James Daily: An Empirical Analysis of Some Proponents and Opponents of Patent Reform

Academic Studies, Journal

In 2015, two opposing groups of legal and economic scholars sent open letters to Congress.  The first group argued for patent reforms based upon empirical evidence indicating “that the net effect of patent litigation is to raise the cost of innovation and inhibit technological progress.”  Seemingly in reaction to the first letter, the second group expressed “deep concerns with the many flawed, unreliable, or incomplete studies about the American patent system that have been provided to members of Congress.”

In his Patently-O Patent Law Journal essay, James Daily reports the results of his investigation into the signatories to these open letters. He finds, inter alia, that the signatories of the second letter are (1) more likely to be donors to the Republican Party and (2) more likely to be registered patent attorneys.

Read the Article: James E. Daily, An Empirical Analysis of Some Proponents and Opponents of Patent Reform, 2016 Patently-O Patent Law Journal 1.

 

PTO: Business Method Patent in 100 Days

Academic Studies, Accelerated Examination, Patent

by Dennis Crouch

A couple of weeks ago, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 8,712,797 to the drug-price-shopping company named GoodRX. The patent appears to be a typical business-method type invention based on the idea that automated internet communications can help solve consumer information problems. Here, the basics are to obtain a price list from two different pharmacy benefit managers and then display “at least a portion” of those prices through a user interface.

What is unusual is that the patent issued only 98 days after its filing date. The notice-of-allowance was mailed 44 days after filing.  (Note – this is not a continuation or divisional but it does claim priority to a provisional application.)  The application included a track-one request ($2,000 for small entity) filed by Knobbe. This is an incredibly short timeline for issuing a broad business-method patent that is very likely invalid.

Claim 1 is listed as follows:

1. A method of displaying prices for drugs … comprising:

providing a user interface using a computer processor;

receiving from the user interface information identifying a first drug;

obtaining a first set of prices for the first drug that is associated with a first pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), wherein a pharmacy benefit manager processes a claim relating to a drug and has an agreement with a pharmacy relating to a price of one or more drugs, the first set of prices comprising at least one price for the first drug and each price in the first set of prices being determined by an agreement between the first PBM and a pharmacy;

obtaining a second set of prices for the first drug that is associated with a second pharmacy benefit manager, the second set of prices comprising at least one price for the first drug and each price in the second set of prices being determined by an agreement between the second PBM and a pharmacy; and

displaying in the user interface at least a portion of the first set of prices and the second set of prices.

As mentioned above, the patent claims priority to a provisional filing. One interesting aspect of this case is that the provisional was filed pre-AIA and the application was filed post-AIA. For these transitional applications, the USPTO asks applicants to declare whether new matter was added to the non-provisional application and the applicant here indicated that answer was no. The problem is that the provisional application is actually quite sparse and – at least to my eye – there are a number of claims that were not described by that document.  Of course, we would need to ask whether there is any remedy for failing to accurately answer the AIA-Transition question.

To the extent you are concerned about GoodRX patent viability, the company does have two additional applications pending that claim priority to the same provisional application.

Ex Parte Patent Appeal Results

Academic Studies, BPAI, Patent, PTAB

The chart above shows the results of ex parte appeals grouped by the fiscal year of the appeal decision. In the data, I eliminated administrative dismissals and other non-merits actions from consideration. At this point, I don't have a good explanation for the gradual shift in outcomes.  It may be driven by the underlying patentability of the claims; the selection of cases for appeal; shifts in the law; and also changes in Board decisionmaking.  2012 figures presented here are only through July 2012.

The America Invents Act: One Year Later (Pt. 4)

Academic Studies, Patent, , , ,

By Jason Rantanen

Liveblogging the America Invents Act: One Year Later conference at the Indiana University Mauer School of Law. Warning and disclaimer: Quality may vary and these don't necessary reflect my opinions.

Keynote speaker – Director David Kappos

Director Kappos – Going to talk about what the USPTO is working on. 

