Source: https://www.patentdocs.org/2013/05/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-06-20 07:32:15
Document Index: 490427409

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 101', '§ 102', '§ 103', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 102', '§ 103', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101']

Patent Docs: May 2013
Webinar on AIA Impact on Section 103 and Non-Obviousness
Strafford will be offering a webinar/teleconference entitled "AIA Impact on Section 103 and Non-Obviousness: Navigating Timing Changes, Post-AIA Treatment of KSR, and Secondary Considerations to Meet Patent Validity Requirements" on June 25, 2013 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm (EDT). Thomas L. Irving and Erika H. Arner of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner will provide guidance to patent counsel regarding the impact of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) on section 103 and non-obviousness, and offer best practices for meeting the non-obviousness requirement for patent validity. The panel will review the following questions:
• How has the AIA impacted the determination of obviousness?
• How has the Federal Circuit treated the issues of non-obviousness?
• What practices should counsel employ in order to meet the non-obviousness requirement?
Posted at 11:59 PM in International IP | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 10:57 PM in Federal Circuit, Patentable Subject Matter | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 10:14 PM in Court Report | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 29, 2013 - AIA and Patent Due Diligence Understanding the AIA Impact and Best Practices for the Due Diligence Process (Strafford) - 1:00 - 2:30 pm (ET)
May 30, 2013 - Harmonization of USPTO Ethical Standards in the Post-AIA Era (McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP) - 10:00 - 11:15 am (CT)
May 30, 2013 - CLS Opinions: What to Do Now (Intellectual Property Owners Association) - 2:00 - 3:00 pm (ET)
June 5-7, 2013 - Advanced Forum on Biosimilars (American Conference Institute) - New York, NY
IPO Webinar on CLS Bank Int'l v. Alice Corp.
The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) will offer a one-hour webinar entitled "CLS Opinions: What to Do Now" on May 30, 2013 beginning at 2:00 pm (ET). A panel consisting of Michael Chernoff, Director of Legal Services, Patent Operations for Accenture; Andrew Hirshfeld, Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; and J. Michael Jakes of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP will provide their thoughts on the following topics:
• Bolstering the specification of a patent to follow the line of reasoning in RCT and Ultramercial;
• Including as much detail as possible on how the computer implements the idea, even though that's not a guarantee the claims will be found eligible;
• Focusing on Judge Lourie's rejection of the idea that subject matter eligibility is a threshold question that a judge must always consider first, and his emphasis that all issued patents are presumed to be valid; and
• Whether the Federal Circuit's rulings in prior software patent cases, such as Cybersource and Dealertrack, are precedential.
American Conference Institute (ACI) will be holding its Advanced Summit on Global Patenting Strategy and Practice on July 15-16, 2013 in New York, NY. ACI faculty will help attendees:
• Develop a global patenting strategy to protect the commercial embodiment of your product in critically important markets around the world;
• Determine the impact of patent harmonization efforts on your ability to protect your IP in foreign jurisdictions;
• Review and understand the standards for patentability, filing requirements, claim construction, and obviousness or inventive step in major markets like the EU, China, Japan, Korea, and more;
• Contrast the opposition procedures utilized in the U.S. post-America Invents Act, at the EPO, in China, and elsewhere;
• Utilize the ITC as a forum for litigating international patent disputes; and
• Craft effective strategies for protecting trade secrets in numerous countries, whether they have robust IP protections in place or not.
• Understanding the Importance of Developing a Global Strategy for Your Patent Portfolio -- to be presented in part by Patent Docs author Dr. Kevin Noonan
• An Alignment of Interests: Determining the Impact of Patent Harmonization Efforts on IP Protection
• Devising Effective Strategies for Working with Inventors in Foreign Jurisdictions
• A Review of Guidelines for Patentability and Novelty in Different Patent Office
• Comparing Claim Drafting and Construction Standards in Important Jurisdictions
• Exploring Obviousness and Inventive Step Concepts Around the World
• Analyzing Written Description and Specification Requirements Across Different Patent Regimes
• Comparing and Contrasting Opposition Proceedings in the US and EU
• Navigating the "Ins" and "Outs" of Opposition Practice Across the World
• Using the International Trade Commission (ITC) as a Venue for Global Patent Conflicts
• Crafting Effective Strategies for Protecting Trade Secrets in Multiple Jurisdictions
• Addressing the Challenges Presented by Compulsory Licensing Provisions Abroad
Two post-conference workshops will be held on July 17, 2013. The first, entitled "Mastering the Foreign Patent Law and Regulatory Requirements for Life Sciences Companies in a Global Context," will be offered from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. The second, entitled "The Interactive Working Group Session: Negotiating the Obstacles and Challenges Associated with Patenting a Product in Numerous Jurisdictions," will be offered from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm.
