Search Results for: hyatt

Are Specific Information-Processing Claims Abstract Ideas?

Patent, ,

Guest Post by Jeffrey A. Lefstin, Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank resolved the easy cases: claims that merely recite a mode of organizing activity coupled with a generic instruction to “do it on a computer” or “do it on the Internet.” The key question left open by Alice is whether claims to specific information-processing techniques represent ineligible abstract ideas or eligible applications. Answering that question will be critical to resolving cases like California Institute of Technology v. Hughes Communications, Inc., and McRO v. Activision, discussed in Robert Stoll’s Patently-O post last month.

The patents in Caltech were directed to a method of generating error correction codes in digital transmissions. They described a method of generating parity bits by accumulating previously generated parity bits, and a sum of randomly chosen irregular repeats of message bits. Notwithstanding that the patents claimed only information-processing steps, Judge Pfaelzer of the Central District of California ruled that the claims were patent-eligible: while the claims were directed to the abstract idea of error correction, the algorithm for generating parity bits represented an inventive application of the underlying idea.

As Judge Pfaelzer recognized, that holding might be in tension with Digitech Image Technologies v. Electronics for Imaging, where the Federal Circuit, relying on Benson and Flook, suggested that any claim merely transforming information with “mathematical algorithms” is not patent-eligible. So Caltech squarely raises the question of whether specific information-processing algorithms are patent-eligible after Alice.

More generally, the significance of Benson and Flook after Alice is a critical question for future § 101 jurisprudence: much of the difficulty faced by the lower courts and the USPTO arises from attempts to reconcile the Supreme Court’s earlier caselaw with its decisions since Bilski.

It is time to acknowledge that they cannot be reconciled, and they need not be. While the Court maintains a pretense that all its opinions are coherent with each other, the regime the Court has crafted since Bilski represents a sharp break from its earlier decisions. Courts that continue to rely on Benson and Flook have not recognized the significance of Alice’s reaffirmation of the Mayo framework for patent-eligibility. For Mayo established both a different structure and a different rationale for subject matter eligibility than the Court had employed in its prior cases.

First, Mayo provided a new structure for the § 101 inquiry: step one is to identify an abstract idea or law of nature underlying the claim, and step two asks whether the claim further recites an ‘inventive concept’ that transforms the abstract idea or law of nature into a patent-eligible application. If that was not the analytical framework employed in the Court’s earlier cases, then the analysis and holdings of those cases are not necessarily relevant after Mayo and Alice. The Court itself told us in Bilski that its earlier opinions represented nothing more than explanations of the basic exceptions for laws of nature and abstract ideas.

Second, Mayo and Alice reoriented the rationale for subject-matter exclusions. Benson and Flook were premised in large part on the exclusion of subject matter not expressly authorized by Congress, the restriction of patents to tangible processes, or the exclusion of preexisting truths that exist apart from human action. Those premises were rejected in Chakrabarty, Bilski, and Alice, respectively. Instead, Mayo and Alice grounded subject matter exclusions on the ‘building-block’ concern: that patents on fundamental principles risk foreclosing more innovation than they promote.

Given the Court’s reorientation of the doctrine, Benson and Flook’s focus on ‘algorithms’ is no longer relevant. Abstract ideas, after Bilski, Mayo, and Alice, are not characterized by intangibility or field of invention. They are characterized by ‘fundamentalness’ – the concern that patents on basic concepts will foreclose too much further development. In this framework, a specific information-processing algorithm, such as an algorithm for generating parity bits, does not qualify as an abstract idea.

Caltech defined the abstract idea as the purpose of the claim, recited at a reasonably high level of generality: error correction, in the claims at issue. Identifying the abstract idea with the purpose or effect of the claim follows from the structure of the Mayo/Alice test. Step one defines the abstraction (if any) underlying the claim, while step two asks whether the application of that abstraction contains an inventive concept. The object of step one must therefore be to separate the idea of the invention from the means of application, which will be the subject of step two.

We already differentiate between idea and means of application in the law of inventorship: courts have long distinguished between formulating a goal, effect or result – which is not a contribution to conception – and formulating the means of attaining that result – which is a contribution to conception. So the Caltech analysis merely maps that long-standing distinction onto the subject-matter inquiry under § 101.

I discuss these ideas further, and develop a framework of ‘inventive concept’ applicable to both abstract ideas and laws of nature, in a forthcoming paper available here.

Our Expanded Regime of Submarine Prior Art

Patent,

by Dennis Crouch

The general rule in our new first-to-file patent system is that your effective application filing date* is of utmost importance.  In general that date is the trigger-date for prior art.  Prior Publications count as prior art (102(a)(1) prior art) as do Patents and Patent Applications filed prior to the trigger-date (102(a)(2) prior art).  To be clear, publications are generally thought of as prior art as of their date of publication, but we have a special rule for U.S. patent filings — once published or patented they become prior art as of their effective filing date. [Note, the statute stretches the date back to the “earliest [priority] application that describes the subject matter”].

I have identified these 102(a)(2) prior art patent documents as “submarine prior art” because they are kept secret (usually for 18-months) and then suddenly emerge as back-dated prior art.  Pre-AIA law included the submarine prior art under what was then known as 102(e) (2010).  However (and in my view) the new law expands the scope of submarine prior art in a few ways. First, under the new law applicants can no longer swear-behind prior art based upon their prior invention date.  Second, under the new law the submarine prior art will stretch back further in many cases to encompass (for instance) the original foreign-priority filing date. [As with the old rule, a prior application by the identical inventor does not create submarine prior art].

A Company’s Own Prior Patent Filings: One exception to the submarine-prior-art issue is 35 U.S.C. §102(b)(2)(C). That sub-section indicates that neither prior-filed patent application publications nor their resulting patents will be deemed prior art if:

(C) the subject matter disclosed [in the prior document] and the claimed invention . . . were owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person [as of the claimed invention’s effective filing date].

The basic idea here is that a company’s own secret-filed applications will not serve as prior art against the company itself.**

The Pre-AIA statute included a similar exception codified in 35 U.S.C. 103(c). However, the new exception is more powerful in several ways.  Most notably from the face of the statute is that the old law only excused prior art for obviousness purposes but not for novelty purposes while the new law negates the references for seemingly any prior art purpose.  Second, the expansion of submarine prior art (noted above) makes the exception relatively more important. As more applications continue to be filed in crowded technology spaces, I expect that the exception will continue to rise in importance.

Questions that I would like to pursue is how important this expanded submarine prior art is to the system and likewise the relative importance of the intra-company-exception.***  Theoretically, the exception favors (a) larger entities who file many incremental patent applications with a variety of inventorship team combinations as well (b) as applicants who file applications under non-publication requests.  For examiners, do you consider whether an applicant can claim the exception before issuing a rejection or do you wait for the applicant to claim the exception.

This question will be part of one project that I’m planning to pursue this summer that will provide some initial studies on how the AIA has impacted patent prosecution.

On-point comments are very welcome.

*****

* The effective filing date is defined on a claim-by-claim basis as “the filing date of the earliest application for which the patent or application is entitled, as to such invention, to a right of priority under section 119, 365(a), or 365(b) or to the benefit of an earlier filing date under section 120, 121, or 365(c).” 35 U.S.C. 100(i).

** Patents associated with inventions developed via a Joint Research Agreement (JRA) can also be avoided by parties to the Agreement.  35 U.S.C. 102(c).

*** I should note here that all countries have some form of submarine prior art, but many follow the European approach that the submarine art is not considered for obviousness (inventive step) purposes because of the reality that the secret prior art would not have been within the grasp of a person of skill in the art (since it was secret at the time).

 

Guest Post: White House “Patent Troll” Report Challenged under the Federal Information Quality Act.

Patent

By Ron D. Katznelson

A letter to Congress from 51 professors of law and economics argues that “the net effect of patent litigation is to raise the cost of innovation and inhibit technological progress.”  In response, an equally strong letter to Congress from other 40 professors of law and economics expresses “deep concerns with the many flawed, unreliable, or incomplete studies about the American patent system that have been provided to members of Congress.”  The response letter defends the patent system and notes a pattern of analytical flaws in some studies underlying the 51 professors’ letter, listing basic empirical analysis reliability criteria that such studies fail to meet.  Are criteria for reliable empirical analysis fungible? Should our patent policy turn on a “they said – they said” contest?

The answer must be a resounding NO.  It turns out that the government has developed detailed criteria, requirements and standards for reliable empirical analysis and information quality.  Because the public disproportionately relies on information disseminated by the government, the government holds itself to substantially higher standards than those used by private parties or non-government entities in disseminating information on the internet or in academic journals, with its high variability in accuracy and reliability.  Congress enacted the Information Quality Act (“IQA”) in order to ensure that information disseminated by government agencies meet the standards of “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity.” 44 U.S.C. § 3516, note.  Information disseminated by the government for reliance by government and the public must be “presented in an accurate, clear, complete, and unbiased manner.”  The IQA forbids agencies from endorsing or approvingly disseminating information of substandard quality from third-parties.

The Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) promulgated guidelines for agencies to comply with the IQA, including the Bulletin for Peer Review and the Standards and Guidelines for Statistical Surveys.  These quality standards are quite specific.  For example, they set criteria for presentation and substantive balance and objectivity, transparency of data and methods, conditions under which peer-review is required, design of survey frames and sample coverage, minimum survey response rates below which specific bias analyses are required, etc.  Virtually all government agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, are subject to these guidelines and standards.  Under the IQA, agencies are required to establish administrative procedures enabling “affected persons” “to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with [the OMB IQA] guidelines;” agencies have established a 60-day period for their review and corrective action in response to such requests.  Agency responses to such petitions are not judicially reviewable because the IQA establishes no Article III standing for petitioners.  However, the President and OMB regulations require agency compliance with the IQA.

