by Dennis Crouch
This week, the Supreme Court is considering the re-filed certiorari petition of Franz Wakefield, dba CoolTVNetwork.com v. Blackboard, Inc., No. 22-819. The petition’s basis stems from the debate over Judge Newman’s competency. The appellate case was decided by a panel that included Judge Newman, and the petitioner relies heavily upon the public documents circulated in the ongoing disability hearing. Including the repeated statements suggesting that Judge Newman lacks competence and “may suffer from impairment of cognitive abilities (i.e., attention, focus, confusion and memory).” The petition notes that Judge Newman’s colleagues acted unanimously to remove her from being assigned new cases. Wakefield is pursuing his case pro se and so it lacks some fine points, but the thrust of the claims here are quite clear.
Read the petition here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-819/268013/20230531141520726_20230531-141242-95759941-00000772.pdf
On the 22nd of June, the court will also consider petitions in two additional IP cases that both focus on IPR procedure grounded in statutory interpretation:
- Apple Inc. v. CalTech, No. 22-203: Scope of estoppel following IPR. After losing an IPR, when can defendant later raise similar issues in district court?
- Nike v. Adidas, No. 22-927: Can the PTAB raise its own patentability objections to substitute claims that are different from those raised by the patent challenger?
As always, the odds are on denial, and we’ll know something by early July.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this cert. petition was denied. Is that some sort of record for time of turn-around?
Incidentally, the other cases mentioned in Prof. C’s post above (Nike v. Adidas and Apple v. Cal Tech) were also denied. All for the best, probably. It rarely ends well when the SCOTUS decides to take a patent case.
It’s Wakefield’s competency which should be challenged.
It was a per curiam Rule 36 affirmance of a ruling from DDE. Linn and Chen also signed off.
Too bad SCOTUS can’t impose a penalty on people who file frivolous cert petitions.
SCOTUS certainly could issue “penalties” for such behavior. Not sure if it ever happens or how frequently.
At this moment, probably best for SCOTUS to focus on penalizing their own “frivolities”.
It’d be nice to see the claims at issue in Wakefield’s case. Is Wakefield one of those attorney-inventors upon whose backs our country was built?
Surprised that Malcolm has not volunteered his services to the pro se person seeking to base his case on the denigration of Judge Newman.
The patent number is on page 3 of the petition.
link to patents.google.com
Thanks. The admitted prior art here is “hot spots” (visualized, clickable embedded links) on web pages. Those “hot spots” were “static”, according to Wakefield (back in 2001). Here is Wakefield’s super techno solution to that industry-vexing problem:
1. A Multifunctional Hot Spot apparatus comprising:
at least one hot spot defined by a communication with instructions stored on a tangible retaining medium;
at least one of the hot spots being accessible from a globally accessible network;
means for performing at least one of a plurality of predetermined functions executed with the selection of each particular hot spot;
wherein said hot spots reside on and are accessible from a digital video or audio file;
wherein said predetermined functions are selected from a mode control;
wherein the mode control comprises a plurality of modes;
wherein the plurality of modes comprise a shop mode, a bid mode, an interact mode, an entertainment mode, and a link mode;
wherein a specific mode is selected by a user through an expandable graphical user interface bar;
wherein said specific mode further toggles based on time stamps in said digital video or digital audio file;
wherein said hot spots are visualized by outlines, shading, or illumination or a combination of each, at a predetermined area on the display;
wherein said Multifunctional Hot Spot apparatus is made to reside on and is executing on a computing system;
means, defined by said instructions, for selecting and activating at least one of said predetermined functions by clicking on each particular Multifunctional Hot Spot.
In the words of Takei,
0h my
What is Malcolm to do here? Rail against the pro se patent holder or rail against Judge Newman who opposed this pro se patent holder?
“It does not compute, it does not compute”, flash of sparks, cloud of smoke…
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
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