Satellite offices – USPTO has been around since around 1790; always had only one location.  First satellite office: Detroit.  That office now up and running, and first class of examiners is examining applications.  Hired about 12 judges there.  On time, below budget.

Opening up three more offices.  Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Silicon Valley.  Denver location has been chosen already; doing site surveys for the other two locations.  Have vacancy notifications for hiring requests for judge out now; will be putting out hiring announcements for examiners soon.  Love to hire law school graduates.  In addition to hiring in Alexandria, there are going to be hiring opportunities in these areas.  Great place to start your career; but also a good place for a long term career.

IP Critical to GDP and Jobs – conducted a recent study called "Industries in Focus" that reports on the importance of innovation/IP rights for the GDP.  Also a recent study by BIO that reports on the enormous contribution of universities to GDP through Bayh-Dole.

AIA- AIA is a lot about balance between first inventors and follow-on competitors.  On Sunday, the first major piece of the AIA goes into effect.  Follow-on competitors are great – produce great products at great prices; produce innovations of their own.  The AIA isn't about advantaging anyone; it's about balancing both sides.

Major tenets of AIA: enabling the patent system to work for everyone, in every industry. 

Increase certainty of patent rights – includes backstop provisions, such as post-grant review;

Remove or prevent low quality patents- no way, consistent with any cost-effective business methodology, that you can do a perfect job.  Also, courts have consistently not chosen the easy way out in terms of flexibility rather than hard, categorical rules.  PTO promulgates a lot of guidelines – useful, but not perfect. This is why post-grant is so important – when the PTO gets it wrong in the first instance, there's a backstop.

Build a 21st century patent system – this leads to the world's first 21st century patent system.  This is not the most-cautious approach.  It's not a Swiss watch, it's innovation friendly.

More than halfway done with implementing provisions of the AIA.  After Sunday, just the 18-month rules to go into effect. 

Challenging fee-setting process is in progress.  Started this process with the academy, with IP-law economists.  They helped design a system that sets fees that are consistent with policy.  It will take several iterations, but he's serious about listening to the academy on this issue.

2012 Fall Roadshow in progress this month.  Lots of good feedback from these. Notes that new forms (not samples) that are to be used starting Monday are now available on the USPTO website.

Track One statistics – fast tracking of applications accompanied by a petition.  Now almost a year out from creation.  Average days to final disposition is 153.8 days.  About 5,500 applications so far.  Petition gets granted 96% of the time; 47 days to first office action. Of the 1716 final dispositions mailed, 867 allowances mailed.  Not a fast way to get a rejection; a fast way to get a patent if you should be getting a patent. Also, examiners want to pick up Track One first, because (1) it shows the applicant is serious; (2) probably an important innovation; and (3) applicant will be willing to engage with the examiner to get the job done.

Unexamined patent application backlog – backlog is going down.  New narrative is "optimal inventory" – want to come to the right level of backlog/inventory.  What about unintentional consequences: when they changed a lot of the incentives, it sent backlog numbers in the right direction.  However, the consequence was that doing this unintentionally sent a message to examiners to sit on RCE's; this is what they're working on now.  Soon, the RCE backlog will go like the unexamined patent application backlog. 

What is "inventory"?  The about of applications available fluctuates, but there needs to be work available to everyone to work on every day.  If the inventory gets too low, there are days when some people don't have enough work and others have too much.  So now the PTO needs to make sure that the inventor doesn't crash through the optimal inventory level.

Forward looking pendency – now down in the 16 month range.  Goal is 10 months; not that far off from that goal.  Less than two years from now they'll be at the optimal level. 

IP Awareness Assessment Tool – enables a non-lawyer to navigate a number of questions that adjusts the question to understand whether they might have possible issues in patent/trademark/trade secret areas.  Idea is to help small businesses understand when and how they need legal advice, and to navigate IP-issues before talking to a lawyer.