Whereas 51 professors, relying on works that do not meet the IQA standards, can freely publish and argue (as they have) that patent litigation inhibits technological progress, the government is precluded from doing so.  But that is exactly what the White House has done in contravention of the IQA by publishing its “patent troll” report known as the Patent Assertion Entities (“PAE”) Report.  It relies on many of the works cited by the 51 professors’ letter, without even having conducted an IQA pre-dissemination review—a basic first-level IQA requirement.  For these reasons, I have filed with the White House a petition under the IQA, requesting correction and removal of this PAE Report from all government websites.

My Petition shows that the PAE Report contravenes the IQA because it expressly relies on third-party information that does not meet the IQA standards.  The sources relied on by the PAE Report purport to document patent litigation rates, quantify the private and social costs of patent litigation, survey “victims” of PAE litigation, and show the purported adverse effects of PAE activities.  This information includes studies that have undergone no peer review; that have relied on opaque or erroneous methods and surveys; that lack objectivity; and lack practical utility.

To achieve agency compliance with identifiable IQA standards, my Petition concludes with 21 specific requests for correction supported by evidence and arguments.  My Petition provides a compendium of detailed analyses of fundamental flaws surrounding data and methods used in eight commonly cited studies purported to document PAE harms, upon which the PAE Report relies.

Examples of some of the PAE Report’s assertions failing the IQA are:

  • that PAEs take advantage of the patent litigation cost asymmetries to force settlements and that they have an incentive to drag out litigation; my Petition shows that this allegation lacks supporting evidence and merely relies on a citation to a reference that does not exist, therefore failing to meet the IQA;
  • that the social costs of PAEs patent litigation is $83 billion per year; my Petition shows in detail that the Bessen et al. paper upon which the allegation relies is erroneous, biased and fraught with fundamental analytical flaws and the information fails to meet the IQA standards;
  • that the direct costs to defendants of PAE litigation are $29 billion per year; my Petition shows that the Bessen & Meurer paper upon which the allegation relies, incorrectly defines “costs” and is based on a biased and opaque sample in a flawed survey that fails to meet the IQA Survey Standards;
  • an allegation of a “dramatic rise” in PAE litigation and that PAEs brought 62% of all patent suits; my Petition shows that the Chien blog post upon which the allegation relies, fails to meet the IQA because (i) it is irreproducible by independent qualified parties since it is based on secret data and methods, and is financially supported by parties that have an interest in the outcome of the study, and (ii) because it lacks objectivity by failing to even mention the effects of the AIA joinder provisions on the surge in the number of suits;
  • that 40% of technology startups targeted by PAEs suffered a “significant operational impact;” my Petition shows that the survey upon which the allegation relies fails to meet the IQA because the only thing known about the sample frame is its purposeful bias against NPEs. Solicitations (i.e., “trolling”) for the survey were made by entities that are “critical of the patent system,” encouraging respondents to participate in order to send a message to Congress—not to conduct bona fide research.

I also show (including through FOIA revelations) that the PAE Report’s secret author, a patent law professor, dominated its content by her own works, and those substantially reflecting her views.  The White House omitted some in-text citations to the professor’s works from the bibliographic reference list and falsely attributed her survey results to a news reporter.  Together, these errors had the effect of concealing the dominance of this professor’s works in the PAE Report.  But where the professor’s own publications elsewhere strike a balance by at least acknowledging and crediting references with views opposing her own (see Petition, Sec. 5.5.1), it appears that the White House overruled her approach, as the PAE Report generally fails the objectivity requirement of the IQA.  It lacks objectivity both on presentation and substance, because it focuses only on the ostensible negative aspects of NPEs or PAEs.  The IQA “objectivity” standard requires analysis that also includes the salutary economic benefits of patent enforcement, or the positive role of NPEs as intermediaries—analysis that is entirely omitted.

The results are troubling.  For example, the PAE Report disseminates this sweeping conclusory economic assessment: “the losses caused by excessive litigation [include] lost value to consumers who are not able to buy innovative products, and reduced income for workers whose pay is lower because they are unable to work with more productive new processes.”  Absolutely no evidence or other bases are cited in support of this allegation.  Ironically, the stark failure to meet the IQA standards may produce the opposite result of that intended by the proponents of patent reform.  For example, estimates of the number of NPE demand letters based on extrapolation from one extreme outlier case (see Petition at 41) are so fantastic that they undermine the credibility of the legitimate efforts to address a genuine (but infrequent) problem of abusive demand letters.

The Petition and supporting material may appear to some readers as cumbersome and repetitive.  This may be so because it is written to overcome the burden on the petitioner of establishing non-compliance with the IQA, including the requisite particularized requests for correction.  Stay tuned to see what corrective action the White House may take.

Link to the full IQA Petition for Correction

Supreme Court: TTAB Decisions Create Issue Preclusion for Later Litigation

Patent, , , , ,

by Dennis Crouch

In B&B Hardware v. Hargis Indus. (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court involved a trademark opposition running in parallel with a trademark infringement lawsuit over the mark SEALTITE/SEALTIGHT.  The general holding is that a final decision by the US Patent & Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) can serve as issue preclusion to collaterally estop a court from re-judging already-decided issues.  The particular issue being precluded here is the likelihood-of-confusion between the two marks, and the Supreme Court held that the TTAB’s final decision on likelihood-of-confusion could preclude that issue from being later litigated in the collateral action between the parties.

A court should give preclusive effect to TTAB decisions if the ordinary elements of issue preclusion are met.

Here, the “ordinary elements” of issue preclusion are that “[w]hen an issue of fact or law is actually litigated and determined by a valid and final judgment, and the determination is essential to the judgment, the determination is conclusive in a subsequent action between the parties, whether on the same or a different claim.” Restatement (Second) of Judgments §27.

In its decision, the Supreme Court recognized (1) that the TTAB is an administrative agency and not an Article III court; (2) that a right to a jury trial would exist in the infringement action absent preclusion; (3) that the details and procedures associated with the TTAB judging likelihood-of-confusion were somewhat different (but not fundamentally different) than that applied in the 8th Circuit; and (4) that – had the TTAB decision been challenged – it was not appealed.

And it is undisputed that a civil action in district court would entail de novo review of the TTAB’s decision. Ante, at 5.

Going forward, the court is clear that many TTAB decisions will not have preclusive effective — but that is because they fail the ordinary elements of preclusion and not simply because the TTAB is an administrative agency or because the TTAB usually decides cases in a certain way.

The 7-2 decision was penned by Justice Alito with a concurring opinion by Justice Ginsburg.  Justice Thomas wrote in dissent and was joined by Justice Scalia.  The dissent argued that the court should not simply presume that Congress intended agency decision to have preclusive effect.

= = = = =

For patent attorneys, the case will have an obvious impact on the interplay between the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and parallel district court litigation.  The same reasoning that led the Supreme Court to its decision in B&B will apply equally with determinations made during inter partes and post grant review proceedings.  Importantly, issue preclusion applies to individual decisions of fact or law and thus may be important for sub-issues such as claim construction, scope and content of the prior art, level of skill in the art, etc.

Although B&B focused on traditional mutual issue preclusion, there is should also apply to defensive non-mutual issue preclusion that might arise when the defendant in an infringement action was not one of the parties in the IPR/PGR.

An important caveat: The Supreme Court recognized that issue preclusion won’t apply to agency decision when Congress so indicates. Here, there is an argument that the estoppel provisions in the IPR/PGR statutes suggest that Congress has opted out of the issue preclusion arena for these decisions.

= = = = =

One of the most interesting lines from the opinion: “federal law does not create trademarks.” For that line, the court cited Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82, 92 (1879) (“This exclusive right was not created by the act of Congress, and does not now depend upon it for its enforcement. The whole system of trade-mark property and the civil remedies for its protection existed long anterior to that act, and have remained in full force since its passage.”).

 

Guest Post by Dr. Gaudry and Prof. Tu – Our Call to the PTO: Release SAWS Data

Patent, , ,

Guest Post by Dr. Kate Gaudry and Prof. Shine Tu.  Professor Tu is an Associate Professor of Law at the West Virginia College of Law.  Dr. Gaudry is a patent attorney with Kilpatrick Townsend.

The Sensitive Application Warning System, or SAWS, program is a secretive program operated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that flags certain patent applications for a heightened level of scrutiny. In October 2014, the PTO responded to one of our requests for information about SAWS. This post discusses the data the PTO provided, highlights areas where it is incomplete, and explains our concerns about the information the PTO declined to provide.

The SAWS program operates like this: If an examiner determines that a criterion applied to an application being examined, he/she is to propose that the application be characterized as a SAWS applications. When an application is entered into the SAWS program, multiple other people (seemingly up to eight or more people) must review and approve examiner-proposed notices of allowances. This enhanced-scrutiny review can negatively impact the applicant. For example, it would likely result in a reduced probability that an application would be allowed, an increased number of office actions issued and an increased pendency. Further, it would appear to prevent the applicant from being able to talk to (via an interview) or even identify the decision-makers controlling an application’s fate. Despite these potential consequences, applicants are not informed when an application is entered into the SAWS program, and the PTO refused to respond to multiple of our requests to identify SAWS application numbers. The PTO instead has insisted that SAWS has a minimal impact on prosecution. (See http://www.corpcounsel.com/id=1202678064286/Secret-PTO-Program-Delays-Patent-Approvals.) This conclusion would be surprising given the structure of the program, and is contradicted by our preliminary data.

