Hoyle v. Lee

Patent

Hoyle v. Michelle Lee, Docket No 21-cv-2512 (W.D. Tenn. 2021) [Hoyle v. Lee Complaint]

This is an unusual new lawsuit filed by Martin Hoyle against several former USPTO officials, including former USPTO Director Michell Lee; former PTAB Chief James D. Smith; and former vice-chief Jay Moore.  The complaint argues that the defendants violated Hoyle’s Due Process rights in the way they handled his patents during their IPR proceedings. U.S. Patent No. 6,628,314 and U.S. Patent No. 6,771,290.

The complaint suggests that Lee was compromised as a former Google official  and future Amazon official (the targets of his patent lawsuits) and that the PTAB judicial assignments were intentionally stacked with judges likely to rule that his patents were invalid.  The result was that the PTAB judges “Medley, Pettigrew, and Deshpande … either conspired with, or were at the very least complicit, in the unconstitutional scheme to deprive Plaintiffs of their valuable property rights in these patents.”

The lawsuit is styled as a Bivins action, which allows a private damages action against federal officials for civil rights violations.  Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971).

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17 thoughts on “Hoyle v. Lee”

  1. 5

    Wow. This is cool if they permit discovery. I think over at the other blog there has been more talk about the ethics of having patent judges being on panels of former clients.

    My guess is that there are two areas that are deeply troubling to anyone that cares about ridding our country of corruption: 1) the inherent conflicts of interests of having government employees leaving and then going back to private industry when the private industry has a VERY strong interest in push the agency one way or another; 2) soft money for things like speaking engagements and so forth while they are still employed by the government; 3) and, contact with the industries while they are in government.

    My bet is that nothing will come of this because of the nexus problem and the lack of ethical constraints on patent judges and the director. Almost all of corruption in the federal government is based on avoiding the nexus problem. You, in government, trash patents. But you don’t get paid for a few years. And there is no clear nexus to you say invalidating these patents and the extra option to purchase 100,000 more shares, or the offer of a cushy job after you leave government.

    That is reality. And it is not just patents it is the entire federal government. If you have worked and lived in DC like me, you know that this is the way it works. I’ve known people that VPs of Fortune 100 corporations explain to me how it works. It is huge in the military and financial sectors. Patents–frankly–is a backwater.

    1. 5.1

      And just to be clear someone like Lee knows with a high degree of confidence that if she trashes the patent system that she will receive her reward.

      I’d be surprised if Lee wasn’t worth $10-20 million by 2025.

    2. 5.2

      “ I think over at the other blog there has been more talk about the ethics of having patent judges being on panels of former clients.”

      There certainly has.

      Which is rather funny when one stops to remember that this website has its very own ethics channel (hyper link directly to the right of “PATENTLYO” in the banner.

  2. 4

    Ignore the naysayers, Martin.

    Yours is an honorable quest for justice.

    Discovery — assuming you’ll be able to get it — will provide any of the pieces necessary to prove your case.

    Furthermore, this is at the very least yet one more blow against the corrupt “quicker, easier, and cheaper than a real court” PTAB Death Squad.

      1. 3.1.1

        Technically, the reference is to the Three Stooges, but Car Talk make excellent use of the phrase.

    2. 3.2

      pardon potential rePeat….

      last page: POLLOCK COHEN LLP

      (but I do “get” the old NPR Car Talk line)

  4. 2

    This suit looks to me like it could lead to some stiff sanctions for factually unsupported allegations in the nature of defamations [just as some of the 60+ attorney alleged and rejected election fraud suits already have or will be getting]. Furthermore, the plaintiff here had and presumably failed to use the opportunity to raise due process arguments in an appeal to the Fed. Cir. from their IPR decisions.

    1. 2.1

      I would be super embarrassed to have signed my name to that. A perfect combination of innuendo, conspiracy theory, and old man yelling at clouds.

      1. 2.1.1

        There seems to be a shocking number of people in this country, including some attorneys, that do not seem to understand the important differences between making any kind of political TV and internet conspiracy or other allegations publicly [including on this blog] vis a vis signing and filing a formal complaint containing such allegations in a lawsuit in a federal court.

        2. 2.1.1.2

          ..? did your reply miss a word in there?

          It seems like you may want to be contrasting blogging with actually appearing in court (a valid contrast), but it reads as running the two together.

    2. 2.2

      “Furthermore, the plaintiff here had and presumably failed to use the opportunity to raise due process arguments in an appeal to the Fed. Cir. from their IPR decisions.”

      This appears to be addressed at counts 37-39

  5. 1

    Hahaha!

    Thanks for the laughs, D!

    Martin Hoyle … shall we do some research into his magnificent contributions to humanity?

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