The H-Word: Harmonization.  Of forms of IP, patent laws are the laggard in terms of harmonization.  Working with patent systems of other countries to continue moving towards harmonization, especially grace period.  This is an area where further industry and academy support would be very welcome.  Trading partners need to change their laws to adopt the grace period. 

Social Enterprises: 2010-2011 – green tech pilot.  Totally maxed out.  This was the prototype for Track One.  Now they're working on the pro bono program.  A year into the program – have already issued patents, have inventors with products in the marketplace.  Launching in other cities.  By 2014, plan to have every region of US covered so that if you have a great idea, but not the resources to hire a patent attorney, you can get one through this system.  "No Invention Left Behind."  Looking to expand globally, with modifications.

Patents for Humanity – currently running.  Lot of applications coming in; closes in mid-October.  Involves patents that are being used for humanitarian purposes.  http://patentsforhumanity.challenge.gov.  Gives access to accelerated PTO processes, including appeals.

Education outreach – Put in place an education outreach to all kids in America.  Want to get positive, age-appropriate information out to kids of all ages so that they view themselves as innovators, they respect their innovations, they respect the innovations of others.

Software patents – came to the PTO to try and help with this.  Been working on making sure the agency doesn't issue patents that it shouldn't.  Championed stronger disclosure requirements; 112 guidelines specifically directed to software; trained examiners on using these guidelines; rise in 112 rejections on software patents.  This is a specific area where they're trying to improve patent quality. 

Question – how do you sort the good examiners from bad examiners?

Answer: USPTO has a LOT of data.  They track the data down to the individual examiner level.  Allowance rates – too high/too low.  Prosecution efficiency – have a new measure called compact prosecution that looks at whether the prosecution gets done.  Quality – check when they grant and reject cases.  Some of the best examiners are taken off the line and used as quality assurance supervisors.  What they've been finding is that even as you improve throughput and quality, there will be pockets (art units, departments, examiners) who need some help.  Data is also being given to the examiners on a monthly basis.  Also focusing on art units that exhibit significant deviations to see if there's an issue. Seeing improvement.

Bob Armitage – Thanked Director Kappos for the America invents Act.

USPTO Maintenance Fees

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, Patent

by Dennis Crouch

[This is an update of my 2009 post on the topic]

Over half of the USPTO operational budget is derived from maintenance (or renewal) fees paid by patentees. Fees are due at 3½, 7½, and 11½ years after issuance and each subsequent fee is substantially higher. Thus, under the current schedule, the first fee is $1,130, the second fee is $2,850, and the third fee is $4,730.  For the USPTO, this comes without any costs — all the work of examining is already complete.  The funds are used to subsidize ongoing examination. The USPTO has proposed to increase the maintenance fees substantially in near future as a mechanism of raising further funds for patent operations. 

The chart below shows the percentage of patents where maintenance fee payments are made for patents grouped by year of patent issuance.  The vast majority of patentees pay the first fee, but only about 50% pay all three. The 12–year delay in paying fees makes the chart appear to be missing data on the right side.

USPTO revenue from maintenance fees has been growing over time — lead primarily by an increase in the number of patents issued; an increase in the percentage of fees paid; an increase in the fees charged; and a decrease in the percentage of small entities who pay only ½ fare.

PatentlyO129

All USPTO fees are subject to market whims and macro-economic effects.  Maintenance fees are a particular problem because a decrease in maintenance fee payments does not lead to any decrease in workload for the Office. In 2009, the USPTO was suffering under a budget shortfall and I noted that the greatest cause of that shortfall was the dropping rate of renewal.

As an aside – it is interesting to note that, even though small entities receive a 50% discount on maintenance fee payments, they are much more likely to abandon their patents and not pay the mantenance fees. [Link]

Tags: , ,

Operating Efficiently Post-Bilski by Ordering Patent Doctrine Decision-Making

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, Patent, Patent Cases 2011, Patentable Subject Matter, ,

Last year, Professor Merges and I co-authored this short article on the administration of Bilski. In light of the pending Section 101 cases and Judge Rader's opinion in Classen Immunotherapies v. Biogen, I thought I would post it here again. Download the twenty-page essay from SSRN.