Sixty pages of memos indicated that there were approximately 100 SAWS-eligibility criteria. Some criteria seem reasonable: for example, “applications claiming inventions which would endanger individuals, the environment, the security of our nation, or public safety.” However, some criteria seem extremely broad, vague and/or frivolous, such as applications “dealing with inventions, which, if issued, would potentially generate unwanted media coverage;” “disclosing seemingly frivolous or silly subject matter;” “with claims of pioneering scope;” “claiming the prevention or curing of diseases which were previously considered impossible to prevent or cure, such as … Alzheimer’s disease, … [or] HIV infection;” and “[directed to] smartphones and other convergence-intensive devices.”) (A full summary of the released SAWS information and criteria can be found here: http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/en/Knowledge_Center/Publications/Articles/2014/12/Secret_PTO_Program_Subjects_Apps_To_Heightened_Scrutiny.aspx). Given the breadth and vagueness of these categories, we are concerned that the SAWS program seems to be designed to allow the PTO to arbitrarily heighten the criteria of patentability for certain applications.

The PTO recently granted one or our requests to identify high-level statistics pertaining to the program. An initial report of some of these statistics can be found here [http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/en/Knowledge_Center/Publications/Articles/2015/01/Secret_PatentExamination_Program_Rare_But_Consequential.aspx]. In sum, the PTO provided data regarding the total number of applications that were flagged for SAWS evaluation in fiscal years 2006, 2008, and 2010 having each of three statuses: patented, pending or abandoned. Additionally, the PTO provided information segmenting these applications based on technology center assignment and prosecution statistics for individual application sets (each set corresponding to a SAWS designation, filing year and current status).

In short, very few applications are evaluated under the SAWS program (approximately 1 in 2500). However, for those that are – contrary to the PTO’s contentions – the PTO’s own data shows that the SAWS program has a sizable impact on prosecution, both in increasing prosecution duration and reduction in allowance rates.

SAWS Impact

Reduced Allowance Rate

One impact is that SAWS applications appear to be less likely to issue as patents and more likely to be pending for extended durations. We had requested data identifying the status for published, utility SAWS applications filed in fiscal year 2006 and for published, utility applications filed in the same time period. As reported in the January 2015 Law360 article [http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/~/media/Files/articles/2014/Secret%20Patent-Examination%20Program%20Rare%20But%20Consequential.ashx], far fewer SAWS applications had issued as compared to the greater application set (see Table 1), and many more were pending.

SAWS1FIG. 1 below breaks this result down by technology center. (“BM” is representative of the business-method art units in technology center 3600, which includes art units 3621-29, 3681-89 and 3691-96.) As shown, SAWS applications are generally substantially less likely than other applications to have issued as patents (FIG. 1A) and are substantially more likely to be pending (FIG. 1B).

Figure 1

Figure 1

It is impossible for us to evaluate the appropriateness of SAWS applications being less likely to be patented 9 years after filing than other applications because the PTO has not released the application numbers. Potentially, these SAWS applications include “silly” applications (however that is defined), or potentially these SAWS applications include a novel drug that will cure Alzheimer’s disease. But without the application numbers, we can only hypothesize about the contents of the SAWS-tracked applications.

Extended Prosecution of Patents

What we can, at least quantitatively, evaluate are those applications that the PTO eventually determined were worthy of a patent. As initially reported in the above-referenced Law360 article, the prosecutions of these patent-worthy applications were dramatically affected. In particular, it took substantially longer to receive notices of allowances. FIG. 2 is a new graph showing the time from application filing to patent issuance for SAWS patents and other patents filed in fiscal year 2006, separated by technology center.

SAWS3

Figure 2

Thus, years (on average, three years) are added to a patent’s pendency, and this delay will likely be even more substantial as the pending SAWS applications reach final disposition. Technology Center 1600 is one center where this delay is quite apparent. Given that Technology Center 1600 examines patent applications relating to (amongst other subjects) drug compounds and that SAWS applications are more common in Technology Center 1600 than many other technology centers, the delay may be of great societal concern, as it may affect investments devoted to the innovations and thus the accessibility of new treatments. Further, the number of SAWS applications in Technology Center 1600 has approximately doubled between filing year 2006 and 2010.

The prosecution delay could be, due to additional office actions issued against SAWS applications. For applications filed in fiscal year 2006 that have issued as patents, the average number of office actions issued per patent was 4.3 for SAWS patents and 2.3 for the corps-wide patent set. Another one of our upcoming articles on IPWatchDog shows the discrepancy in office-action counts and RCE filings for individual technology centers. This increase in office-action issuances and RCE filings likely requires applicants to invest substantially more money in procurement of a patent. (In our Law360 article [http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/~/media/Files/articles/2014/Secret%20Patent-Examination%20Program%20Rare%20But%20Consequential.ashx], we estimate the additional costs to be roughly $7000.)

Concerns and Oddities Surrounding SAWS

The PTO is Not Recognizing the Impact of SAWS

This data seems to suggest that the enhanced scrutiny of SAWS is not innocuous. Nonetheless, the PTO seems to be in denial of the data that the agency itself provided. As reported by Corporate Counsel [link to: http://www.corpcounsel.com/id=1202716358836/Data-Shows-Impact-of-PTOs-Secretive-Patent-Program] a PTO spokesperson said, in response to this data that “any time added to the prosecution of the patent is usually minimal.” Given that the average added delay is three years, this assessment seems to be inaccurate.

The PTO is Hiding its SAWS Classifications

The PTO has been repeatedly asked, by us and by others, to indicate whether particular applications are being evaluated under SAWS and/or to identify all SAWS applications. The PTO repeatedly refuses to do so. The agency asserts that the information is privileged as part of an agency’s deliberative process. Dennis Crouch has previously explained why he believes that this privilege assertion is misplaced. [Link to https://patentlyo.com/patent/2015/01/sensitive-application-warning.html] Even if the privilege was proper (which the authors concur is not for multiple reasons), such privilege in this instance could be waived by the PTO. For the sake of transparency and to allow applicants to stay informed as to the true status of their applications, the PTO should choose to release such information. Such disclosure would also allow applicants to be able to identify who the true decision-makers are in relation to SAWS matters, rather than undergoing frustration with seeming inconsistencies between conversations (at which allowable subject matter is identified) with an examiner and official papers issued by the office (nonetheless rejecting an application).

SAWS Violates Proper Rulemaking

If we assume the SAWS program is a procedural, and not a substantive, rule, the PTO could have authority to promulgate such a rule. (The PTO does not have authority to make substantive rules.) However, procedural rules must be appropriately enacted. The PTO frequently complies with informal notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures (e.g., as opposed to formal rulemaking procedures). However, with regard to SAWS, neither notice nor comment opportunity were provided.

Up until December 2014 (shortly after our first Law360 publication http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/en/Knowledge_Center/Publications/Articles/2014/12/Secret_PTO_Program_Subjects_Apps_To_Heightened_Scrutiny.aspx conveying to the public the SAWS information we received), the PTO seemed to have no mention of SAWS on their website or in the MPEP. Even the new PTO website acknowledging the program [http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/Sensitive-Application-Warning-System.jsp] does not include any information about how the program actually works. Rather, it merely speaks to the program’s purpose and downplays effects on applications’ examinations.

SAWS Violates Due Process

Possible property rights seem to be affected by SAWS. Applicants subjected to SAWS appear to be less likely to be patented, and patent issuance is delayed. This delay in issuance may preclude an applicant from protecting an invention during a critical time (e.g., critical in view of a competitive landscape, litigation, or investment opportunity). Despite these consequences, the PTO does not abide by fair procedures in relation to the program.

There is no clear criteria indicating what types of applications will be subjected to SAWS. Rather, the very broad, extensive SAWS-eligibility list could seemingly qualify many more applications to be reviewed under SAWS than the reported 0.04%.

Further, there is no disclosure as to how the program actually operates and which applications are affected. This precludes applicants from challenging or even understanding SAWS designations and immunizes the PTO from improper selection processes.

Our Call to the PTO: Be Transparent about SAWS

The PTO claims that SAWS is a mere quality-control effort, that SAWS applications undergo the same examination review as other applications, and that the SAWS process minimally affects processing delays. Nonetheless, to outsiders, this program is suspicious for at least the following reasons:

  • One of the top SAWS-eligibility criteria relates to reducing PTO embarrassment.
  • While the PTO has repeatedly asserted that SAWS does not affect examination delays, we have shown that contention to be wrong.
  • The SAWS-eligibility list could seemingly qualify most patent applications for SAWS, while only 0.04% are entered into the program. Thus, the actual SAWS-selection criteria is unknown to the public (and creates bias opportunity).
  • SAWS violates the PTO’s rulemaking authority.
  • SAWS violates due process.
  • The PTO has refused to identify which applications are in SAWS, such that it appears as though they are attempting to make the program immune from challenge or embarrassment.

If this program is a fair program, we call for the PTO to release the SAWS application numbers and, going forward, to inform applicants when their applications have been selected for SAWS review. We are not alone in this call, as attorneys from a variety of firms [http://www.law360.com/articles/614522/attys-want-uspto-to-open-up-about-sensitive-patent-apps] stand with us in asking why the PTO has kept this program a secret for decades and why the agency is reluctant to be transparent about its prior and current SAWS reviews.

 

 

Director Lee: Next Step is to Focus on Patent Quality Initiatives

Patent,

by Dennis Crouch

In her confirmation hearings on January 21, Michelle Lee reported to the Senate that both the USPTO and the Courts have taken significant steps in addressing problems in the patent system following enactment of the AIA. However, Lee supports further “balanced” statutory reform to particularly address patent litigation abuses.  However, Lee was unwilling to take a stance on any particular reform, such as the automatic-fee-shifting  that was a central aspect of the Goodlatte patent reform bill in 2014.  Republicans now control the Senate, and thus Republican support is a necessary element of the confirmation hearings.  However, it appears that Lee will garner full support from the committee. A letter sent the same-day to senate leaders signed by 200+ entities also calls for balance and moderation in any patent reforms. [Inventing America Patent Letter]

Lee did take more of a stand in her speech at the Brookings Institute on the 22nd in explaining her major top priority of enhancing the quality of patents issued by the USPTO to reduce the cost associated with issuing patents that should not have issued.  As part of that goal, the agency will soon announce a set of proposed quality initiatives and look for input from stakeholders.  In addition, Director Lee has appointed Valencia Martin Wallace as the first Deputy Commissioner for Patent Quality. Martin Wallace was already an Assistant Deputy Commissioner focused on Electrical Disciplines after rising through the ranks of the PTO.