The agenda for the Global Patenting Strategy and Practice conference can be found here, and additional information about the post-conference 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 for the conference is $2,295 (conference alone), $2,895 (conference and one workshop), or $3,295 (conference and both workshops). Those registering by June 21, 2013 will receive a $200 discount. Patent Docs readers who reference the discount code "PD200" will receive $200 off the current price tier when registering. Those interested in registering for the conference can do so here, by e-mailing CustomerService@AmericanConference.com, by calling 1-888-224-2480, or by faxing a registration form to 1-877-927-1563.
Patent Docs is a media partner of ACI's Global Patenting Strategy and Practice conference.
Strafford will be offering a webinar/teleconference entitled "Post-Grant Patent Proceedings Before the PTAB" on June 12, 2013 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm (EDT). Scott A. McKeown and Greg H. Gardella of Oblon Spivak McClelland Maier & Neustadt will discuss the new post-grant patent practice and offer best practices for counsel to either patentees or third parties in inter partes review, post-grant review, and covered business method challenges. The panel will review the following questions:
• What are the best practices for the new post-grant review and inter partes review?
• What are the strategic approaches for counsel dealing with covered business method patent challenges?
McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP will be offering a live webinar entitled "Preventing Chinese Trade Secret Theft: The Obama Administration's Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets" on June 11, 2013 from 10:00 am to 11:15 am (CT). MBHB attorney Joshua Rich will cover recent developments in the attempt to mitigate theft of U.S. trade secrets. Topics to be covered include:
• An overview of the "Administration Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets"
• Recent Obama Administration steps to implement the Administration strategy
• Industry and public suggestions for the improvement of Federal trade secret law
• Pending Congressional measures for the prevention of trade secret misappropriation
Posted at 11:59 PM in Federal Circuit, Novelty | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As suggested, this wrinkle is the inevitable consequence of the Court's previous MedImmune decision, which allowed a patent licensee to challenge the validity (and non-infringement) of a patent in a DJ action without repudiating the license. In such a case, however, the patent holder could not have brought its own patent infringement action (because of the license agreement), and more importantly, the patent holder could not bring an infringement counterclaim. The Supreme Court did not address in MedImmune whether the patent holder would still have the burden of proving infringement in such a case where the licensee was seeking to disturb the status quo ante. This issue was answered in the negative by the Federal Circuit in Medtronic Inc. v. Boston Scientific Corp., 695 F.3d 1266 (Fed. Cir. 2012), as we reported at the time. In its petition for cert., Medtronic equated this with a "presumption of infringement," and noted that proving the negative can be "a formidable task." In any event, it can be assumed that the Supreme Court took up this case because it disagreed with the Federal Circuit's decision, and therefore the burden will likely shift back to the patentee to prove infringement in the MedImmune context. Nevertheless, it may be useful to look at the factual differences between the MedImmune and Medtronic cases, and identify what to do if faced with a similar situation in the interim.
Posted at 10:34 PM in Infringement - Literal or DOE, Licensing, Supreme Court | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A previous post presented the background of this case, as well as Judge Lourie's plurality concurrence, and a second post addressed Chief Judge Rader's concurrence-in-part and dissent-in-part. As noted in those posts, Alice's claimed inventions involved the reduction of settlement risk using a third-party intermediary. This post continues the story of Alice by discussing the dissenting-in-part opinion by Circuit Judge Moore, the concurring-in-part and dissenting-in-part opinion by Circuit Judge Newman, and the dissenting opinion by Circuit Judges Linn and O'Malley.
Judge Moore begins her opinion, which was joined by Judges Rader, Linn, and O'Malley, with a warning: "if all of these claims, including the system claims, are not patent-eligible, this case is the death of hundreds of thousands of patents, including all business method, financial system, and software patents as well as many computer implemented and telecommunications patents." She noted that 320,799 patents were granted over a 13 year period in the USPTO's "Electrical Computers, Digital Processing Systems, Information Security, Error/Fault Handling" technology area, and that all of these patents were potentially at risk under Judge Lourie's opinion.
