The following guest post from Robert R. Sachs, Partner at Fenwick & West LLP, first appeared on the Bilski Blog, and it is reposted here with permission.
By Robert R. Sachs
In late July, the USPTO issued its July 2015 Update to the 2014 Interim Section 101 Patent Eligibility Guidance (IEG). Read more
By Adam Mossoff
In Akamai v. Limelight, the Federal Circuit expanded its definition of what it means for someone to be directly liable for patent infringement when they direct or control other people’s actions. Through its proper judicial role in interpreting the meaning of the portion of the Patent Act defining direct infringement — Section 271(a) — the court has brought an end to machinating schemes that made possible unauthorized uses of patented innovation. Read more
Last March, forty economists and law professors submitted a letter to Congress expressing “deep concerns with the many flawed, unreliable, or incomplete studies about the American patent system that have been provided to members of Congress.” These concerns were confirmed again last week when Unified Patents released a report on patent litigation with the same kind of “highly exaggerated claims regarding patent trolls” that the professors were concerned about. Read more
We’ve all heard the narrative about patent licensing firms, often referred to pejoratively as “patent trolls.” These patent owners, who choose to license their innovations rather than build them, are the supposed poster-children of a “broken” patent system. It’s as if commercializing one’s property, just like a landlord leases his land for another to use, is suddenly a bad thing. Read more
The following post, by Robert R. Sachs, first appeared on the Bilski Blog, and it is reposted here with permission.
It’s been one year since the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. On its face the opinion was relatively conservative, cautioning courts to “tread carefully” before invalidating patents, and emphasizing that the primary concern was to avoid preemption of “fundamental building blocks” of human ingenuity. Read more
By Patent Publius
Earlier this month, the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Ariosa v. Sequenom, a closely-watched biotechnology case with significant repercussions for patent-eligibility analysis generally. Unfortunately, the Federal Circuit misapplies the Supreme Court’s analytical framework from Mayo v. Read more
In the last two weeks, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees marked up wide-ranging patent legislation ostensibly aimed at combating frivolous litigation by so-called “patent trolls.” But while the stated purpose of the House and Senate bills—H.R. 9 (the “Innovation Act”) and S. Read more
PDF summary available here
I. Introduction
A recent draft study about patent licensing companies entitled “Patent Trolls: Evidence from Targeted Firms” is making the rounds on Capitol Hill and receiving press coverage. This attention is unfortunate, because the study is deeply flawed and its conclusions cannot and should not be relied upon. Read more
This is the first in a series of posts summarizing CPIP’s 2014 Fall Conference, “Common Ground: How Intellectual Property Unites Creators and Innovators.” The Conference was held at George Mason University School of Law on October 9-10, 2014. Videos of the conference panels and remarks, as well as panel summaries, will be available soon. Read more
In an interview with Law360 last week, FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright spoke about the FTC’s upcoming study on PAEs and the state of today’s patent policy debates. The interview is well-worth reading in it’s entirety, and we’ve also highlighted a couple key quotes below. Read more