Next Steps on the USPTO Sensitive Application Warning System

Patent

The USPTO has now offered some public information regarding its secretive Sensitive Application Warning System with the apt acronym: SAWS. [LINK]  SAWS came to light after it was ‘leaked’ by examiners and Devon Rolf has written about his experience with the program on IP Watchdog.

The basic idea is that examiners have been encouraged to flag applications that claim “highly controversial” or those that might create “unwanted media coverage.”  Those applications are then tiered and then before allowance must be approved by either a technology center director or upper PTO management.

A major problem with the program of course is that none of the heightened reviews are made of-record.  Thus, neither the applicants nor the public are told which applications are up for review or whether the review is following any semblance of legal process.

My position is that the USPTO is right to allocate more time and energy on applications whose claims are clearly very broad in a way that would significantly alter the marketplace.  Of course, the review cannot be directed at avoiding USPTO embarrassment but rather to ensure that the issued patent complies with the law of patentability.  Avoiding embarrassment will be a secondary benefit.  As I mentioned above, the real problem here is the Office’s continued secrecy in this front.  We do not know which applications have been chosen, why they were chosen, or whether the level of review follows the law.  Because nothing is done on record, applicants likewise have no recourse regarding potential political capture of the examination process.

After the SAWS reports were leaked (and on my private suggestion) the office finally publicly admitted that the program exists and has provided some information regarding its progress.

[SAWS] is one of many practical, internal efforts that the USPTO has in place to ensure that only the highest quality patents are issued by the Agency.  {DC What are the other internal efforsts?} By bringing an additional quality assurance check to a very small number of pending patent applications, the USPTO helps ensure that those applications that could potentially be of special interest, are properly issued or properly denied.    An application flagged for such a quality assurance check undergoes the same types of examination procedures as any other patent application, and is held to the same substantive patentability standards.

In terms of numbers, the USPTO also reported that only about 0.04% of applications fall into the program.  This is only one application out of every 2,500 considered — the message here is “trust us – we’re just dealing with the oddballs.”  Overall, it looks like about 1,000 applications have been part of this particular program.

[USPTO SAWS DISCLOSURE]

I have requested that the USPTO provide a list of publicly-available applications that have been flagged for the SAWS program. Thus far, the USPTO has refused – claiming that the list of applications is privileged under exemption (b)(5) of FOIA.  My position is that privilege is not applicable to protect this list – especially based upon the tradition and legal requirements that examination be done on the written record with proper notice. See 35 U.S.C s132 and 37 C.F.R. s1.104.

 

Hearing for Director Michelle Lee Nomination

Patent

It has now been 24 months since the USPTO has been led by a Senate confirmed director and, for the past year Michelle Lee has been in the limbo position as being de facto head of the USPTO without actually being named director or acting director.  In October 2014, President Obama finally nominated Lee to take over as Director of the USPTO and Undersecretary of Commerce.  Although a first confirmation hearing was held in 2014, Senators agreed to delay a confirmation vote until after the Republicans took over this term.

Acting quickly, new Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley has acted quickly to schedule a new hearing for January 21 (with Senator Cornyn scheduled to preside). Barring some unforeseen complications, I expect that Lee will be confirmed as director forthwith despite the new Republican control of the Senate.  The hearing will also focus on Daniel Marti who has been nominated as the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator — the so called IP Enforcement Czar.  That role began with Victoria Espinel in 2009 and focuses primarily on international counterfeiting and copyright enforcement.

As I wrote in December: It is Time to Confirm Michelle Lee.

 

Williamson v. Citrix: Means-plus-function, presumptions, and “nonce” words

Patent

By Jason Rantanen

This opinion is notable because it involves an emerging split in the Federal Circuit’s  jurisprudence on “X plus function” claim language.  At the heart of the split is the presumption that arises from the non-use of the word “means” in a claim.  Under the majority’s ruling in this case, that burden is extremely difficult to overcome; a holding that furthers the tension with the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Bosch v. Snap-On.

Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC (Fed. Cir. 2014) Download Opinion
Panel: Moore,* Linn (author), Reyna (dissenting)

6155840The patent in this case is part of the bankruptcy estate of the @Home Corporation, a late 1990’s venture to provide cable internet and later, a content portal.  (Those of you who were online in the late 1990’s may remember the company or the multi-billion dollar merger of @Home and Excite in 1999).    Shortly after the dot-com bubble burst, @Home collapsed and entered bankruptcy proceedings.  The plaintiff in this case, Richard Williamson, acts as trustee for the At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Trust and has brought a series of patent infringement suits against major technology companies in an effort to recover assets for the debt holders.

Patent No. 6,155,840 describes and claims “[a] system for conducting distributed learning among a plurality of computer systems coupled to a network.”  Williamson brought an infringement suit against an array of defendants, including Citrix, Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, and IBM.  At the district court, the defendants obtained a favorable claim construction at the district court on three key terms, two in independent claims 1 and 17 and one in independent claim 8, leading to a stipulation of noninfringement of claims 1-7 and 17-24 and of invalidity due to indefiniteness of claims 8-12.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s claim constructions for both groups of claims.  The reversal as to the first group (1-7 and 17-24) is not particularly noteworthy.  There, the majority concluded that the district court erroneously imported an extraneous limitation into the claims: the claim element called for “a graphical display representative of the classroom” and the district court construed this as requiring a “pictorial map illustrating an  at least partially virtual space in which participants can interact, and that identifies the presenter(s) and audience member(s) by their locations on the map.”  “While the specification discloses examples and embodiments where the virtual classroom is depicted as a “map” or “seating chart,” nowhere does the specification limit the graphical
display to those examples and embodiments.”  Slip Op. at 10.  The proper construction  is “a graphical representation of an at least partially virtual space in which participants can interact.”

Judge Reyna disagreed in part.  In his view, “the specification and prosecution history make clear that the ‘graphical display representative of a classroom’ terms are properly construed as requiring a visually depicted virtual classroom.”  Dissent at 2 (emphasis added).  Judge Reyna reached this conclusion based on the specification and prosecution history’s distinguishing of the invention from the prior art based on the presence of this additional element.  [Given Judge Reyna’s views, it sounds like these claims may be invalid under the majority’s claim construction].

The Section 112 Issue: The more significant portion of the opinion involves the second group of claims, which implicate issues of claim construction, functional language, and indefiniteness.  The district court construed the element “distributed learning control module for…” as being a § 112, ¶ 6 [now § 112(f)] means-plus-function element.  Because there was no corresponding structure for the claimed function disclosed in the specification, the claim was indefinite.  (I’ve highlighted the relevant section of the claim in the image above).

On appeal, the majority concluded that it was error to treat “distributed control module” as a means-plus-function claim term.  Under the court’s precedent, the failure to use the word ‘means’ in a claim limitation creates a strong presumption that 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 6 does not apply.  And rebutting this presumption requires meeting a very high standard: “it must be demonstrated that ‘skilled artisans, after reading the patent, would concluded that [the] claim limitation is so devoid of structure that the drafter constructively engaged in means-plus-function claiming.’ Inventio AG v. ThyssenKrupp Elevator Ams. Corp., 649 F.3d 1350, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011).’ ” Slip Op. at 13 (my emphasis added). “A claimed expression cannot be said to be devoid of structure if it is used “in common parlance or by persons of skill in the pertinent art to designate structure, even if the term covers a broad class of structures and even if the term identifies the structures by their function.” Lighting World, 382 F.3d at 1359–60.

Applying this “devoid of structure” standard, the majority concluded that the presumption was not rebutted.  There are at least some meanings of “module” that connote structure.  “The district court, in characterizing the word “module”
as a mere nonce word, failed to appreciate that the word ‘module’ has understood dictionary meanings as connoting either hardware or software structure to those skilled in the computer arts.”  Slip Op. at 14.  In addition, the full term, “distributed learning control module,” is part of a structure, “distributed learning server,” and interconnects and intercommunicates with that server.  “These claimed interconnections and intercommunications support the conclusion that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand the expression “distributed learning control module” to connote structure.”  Id. at 16.  The specification, too, suggests that “distributed control module” is not “devoid of structure.”

“Module” is a ‘nonce” word: Dissenting Judge Reyna would have agreed with the district court that the language triggered Section 112, para. 6.  “Module” is simply a substitution for “means”; the effect is the same, as the claim limitation follows the term with “for” and three functions performed by the “distributed learning control module”:

This claim limitation is in the traditional means-plus-function format, with the minor substitution of the term “module” for “means.” The claim language explains what the functions are, but does not disclose how the functions are performed.[] In this case, the term “module” is a “nonce” word, a generic word inherently devoid of structure.

Dissent at 5.  In support of this conclusion that “module” is tantamount to “means,” Judge Reyna cites sources recognizing that terms such as  “module for” may invoke Section 112, para 6, including the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure.  Furthermore, the majority’s citation of sources indicating that “module” can connote hardware, software, or both does not provide structure: “It refers only to a “general category of whatever may perform specified functions.”  Id. at 6, quoting Bosch v. Snap-On.  None of the addition material relied on by the majority provides any structural significance.

The Intra-Circuit Split: Setting aside the issue of whether the Federal Circuit’s current algorithmic approach to indefiniteness of functional language conflicts with  Supreme Court precedent, an issue that Dennis and I have written about, this opinion reflects one of two different approaches to interpreting “X plus function” language in claims. (When “X” is something other than “means” or “step.”).

