery v. Nicastro, the court held that a the “stream of commerce” theory of personal jurisdiction was being taken too far and that the foreign manufacturer (Nicastro) could not be subject to courts located in New Jersey because it had not engaged in activities in that state that “revealed an intent to involde or benefit from the protection of the [New Jersey] laws.” In Goodyear Luxembourg Tires v. Brown, the court held that courts located in North Carolina did not have general jurisdiction over Goodyear’s foreign subsidiary.
PTO Publishes Comments on Proposed BPAI Rules
November 8, 2007 PatentobviousnessDennis Crouch
Because of the expected increase of appeals to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (the “Board”), the Patent Office has proposed a new set of rules governing practice before the Board. [Proposed Rules]. The PTO received over fifty comments from the public — mostly negative. As it turns out, the rules appear to primarily serve as a roadblock to appeals — either by raising costs or creating procedural stumbling blocks. The extra rules are especially shocking when you consider that the vast majority of appeals filed never reach the BPAI. Rather, even after the applicant files an appeal brief, most cases are re-opened by the Examiner who either allows the case or re-opens prosection. [cite]
In its letter to the PTO, the AIPLA noted problems with the new rules:
Some of these new requirements … do not appear to address any specific problem being experienced by the Board, and would simply add additional formal requirements that would increase the burden and costs of preparing an appeal brief, and lead to even more disputes over compliance of an appeal brief with the many formalities already required.
Intellectual Ventures said it more forcefully:
The proposed new rules are onesided and will serve as a significant hurdle to a patent applicant in pursuing their statutory right of an appeal to the BPAI. Many of the proposed changes run counter to the patent statute and improperly attempt to transfer responsibilities and shift burdens of proof from the USPTO to applicants. … Since the agency is forcing more appeals, the appeal process should be reformed to make appeals easier and less expensive to prepare rather than make appeals more expensive and burdensome as in the proposal.
Proposed Rule 41.37(q) and (r): would require applicants to identify for every argued claim where every claim limitation finds support in the specification and is illustrated in the drawings — even where a claim limitation is not at issue in the appeal. This requirement only raises the cost of preparing an appeal brief.
Proposed Rule 41.37(o)(7): Would require applicant to provide an explanation of patentability when obviousness is asserted. There may be some policy reasons for requiring this. However, under current law, the applicant is not required to prove patentability — rather, the applicant only needs to poke holes in the Examiner’s prima facie case of obviousness.
In its comments, the Adams law firm of New Mexico noted a recent Patently-O posting on BPAI delay — and suggested that briefs should be submitted directly to the BPAI — not to examiners for their initial review.
David Boundy – writing for CantorFitz – debated whether these rules are actually ‘procedural.’
When combined, the various limits imposed in the propped Appeal Rule accumulate to a substantive denial of an applicant’s right to a fair and efficient appellate review. Increased fonts [14 point], decreased page limits [25 pages], added material that must be included, no limits on the amount of material that an Examiner can present, and a draconian remedy for failing to address every point raised by an Examiner – all make one question the motivation for these proposed changes. At some point, a collection of “procedural” limits becomes so stringent that they amount to a “substantive” limit on the ability to prosecute an application.