Like Judge Rader, Judge Moore stated that claims must be considered as a whole, and under that standard, Alice's system claims would be patent-eligible. She noted that Prometheus explicitly indicated that interpreting the judicial exceptions to subject matter patentability too broadly would "eviscerate patent law" because at some level all inventions are based on abstract ideas, laws of nature, and/or natural phenomena.
Judge Moore also argued against the conflation of § 101, § 102, and § 103. She noted that Judge Lourie's "inventive concept" analysis introduced a time-dependency into the § 101 inquiry that was more appropriate for the inquiries of the other sections. To illustrate this point, she provided examples:
Even though the concept of addition is an abstract idea, the first calculator that could perform addition was a patent-eligible machine under § 101. If someone subsequently discovered that, by rewiring the calculator, it could perform addition and subtraction (both abstract mathematical concepts), the improved calculator would similarly be patent-eligible. The act of modifying the circuitry of a known device such that it is configured to apply an abstract idea does not transform it into an abstract idea.
Accordingly, largely based on the same general reasoning as Judge Rader, Judge Moore would have found Alice's system claims patent-eligible.
Judge Newman's concurrence-in-part and dissent-in-part
Judge Newman begins by noting that this case has provided three incompatible standards for § 101 analysis, opening the door for "opportunistic litigation, whose result will depend on the random selection of the panel." She plainly stated that the Federal Circuit has failed to clarify the interpretation of § 101.
Judge Newman's position, like that of four of her colleagues, is that the § 101, § 102, and § 103 inquiries are separate. She writes "it is not necessary, or appropriate, to decide whether subject matter is patentable in order to decide whether it is eligible to be considered for patentability." She propounded a simplification of the § 101 inquiry by suggesting that "when the subject matter is within the statutory classes in section 101, eligibility is established." Invoking the oft-quoted phrase that patent law embraces "anything under the sun that is made by man," she would push off all considerations of claim breadth to the other sections of the statute.
Ultimately, Judge Newman positioned her separate opinion as call for the Federal Circuit to affirm three basic principles of patentable subject matter.
1) "The court should hold that section 101 is an inclusive statement of patent-eligible subject matter." Judge Newman advocated eliminating claims that are abstract or that pre-empt abstract ideas or the other judicial exceptions using "laws of novelty, utility, prior art, obviousness, description, enablement, and specificity."
2) "The court should hold that the form of the claim does not determine section 101 eligibility." Whether the invention is claimed as a method, CRM, or system, and whether it is implemented with hardware or software, would not be relevant to the § 101 inquiry for Judge Newman. Like Judge Lourie, she would attempt to decrease the impact of the so-called "clever draftsman."
3) "The court should confirm that experimental use of patented information is not barred." Perhaps most important of the three, Judge Newman believes that the popular media has misconstrued the debate on patentable subject matter to mean that a patented invention cannot further be studied. In particular, she would have the Court hold that experiments that improve or build upon patented subject matter, compare it with alternatives, seek to understand its mechanisms, and to find new applications should be considered non-infringing activities.
Judge Linn's and Judge O'Malley's dissent
In stark contrast to their colleagues, Judges Linn and O'Malley would reverse the District Court ruling and find all claims patent-eligible for procedural reasons.
Since the summary judgment motions were filed prior to claim construction, the District Court gave the claims, for purposes of considering these motions, an interpretation defined by Alice. Thus, Judges Linn and O'Malley afforded that the District Court was "required to read into the claims whatever limitations Alice asserted a skilled artisan would assume they possessed." And, as noted above, the parties stipulated at trial that all claims required a computer and a memory to be performed.
Consequently, Judges Linn and O'Malley faulted Judges Rader and Moore of improperly construing the method claims more broadly than the system claims, and also reproached Judge Lourie for importing the breadth of the method claims into the system and CRM claims. Judges Linn and O'Malley would have all claims rise or fall together.
With respect to the patent-eligibility of the system claims, the judges reiterated the position of Judge Rader. However, they would also apply the same analysis to the method and CRM claims, and find those claims meeting the § 101 requirements as well.
Judges Linn and O'Malley concluded with a discussion of software patents at large. Rather than use § 101 to mitigate a supposed "proliferation and aggressive enforcement of low quality software patents" concerning the various amici curiae, they would push this issue back to Congress for legislative action. They suggested that Congress could limit the term of software patents, or limit their scope by requiring functional claiming.
Posted at 10:54 PM in Federal Circuit, Patentable Subject Matter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)