The majority’s holding in this case is an extension of a line of cases applying a very high threshold for “X plus function” language to trigger application of § 112, ¶ 6.  To rebut the presumption in these cases, the “X” must simply “connote” structure to a person of ordinary skill in the art (and arguably under the way the standard is applied in Williamson, merely be capable of connoting structure).  Put another way, the presumption is only rebutted if the claim term is “devoid” of structure.

The Federal Circuit’s recent opinion in Bosch v. Snap-On, which Dennis wrote about in October, reflects the second approach, which applies a less-strict threshold for   rebutting the presumption.  In Bosch, the court described the analysis as asking “if the claim language, read in light of the specification, recites sufficiently definite
structure to avoid § 112, ¶ 6…The question is whether the claim language names
particular structures or, instead, refers only to a general category of whatever may perform specified functions.”  Bosch at 7 (emphasis added).  There, the court concluded that “program recognition device” and “program loading device” did lack sufficient structure; the term “device” was a “nonce” word.  The result was the opposite of Williamson: § 112, ¶ 6 was triggered and, because there was no corresponding structure the specification, the claims were indefinite.

For purposes of direct comparison, I’ve pasted the statements of the law from these two cases below.

From Williamson v. Citrix:

In Personalized Media Commc’ns, LLC v. International Trade Commission, 161 F.3d 696 (Fed. Cir. 1998), and again in DePuy Spine, Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc., 469 F.3d 1005 (Fed. Cir. 2006), we stated that the failure to use the word “means” in a claim limitation created a rebuttable presumption that 35 U.S.C. § 112, para. 6 did not apply. See Personalized Media, 161 F.3d at 703–04; DePuy Spine, 469 F.3d at 1023. This presumption is “a strong one that is not readily overcome.” Lighting World, Inc. v. Birchwood Lighting, Inc., 382 F.3d 1354, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2004). To rebut this strong presumption, it must be demonstrated that “skilled artisans, after reading the patent, would conclude that [the] claim limitation is so devoid of structure that the drafter constructively engaged in meansplus-function claiming.” Inventio AG v. ThyssenKrupp Elevator Ams. Corp., 649 F.3d 1350, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011). A claimed expression cannot be said to be devoid of structure if it is used “in common parlance or by persons of skill in the pertinent art to designate structure, even if the term covers a broad class of structures and even if the term identifies the structures by their function.” Lighting World, 382 F.3d at 1359–60.

From Bosch v. Snap-On:

Although both “program recognition device” and “program loading device” are presumed not to invoke § 112, ¶ 6, we must next turn to the issue of whether this “strong” presumption against means-plus-function claiming is overcome. See Lighting World, Inc. v. Birchwood Lighting, Inc., 382 F.3d 1354, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2004). In undertaking this analysis, we ask if the claim language, read in light of the specification, recites sufficiently definite structure to avoid § 112, ¶ 6. Inventio, 649 F.3d at 1357. The question is whether the claim language names particular structures or, instead, refers only to a general category of whatever may perform specified functions. See Laitram Corp. v. Rexnord, Inc., 939 F.2d 1533, 1536 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (“[t]he recited structure tells only what the means-for-joining does, not what it is structurally”). In the latter case, § 112, ¶ 6 then commands a construction of the limitation as referring to specification identified corresponding structures and their equivalents.

***

The real problem in my mind, however, is less the split over the strength of the presumption against triggering Section 112(f) when the words “means” (or “step”) are not used, and more the conflict with Nautilus.  Even if Section 112(f) is not triggered, the claim could still be indefinite under the “reasonable certainty” standard for indefiniteness.  In other words, the presumption simply goes to whether or not Section 112(f) is triggered; it does not address the deeper question of what happens when Section 112(f) is not triggered.

*The panel originally included former Chief Judge Rader.  Upon his retirement, Judge Moore was appointed to join the panel.

Director Michelle Lee

Patent,

The White House has announced President Obama’s plans to nominate Michelle Lee for the position of Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  Although Lee is already the de facto Director of the office, this move has important political implications because it will help to better ensure both USPTO autonomy and USPTO influence within the Beltway.  Congratulations to Michelle Lee and the Patent Office on this important move forward.

It was almost one year ago that Michelle Lee was appointed as deputy director and de facto director.  At the time, I praised the selection of Lee, but questioned both the legality and the wisdom of appointing a prominent deputy director while leaving the slot of director still vacant.   Because of legal limitations, Lee has not be identified as the “Acting Director” but only “acting as Director.”

Part of the willingness of the White House to now appoint Lee may have come from the country’s new Chief Technology Office Megan Smith who is a former Google executive. (Lee led Google’s patent strategy for a decade).

Up to now, Lee has largely followed the lead set by former Director Kappos and Acting Director Rea. The unanswered question is whether the new role will now embolden and empower Lee to shift USPTO policies in a new direction.

 

Nobel Prize in Patent Law

Patent

Professor Thomas Cotter (Minnesota) has two Nobel Prize related posts on his Comparative Patent Remedies blog.

First, Professor Cotter writes about physics Nobel prize winner Shuji Nakamura who was part of the Japanese team that first developed an efficient blue LED which turned out to be a major stepping stone for the now popular general use of LED lighting for a variety of applications.  Japanese law requires that inventors of high-value inventions be reasonably compensated and Professor Nakamura was able to receive about $8 million from his former employer Nichia Corp. (but only after suing).  Apparently, Japan is in the process of removing this law so that corporate owners can retain a higher profit.

Second, Professor Cotter writes about the economics Nobel prize going to Jean Tirole who has written a number of important patent related articles — focusing primarily on patents relating to technology standards and network impacts.  Most recently, Tirole and Josh Lerner have distributed their article titled “Standard-Essential Patents“.-

Federal Circuit Defies Supreme Court in Laches Holding

Patent, , , , ,

by Dennis Crouch

SCA Hygiene v. First Quality (Fed. Cir. 2014)

Rather than focusing on a single event, allegations of patent infringement generally involve a series of actions that each constitute an infringement.  Courts identify each act (making, using, selling, …) as a separate and actionable infringement of the patent.  This notion of repeated acts of infringement (the “separate-accrual rule”) is only occasionally important, but comes up most often in the context of the impact of delays in pursuing court action with the effect of making delays look less egregious.

The Patent Act includes a six-year limitation on collecting back-damages. 35 U.S.C. 286. The old equitable doctrine of laches has also traditionally been available to cut-off damages when the patentee unreasonably and inexcusably delayed in bringing suit.  Under the Federal Circuit’s 1992 en banc Aukerman decision, courts generally apply the same six-year timeline for laches – finding that a six-year delay in filing suit creates a presumption of unreasonable delay that, when coupled with detrimental reliance leads to a laches finding.  Although it only creates a presumption of unreasonableness, in my experience, this six-year delay makes laches much much more likely to be found. Laches then has the ordinary result of cutting-off all pre-suit damages. However, based on the aformentioned theory of individualized acts of infringement, a remedy remains available for infringement that occurs after the lawsuit is filed as well as the potential for further equitable relief to stop future infringement.

Laches is based on a tradition of equity and has no direct tie-in to the patent statute itself. Likewise, Laches is not found in the list of defenses under Section 282 nor identified as an aspect of the statutory limitation on damages. Of course, that is the tradition of equity — existing for times when the law fails.

Putting this entire area somewhat astir is the Supreme Court’s 2014 copyright laches decision in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 134 S.Ct. 1962 (2014).  In similar manner to patent law, the copyright statute has a three-year statute of limitations on filing suit.  In the case, the (alleged) copyright holder had delayed for 18-years in filing suit.  The statute-of-limitations cut-off all but the last three years of recovery and the lower court found that laches blocked recovery for those remaining three years.  However, in Petrella the Supreme Court revived the copyright claim and held instead that laches should not apply because Congress has taken fully spoken on the issue with its statute.

Laches, we hold, cannot be invoked to preclude adjudication of a claim for damages brought within the three-year window. . . .  [L]aches is a defense developed by courts of equity; its principal application was, and remains, to claims of an equitable cast for which the Legislature has provided no fixed time limitation. See 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies 104 (1993) (“laches . . . may have originated in equity because no statute of limitations applied, . . . suggest[ing] that laches should be limited to cases in which no statute of limitations applies”). Both before and after the merger of law and equity in 1938, this Court has cautioned against invoking laches to bar legal relief. See Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392 (1946) (in actions at law, “[i]f Congress explicitly puts a limit upon the time for enforcing a right which it created, there is an end of the matter,” but “[t]raditionally . . . , statutes of limitation are not controlling measures of equitable relief “); Merck & Co. v.Reynolds, 559 U. S. 633 (2010) (quoting, for its current relevance, statement in United States v. Mack, 295 U. S. 480 (1935), that “[l]aches within the term of the statute of limitations is no defense [to an action] at law”); County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 470 U. S. 226, n. 16 (1985) (“[A]pplication of the equitable defense of laches in an action at law would be novel indeed.”).

An important element of the holding is the ongoing separation of legal and equitable remedies — with the notion that laches may still be obtained to block equitable remedies, but not to bar a traditional legal remedy such as past-damages.

In Petrella, the Supreme Court limited its particularly holding to copyright law and noted that “[w]e have not had occasion to review the Federal Circuit’s position” on laches in patent cases. Of course, the parallels between copyright and patent are strong in this situation and so we would expect the Federal Circuit to seriously consider whether Petrella should be applied to overrule Aukerman.

SCA v. First Quality: In 2003, SCA sent a C&D letter to First Quality in 2003 regarding patented adult diapers. However, in 2004, SCA filed for ex parte reexamination that was completed in 2007 with a confirmation of patentability. Finally, in 2010, SCA filed the lawsuit against First Quality.  By that time (beginning in 2006) First Quality had greatly expanded its use of the underlying concepts of the invention (it doesn’t leak).  Rather than deciding the lawsuit, the district court dismissed the case based upon the delay finding both laches and equitable estoppel.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit has affirmed – most notably holding that the Petrella decision has no impact on the adjudication of laches in patent cases.  However, rather than addressing the clear and obvious tension, the court simply wrote:

Petrella notably left Aukerman intact. See id. at
1974 n.15 (“We have not had occasion to review the Federal Circuit’s position.”). Because Aukerman may only be overruled by the Supreme Court or an en banc panel of this court, Aukerman remains controlling precedent.

While clinging to the Aukerman approach, affirmance was easy because the six-year delay creates a strong presumption of unreasonable delay.  However, the court did reverse the summary judgment of equitable estoppel because there was no evidence of the required affirmative act such as a misleading communication leading to detrimental reliance on the notion that the defendant’s infringement would be permissible.

The decision here is notable for its glaring reticence. The panel of Judges Reyna, Wallach, and Hughes are all relatively new and perhaps expect en banc review of this issue.  Many (perhaps most) other judges on the court would have made their mark rather than simply passing.

Although I believe, on balance, that Petrella controls here, the case is not open-and-shut because there are important distinctions as you move from copyright to patent. Notably, the copyright statute of limitations is a more direct and total limit on filing suit while in patent law the statute only limits the collection of too-far-back damages. Thus, in this situation, Congress seems to have spoken more fully in the copyright realm. Additionally, the three versus six year limit appears important because, in the time-scale of lawsuits and three years is a relatively short time while six-years begins to allow for much more unreasonableness and detrimental reliance.  That time differential is further compounded by the fact that three years is quite a small bit of the copyright term (5%) while six-years is often more than 1/3 of the patent term — suggesting that a patentee’s should move more quickly.

If anything, this issue will be interesting to watch.

Is VPN Software Patent Eligible?

Patent, , ,

VirnetX v. Cisco and Apple (Fed. Cir. 2014)

An E.D. Texas jury sided with the patentee VirnetX — finding that the four asserted patents are not-invalid and that Apple’s VPN-On-Demand and FaceTime products infringe.  The jury then awarded $350 million in damages.  On appeal, Apple presented a number of winning arguments that, in the end, result in only a partial victory because some of the claims remain valid and infringed.  After altering claim construction of the term “secure communication link”, the jury will re-determine whether FaceTime infringes and recalculate damages.

Before getting into the merits (in a separate post), we might pause to consider the subject matter eligibility of asserted claim 1 of Patent No. 7,418,504:

1. A system for providing a domain name service for establishing a secure communication link, the system comprising:
a domain name service system configured
to be connected to a communication network,
to store a plurality of domain names and corresponding network addresses,
to receive a query for a network address, and
to comprise an indication that the domain name service system supports establishing a secure communication link.

At a high level of abstraction, the invention is designed to implement private communication which, at that generalized level would likely be seen as an abstract idea.  The particular implementation steps included in the claim here are themselves written in broad functional language whose implementation were well known and conventional aspects of DNS systems as of the 1998 application date.  Now, the court does not sua sponte raise the 101 issue here and so we do not know the answer.

Guest Post: Publishing Design Patent Applications: Time to Act

Patent, , , , , ,

Gary L. Griswold

Mr. Griswold is a Consultant residing in Hudson, WI and was formerly President and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for 3M Innovative Properties Company. The essay reflects the views of the author. He wishes to thank Bob Armitage and Mike Kirk for their excellent contributions to the essay.

Overview

Design patenting has come of age. According to a recent World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) study, the filing of design patent applications more than doubled between 2004 and 2011.[1] The stakes in design patent litigation today can be enormous. One commentator on the recent Apple-Samsung iPhone IP wars noted, “After operating in the intellectual property backwaters for years, design patents took center stage in the epic battle.”[2]

Enterprises of all sizes have come to recognize the value to be had from securing patents on their innovative designs. This also means that more businesses now need to consider whether design patents of others might impair their freedom to operate when placing a new product on the market.

Unlike conventional (“utility”) patent applications, design patent applications are not subject to the “publication” provisions that were placed in the U.S. patent law in 1999 with the enactment of the American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA). Utility patent applications, with a few exceptions, must all be published and made publicly available within 18 months after filing.[3]   However, all design patent applications are required to be kept in secret in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) until the patent issues on the application.

Today this secrecy can have significant and negative consequences – for the design’s creator and for those who commit resources to manufacture a similar product before the issuance of the design patent. Unlike most utility patents today, the first inkling that a patent is being sought on a new product’s design may come with grant of a design patent, in other words come at the end of the examination process in the USPTO.

The growing importance of design patents suggests that this exclusion from publication with respect to design patent application publication should be rectified by Congress. This can best be done by requiring that all pending design patent applications be made available to the public by publishing these applications at 6 months after the date that they were originally filed.

Doing so would put the public on notice, shortly after the design patent application is filed, that a new product’s design may be protected. The growing prominence of design patenting, as well as other developments in the law since 1999, now make it timely for Congress to act.

Background

Two major pieces of patent legislation over the past 15 years have worked to make the U.S. patent law operate with vastly greater transparency, predictability and simplicity. The AIPA, with its requirement that most new non-design patent filings must be published at 18-months after their original filing dates was followed by a host of even more significant patent reforms. These were contained in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011.[4]

Key provisions of the AIA were designed to allow inventors to accurately assess whether they could secure – or had secured – a valid patent. For utility patents, access to earlier-filed patent applications comes though the AIPA’s publication provisions. Clearly, since some patents can take years to issue, holding earlier-filed patent applications in secrecy in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) until a patent issued meant that an inventor might mistakenly invest based on the apparent validity of a patent that might then evaporate upon the issuance of a patent on a never-published, earlier-filed patent application.

The AIA also sought to assure that members of the public could more effectively participate in the patenting process. It allowed members of the public to be involved in the determination of whether a claimed invention in a patent application can be validly issued as a patent, both before the patent issues and after the patent issuance.

If action is taken promptly after a pending patent application is published, the AIA permits a member of the public to make a “pre-grant submission” of relevant prior art that the patent examiner handling the patent application must consider in deciding whether a patent should issue on the application.[5] These submissions, most notably include the earlier-sought patent applications of other inventors that have been published under the AIPA’s provisions.

In addition, the new “post-grant review” or “PGR” provisions of the AIA permit a member of the public to raise in a USPTO proceeding any issue of a patent’s validity that could be raised in court by someone accused of infringing the patent. However, these PGR provisions, like the pre-grant submission provisions, require that an individual act promptly. In this case, the PGR petition must be filed within nine months of the issue date of the patent that is being opposed.

Given the formidable requirements for requesting a PGR, most individuals making a PGR request will benefit from advance notice that a patent is about to issue. This notice, of course, is automatic when the patent application has been published under the AIPA’s provisions.

The manner in which the AIA built upon the AIPA’s provisions, both with pre-grant submissions and with post-grant review, work to benefit patent owners and their potential competitors alike. However, while these new pre-grant and post-grant provisions technically apply both to design and utility patents, the lack of any “publication provision” for design patents means that these provisions are now significantly less effective for designs.

The Rationale for Excluding Design Patents from the AIPA Publication Provisions No Longer Makes Sense

When the AIPA was enacted, there were two significant exceptions to the rule that pending applications for patent would be published and made publicly accessible. First, these provisions allowed inventors seeking only U.S. patents to opt-out of the publication requirement. This was done for inventors interested in patent protection only for the U.S. market on the assumption that at least some of them might not want their inventions publicly disclosed if they were ultimately not going to be able to receive a valid patent. However, for almost all such inventions, marketing the invention necessarily discloses to the public what the invention is and, in fact, discloses much more about the invention to the public than would normally be found in an inventor’s patent application if published.

Thus, this rationale, particularly today, makes little sense. The inventor can be “protected” from public disclosure by opting-out of the publication provisions of the AIPA only in the situation where the invention is never commercialized and essentially has no economic value, or in the limited situations where the invention can be effectively practiced as a trade secret. Consequently, it is a protection that seldom affords any economic value to the inventor.

Under the AIA, the publication of an invention in a pending patent application provides an inventor with a guarantee that no one else will be able to successfully secure a patent on the same or a similar invention based on an application filed after the inventor’s patent filing. Where someone subsequently files for a patent, the earlier-filed application limits the later-filing inventor to validly patenting only subject matter both novel and non-obvious over what was disclosed in the earlier-filed application.

Design patents were totally excluded from the 18-month publication provisions. The rationale for the design patent exclusion can be found in the legislative history of the AIPA: “Since design applications do not disclose technology, inventors do not have a particular interest in having them published.” That statement, whatever its validity then, was made before design patenting came of age and has little relevance today, as evidenced by the litigation between Apple and Samsung.

Another reason given for the design exception was that “The Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs” was being revised and that any change to the design patent law should await the outcome of that exercise. That outcome is now clear; Congress has acted to remove the exception for design patents filed under The Hague Agreement.[6]

Yet another reason that design patents may have been left out of the mix when the publication provisions of the AIPA were being drafted was the short pendency of a design patent application. “Pendency” is the time taken by a patent examiner between filing and issuance of the design patent. With pre-grant submissions of prior art and post-grant review under the AIA now in place, that relatively shorter pendency before the Patent Office for design applications versus utility applications makes it much more important to have design applications not only published, but published quite promptly, i.e., at six months from the patent filing.[7]

The last reason Congress may have excepted design patents from publication is that some manufacturers may not have wanted the designs for new products to be prematurely disclosed, prior to market introduction.[8] Under the AIA, however, the filing of a design patent application assures that no similar designs can be patented based upon a later-filed design patent application. In addition, early publication puts competitors on notice that there is a “patent pending” on the design so that they dare not copy the design without the risk of infringing a subsequently issued design patent. Instead of a problem for manufacturers, pre-grant publication carries with it undeniably important benefits.

In addition to the “notice” function that arises from publishing a design patent application, inventors whose design patent applications publish secure yet another benefit under the AIPA. They can qualify for “provisional rights” – that is the right to collect reasonable royalty damages from anyone who uses the design during the period from the date the user received notice of the published design application until issuance of the patent on the design.[9] This again reflects the upsides of publication, much potential gain with a negligible prospect of incurring any pain.

Conclusions

The AIA increased the openness and transparency of the patent system by providing for pre-grant submissions and post- grant review. These provisions work to protect the public against patents that lack valid claims – and similarly protect the inventor from making investments in reliance on patents that could never be successfully enforced. Those aspects of the AIA are premised in part on the publication of pending patent applications.   Whatever reasons can be cited for excluding design patent applications from these important provisions of the AIPA, such reasons now have only historic significance. Today, all design patent inventors deserve equal treatment. The availability of the benefits of publishing pending design patent applications should not depend on where a design patent inventor seeks patent protection.

In sum, the agreement to allow publication of design patent applications filed by U.S. inventors under The Hague Agreement represents a significant step by the United States toward achieving the open, transparent 21st century patent system contemplated by the AIPA and AIA. The increase in design patent application activity – and the prominence of design patent enforcement efforts – renders this a perfect time to remove the exclusion from publication of those design patent applications filed only in the United States.

 

[1] According to WIPO, in 2012, “the 1.22 million industrial designs contained in applications grew by 17%—the highest growth on record.” http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/statistics/943/wipo_pub_943_2013.pdf, at p. 4.

[2] See http://designpatentattorney.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Carani-Lanslide-Article-Design-Patents-Take-Center-Stage-Jan-Feb-2013.pdf.

[3] Most utility patent applications must be published under the AIPA’s publication provisions. The time period set for publishing utility patents is 18 months after the initial patent filing date. 35 U.S.C. § 122(b).

[4] The United States adopted a so-called first-inventor-to-file system as the principle for determining what subject matter can represent “prior art” to a claimed invention. Also, a number of subjective and non-transparent aspects of the rules on patenting were removed.

[5] Because prior art can be submitted to the USPTO anonymously, members of the public and competitors of the applicant are normally comfortable in making such submissions. Since the processing time is shorter for design patent applications than that of utility patent applications, a narrower time window (e.g., before the earlier of a notice of allowance and the later of (1) the first rejection or (2) 2 months after publication) would be necessary for submitting third party submissions.

[6] The implementing legislation for the Geneva Act of The Hague Agreement has been enacted by the United States and rules for its implementation are being finalized by the USPTO. Once the rules are completed, the formal process for membership will be initiated and completed. The Common Regulations Under the 1999 [Geneva] Act and the 1960 Act of The Hague Agreement provide for publication of international applications six months after the date of the international Registration (which occurs upon receipt by WIPO of the international application). This publication of the international application will be considered a publication in the U.S. under 35 USC 390. The U.S. will not allow deferral of publication. Thus, any concerns related to the early publication of design patent applications as a policy matter have already been decided by Congress in favor of publication.

[7] As with utility patent applications, the public may well be aware of better prior art for design patent applications than the USPTO. If design patent applications were published, interested members of the public could submit prior art to the USPTO with the result that any issuing design patents would have been more thoroughly examined, benefiting both the applicant and public.

[8] Because of the speed of issuance, design applications filed only in the U.S. would need to be published 6 months after their U.S. filing date. Any concern with timing of publication relative to commercialization would seem to be handled by a 6 month period between filing and publication, which mirrors The Hague Agreement, and the relatively rapid grant (typically 15 months) of design patents.

[9] By providing that publication under The Hague Agreement will be deemed a publication under 35 USC 122(b), the implementing legislation (35 U.S.C. 390) makes such design patent applications eligible for provisional rights under 35 USC 154(d).

Kelley Drye Misses First Step in Collecting $14 Million Fee from Client

Ethics, Patent

By Dennis Crouch and David Hricik

Kelley Drye & Warren, LLP v. Orbusneich Med. Co. Ltd., BVI, 2014 WL 1814204 (Conn. Super. Ct. Apr. 4, 2014). KDW Decision

In this case, the law firm of Kelley Drye (KDW) has sued Orbus to collect the $14,000,000 that it claims to be owed as part of its alternative fee arrangement for handling litigation on behalf of its then-client, Orbus, against Boston Scientific.

The basics: Orbus hired KDW to litigate its patent infringement and related common law claims against Boston Scientific. Orbus was advised that the suit would go quickly on the rocket docket of the Eastern District of Virginia. The fee-setup was a hybrid-contingency-fee arrangement with a guaranteed payout of $375,000 for pre-trial work and another $325,000 for the trial, if necessary. In the event of a settlement, the agreement called for KDW to then receive the full hourly rate for their work plus a “success fee” based on the settlement amount.

The case was filed in the Eastern District, but then was transferred to Massachusetts. Then, Boston Scientific moved for reexam and the suit was stayed. Thus, things were in a ditch:

At this point the exchange of correspondence between the parties (Defendants’ Exhibits B, C & D) make clear that: (1) the U.S. litigation begun by KDW on behalf of Orbus was stayed for possibly several more years; (2) no leverage whatsoever of the kind envisioned in Attorney Moore’s engagement letter (Plaintiff’s Ex. 2) had been brought to bear on Boston Scientific; (3) the settlement value of the U.S. litigation had minimal or no cash value at all; and (4) Orbus’ patents had possibly been placed in jeopardy by the continuing reexaminations. In reviewing the results obtained by counsel when determining the reasonableness of fees charged, the court cannot find on these facts that KDW added substantial value to Orbus’ legal interests as of July of 2012, after three years of litigation and millions of dollars of time expended.

Orbus then turned to replacement counsel. Their strategy had Orbus file a number of European actions, including ones in Germany, UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands. KDW was not much involved.

In 2013, Orbus and Boston Scientific came to a settlement resulting in a one-time payment to Orbus and a worldwide patent license for Boston Scientific. KDW then added-up its fees thus far in the litigation ($2.8 million) and added on its success fee bonus before sending its $14 million bill to Orbus.

When the (now former) client balked, KDW filed suit. In this decision, the trial court rejected KDW’s argument that it was entitled to pre-judgment relief, apparently in the form of some sort of state law attachment of Orbus’ assets. The question the court had to decide was whether KDW was likely to prevail on the merits.

Attorney fee arrangements are treated somewhat differently from ordinary commercial contracts – here the court indicated in can only enforce attorney fee arrangements to the extent that they are reasonable. All state professional responsibility rules prohibit the collection of unreasonable fees. Regarding reasonableness, a major question is whether the attorney exerted substantial effort and/or added substantial value.

Here, the European cases began after the US case was stayed. That fact aided Orbus’s argument that KDW added no value to the European cases. In addition, Orbus argued that the terms of the fee arrangement do not extend to those cases. And, if it had to pay KDW for the European monies then Orbus would effectively be paying “twice for the same legal service” since its European attorneys must also be paid.

Based upon these facts, the trial court stated:

[T]he court is unable to find even a reasonable suspicion that KDW would prevail on the merits at trial, and that the trier of fact would find the superseding contingent fee agreement enforceable in the full amount of $14,560,000.00.

At this point, the court has denied preliminary relief, but KDW still has the opportunity to prove its case at the trial.

What does the Constitution mean by “Discoveries?”

Patent

By Dennis Crouch

The 18th Century French Encyclopédie of Diderot & d’Alembert was an important and well-known encyclopedia available at the founding of the U.S. and well known to founding fathers, including Madison and Jefferson. The link with Madison is important since it was Madison who proposed the intellectual property clause of the U.S. Constitution – giving Congress the power to award exclusive rights for limited times. One element of the clause that has long confounded patent scholars is the meaning of “Discoveries.”

The clause: [Congress has the power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Seemingly taking its lead from the Constitution, Congress enacted that patent statute that awards rights to one who “invents or discovers.” In today’s usual parlance, a discovery is often thought more as an unearthing rather than a creation. That is confounding because of the newness requirement of patentability and the ban on the patenting of natural phenomena.

In a recent article, Professor Sean O’Connor (UW) argues that the Encyclopédie offers a key to understanding the meaning of Discovery as used in the Constitution. See O’Connor, The Overlooked French Influence on the Intellectual Property Clause (2014). His approach is a departure from the more traditional Anglo-centric view on constitutional history. A review of the translation leaves little doubt that the source is important. In particular, the ~2,000 word entry on discoveries begins as follows:

Discovery: In general this name can be given to everything that is newly found in the Arts and the Sciences; however, it is scarcely applied, and ought not to be applied, except to that which is not only new, but also curious, useful, and difficult to find, and which, consequently has a certain degree of importance. The less important discoveries are simply called inventions.

[Link to translation]. With that contemporary definition in mind, we can take it as important that the founders used the term “Discoveries” rather than “Inventions.” O’Connor argues that Discovery as found in the Constitution is consequently higher standard than mere novelty. The Encyclopédie include additional entries on “Art,” “Science,” “Inventions,” and “Writers/Authors,” and O’Connor takes these together to begin a new and interesting conversation on the meaning of the intellectual property clause.

Federal Circuit: Enablement More Difficult When Invention Faces Skepticism

Enablement, Patent, ,

By Dennis Crouch In re Hoffman (Fed. Cir. 2014) (non-precedential decision) Gene Hoffman and David Lund’s patent application is directed to method of weakening the strength of tropical cyclones by delivering super-coolant from an aircraft into the eye of the hurricane. The inventors here have never tested their method, but did provide some preliminary calculations that – they argue – suggest success. The USPTO rejected the application for failing to enable the claimed invention under 35 U.S.C. 112(a). In particular, the examiner identified three failures: (1) the preliminary calculations contained unexplained assumptions and mathematical errors; (2) the specification noted a need for experimentation to determine the proper amount of coolant to add and the optimal strike time; and (3) a number of weather scientists have expressed doubt as to whether similar approaches would work. In reviewing the rejection, the PTAB affirmed and that decision (rejecting the application) has now been affirmed on appeal. Pending claim 36 is identified as representative and claims:

A process for disrupting a formed or forming tropical cyclone eye wall or eye or center of lowest pressure comprising:

Introduction of a super coolant chemical agent sprayed with force (the super coolant is stored in a vessel under pressure) and or released from pre-measured containers from an appropriate number of large aircraft to reduce the temperature within the eye wall (top to bottom at sea level),

thereby circulating the super coolant throughout the eye wall by the centrifugal force of the eye wall, alternatively into the eye or center of lowest pressure to reduce the temperature in the eye or center of lowest pressure and the water beneath,

[t]hereby reducing the wind and storm surge of the eye wall or raising the pressure in the eye or center of lowest pressure and converting it back to a tropical rainstorm.

The claim form here does not really follow the standard ordinarily used by professional patent drafters. Here, it appears that claim drafting and prosecution were handled pro-se by the inventors. For more than 150 years, patent law has been seen as an arcane area of law full of traps for non-experts. In some ways, this decision confirms that tradition. The first sub-section of 35 U.S.C. § 112 requires that the patent document disclose enough about the invention so as to enable an artisan skilled in the particular area of science and technology to make and use the invention. The statute reads:

[The patent must disclose] the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same.

35 U.S.C. §112(a). The court has added some gloss to the statute in that precedent allows missing elements from the specification so long as the skilled artisan could fill-in those gaps without undue experimentation. The court also uses the “Wands factors” to help determine whether the disclosure meets the enablement standard. These factors include:

  1. The quantity of experimentation necessary,
  2. The amount of direction or guidance presented,
  3. The presence or absence of working examples,
  4. The nature of the invention,
  5. The state of the prior art,
  6. The relative skill of those in the art,
  7. The predictability or unpredictability of the art, and
  8. The breadth of the claims.

In re Wands, 858 F.2d 731 (Fed. Cir. 1988). In applying these, the Federal Circuit found that there was no doubt that the USPTO’s decision was correct. Although the court did not go into depth in its analysis, one interesting aspect of the decision is that the Federal Circuit identifies skepticism in the scientific community as the most important factor here. The court writes:

And perhaps most significantly, the very efficacy of the method itself is subject to considerable doubt in the scientific community.

In other words, the enablement burden is more difficult to meet when the invention is surprising or when it goes against conventional wisdom. Of course, those same inventions will more easily surpass the central patentability test of non-obviousness. My point here, though, is that patentees with clearly groundbreaking inventions should take extra pause to ensure that the surprising result has been properly enabled.

The Next Patent Office Director …

Patent

When David Kappos left the USPTO in January 2013, I asked the question: Who will be the next USPTO director? Over the past year, no names have been brought forward or are appearing on the horizon. Thus, the question should likely be revises: Will there be a next USPTO director?

The following is a response that I recently sent to Representative Bentivolio in response to a set of Questions for the Record:

Over the past decade, Congress has been quite lax at exerting detailed oversight over the USPTO and its patent examination process. Former USPTO Director David Kappos had a strong working relationship with Congress. However, it has been more than one year since Director Kappos left the position in January 2013. As we stand now, the USPTO has been without a Senate approved Director for more than one year, and has been without even an Acting Director for the past three months. At this point, direct Congressional oversight may be the best way to push the Administration toward getting the agency quickly back on track.

A recent article by Kate Tummarello in The Hill focuses on this same point. [Link] Michelle Lee has now taken over as deputy director. However, it is unclear what level of decision making authority comes with that position.

Federal Circuit: The Term Receiver (found once in the specification) Sufficiently Discloses the Claimed Receiver and Receiver Means

Patent, , ,

By Dennis Crouch

EnOcean v. Face Int’l. (Fed. Cir. 2014)

This interference appeal is focused on interpreting the “functional” claim term “receiver” and relates directly to recent Patently-O discussions on the topic of means-plus-function claim terms compared with bare non-MPF functional claim terms. See Crouch, Functional Claim Language in Issued Patents (2014). Here, the court finds, roughly, that a claim term with a smidgen of structure should be seen as a structural limitation rather than one governed by 35 U.S.C. §112¶6. The case is also relevant to the still pending en banc case of Lighting Ballast where the Federal Circuit is set to decide whether a “voltage source means” limitation should be considered a means-plus-function limitation.

= = =

Inter Partes Reviews have quickly taken-on the procedural appearance and nature of their PTO-trial predecessor interference proceedings. This interference case involves a competition between EnOcean and Face Int’l over a “self-powered light switch” that can be used to remotely trigger a relay using a piezoelectric element. Many think of an interference as a fight over who gets the patent. Some cases follow that model, but many others (such as this one) are really just one party trying to block the other’s patent. Interferences also have a tradition of being quite messy and I expect that tradition to continue in the Board’s new review and derivation proceedings.

Here, EnOcean’s patent application claims priority back to a May 2000 German application with later filed PCT and US national stage applications. Face’s priority only goes to 2001, but Face’s patent issued in 2006 while EnOcean has been battling with the PTO this whole time. After Face’s patent was issued, EnOcean amended its claims to match those of Face and requested an interference.

In the interference, EnOcean identified a set of prior art (other than its own application) that, in combination invalidated Face’s patent. Considering that evidence, the PTO Board found Face’s patent claims invalid as obvious. The Board also found that EnOcean’s amended claims were not sufficiently disclosed in the 2000 priority document and that EnOcean’s claims were therefore invalid as obvious (since they didn’t have an early priority date).

The case against priority was interesting. Many of EnOcean’s patent claims include the term “receiver” as follows:

  • Claim 37: “a signal receiver for receiving a first electromagnetic signal transmitted by said first signal transmitter;”
  • Claim 38: “a receiver for receiving a first radiofrequency signal transmitted by said first signal transmitter;”
  • Claim 43: “a receiver adapted to receiving a radiofrequency telegram transmitted by said radio frequency transmission stage;”
  • Claim 45: “a receiver adapted to receiving a radiofrequency telegram transmitted by said first radio frequency transmission stage;”

But, the German priority document’s only reference to a receiver came from a single sentence, as translated:

[A] typical scenario is that all the switches … upon actuation, emit one or a plurality of radio frequency telegrams which are received by a single receiver and the latter initiates the corresponding actions (lamp on/off, dimming of lamp, etc.).

(In German, the original application uses the term “empfänger.”)

In interpreting the “receiver” limitation, the Board found that it was purely functional and thus should be interpreted as a means-plus function element governed by 35 U.S.C. §112¶6. In other claims found in the patent, EnOcean had used the phrases “signal receiving means” and “means for receiving” and the PTO Board found those terms synonymous with “receiver.” Under the statute, a means-plus-function claim term must have corresponding structure described in the specification. Since, the original German application did not include any structural discussion of a receiver or how it might work, the Board held that the US patent could not properly claim priority to the German application.

In the Appeal, the Federal Circuit has vacated – agreeing with EnOcean that its claim term “receiver” is not so functional as to be a means-plus-function claim. The court began its analysis with the black-letter precedent that “means” is a magical word. When it is used, courts should presume that the applicant intended for the term to be interpreted under 112¶6, and that the opposite presumption should be made (not 112¶6) if the magic word “means” is absent. Here, because the receiver term is not accompanied by the magical word “means,” we begin with a presumption that it is not to be interpreted under 112¶6.

After finding its beginning presumption, the court then determined that one of skill in the art would see sufficient structure from the term.

Indeed, the record indicates that the term “receiver” conveys structure to one of skill in the art—the Board itself made a factual finding that that the “skilled worker would have been familiar with the design and principles of the types of components utilized in the claimed invention, including . . . receivers.”

We also come to this conclusion, in part, because EnOcean has provided extensive evidence demonstrating that the term “receiver” conveys known structure to the skilled person. . . . Further, we are not persuaded by Face’s arguments that the term “receiver” is simply too broad to recite sufficiently definite structure. We have stated previously that just because “the disputed term is not limited to a single structure does not disqualify it as a corresponding structure, as long as the class of structures is identifiable by a person of ordinary skill in the art. Linear Tech. Corp. v. Impala Linear Corp., 379 F.3d 1311, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

What the court didn’t do here was describe what a receiver is structurally (or how has that changed over the past three decades). As part of its analysis, the court rejected the Board’s conclusion that “that there is no distinction in meaning between ‘receiver’ and ‘signal receiving means,'” since “the receiver of the EnOcean claims is defined in the claims solely in terms of functional language.”

Connecting all the dots, the court then found that the one-liner original receiver disclosure provided sufficient structure to support both the means-plus-function claim elements (receiving means) and the non-MPF receiver.

The decision here is not overly surprising and follows a number of other Federal Circuit decisions where a smidgen of structural understanding was sufficient to remove a claim term from 112¶6 analysis. Notably amongst these is the Linear Tech decision cited above where the court found the claimed “circuit for monitoring a signal” recited sufficient structure to avoid 112¶6 analysis.

More information on the Novartis v. Lee Change in Patent Term Adjustment

Patent

By Dennis Crouch

The outcome of the Novartis v. Lee case is that the vast majority of recently issued patents that include an RCE in the file history are due additional patent term adjustment (PTA). For most cases, the additional term adjustment will simply be the number of days between the notice of allowance and the issue date. I pulled up the file histories for about 1,000 patents issued in early 2014 in order to create the following histogram that shows the number of months between the Notice of Allowance and the Patent Issuance. The chart shows that the vast majority of cases issue within 3-4 months of the NOA — an average of 120 days.

The decision is unclear about how multiple NOAs will be treated. For the chart above, I used only the date of the final notice of allowance preceding patent issuance.

Under USPTO regulations recently, a request for reconsideration must be filed within two months after a patent is granted. 37 CFR § 1.705(b).