Here is the introduction:

Now that the Supreme Court has decided Bilski v. Kappos, there is an enormous amount of speculation about the case's impact on patent applicants, litigants, and other participants in the patent system. Most of the commentary is concerned with the holding in Bilski, how this holding will be applied by courts and the Patent Office, and ultimately, the effect of the holding on inventors, and those who hold and seek patents.

We take a different approach; rather than try to cut through the complexity of Bilski, or predict how it will be applied, we talk about how to avoid it. We are interested in how to minimize the cost and confusion that accompany a review of patents for § 101 subject-matter eligibility. To be specific, we propose that the § 101 issue of Bilski be considered only when doing so is absolutely necessary to determine the validity of a claim or claims in a patent. We believe any claim that can be invalidated under one of the less controversial and less complex requirements for patentability—§§ 102, 103, and 112, for instance—ought to be disposed of without considering subject matter patentability. In other words, the Bilski issue should be avoided wherever it is not strictly necessary. To support this conclusion, we present a set of empirical data that indicates that the vast majority of patent claims challenged on subject matter eligibility grounds were also challenged on other patentability issues.

We set the stage for our proposal in Part II, which briefly reviews the history behind Bilski and explains its open-ended holding and individualized approach. The difficulty of applying the Bilski ruling to different types of patent claims leads us to Part III, in which we call into question an accepted (if largely implicit) principle of patent law—that the lexical priority of statutory provisions in the 1952 Patent Act dictates a necessary logical sequence of invalidity tests. We reject this widespread assumption. There is nothing in the statute that requires this.

Indeed, in Part III we argue that in many ways the very idea of a sequence of discrete patentability requirements is conceptually misleading. Claims can be and often are rejected by the Patent Office for multiple reasons, suggesting that at least certain claims suffer from defects that transcend specific statutory validity requirements. We argue further that the policy underpinnings of various requirements overlap in complex ways, so that in reality patentability doctrine does not test for a series of discrete and independent qualities that are distinct from and mutually exclusive of each other. In the same way, transcendent qualities of an invention can influence multiple doctrines simultaneously, with pioneering inventions (due to both a liberal treatment under enablement, and a broad reach under infringement doctrines) being a prime example. This demonstrates again that there is not and should not be a strong separation between various patent law doctrines. Another argument along these lines recognizes that while patentability doctrines are not discrete entities, neither is "the invention" whose validity is being considered. Patent applicants routinely present multiple, overlapping claims, all of which cover fine-grained variations on a central inventive insight or advance. So it is inaccurate to visualize patentability as a stepwise series of tests applied to a single "invention." It is not true for example that "invention X" passes § 101 and should thus proceed in logical sequence to be tested under § 102. One claim growing out of inventive insight X might present no § 101 problems at all, yet another claim in the same patent application might raise a difficult issue under this provision. Each claim, being a unique slice of the overall inventive insight, ought to be considered on its own terms, and in whatever order makes the most sense. Put another way, the mental model of a stepwise sequence of patentability determinations overlooks the highly granular nature in which different slices of the inventive concept are presented for validity testing.

This analysis is further developed in Section III.A. When a claim fails to pass muster under any single test of validity, that claim should be invalidated. No further tests should be applied. We describe this as "chain" theory of validity: once one link in the chain is broken, the claim fails, and there is no reason to proceed further. Beyond that point, any expenditure of resources on validity questions is inefficient. Pragmatic considerations enter at this point. Issues of cost, justiciability, and spillover effects are perfectly appropriate in determining the actual sequence in which validity tests are applied with respect to any particular patent claim. The non-linearity of patent validity tests, together with the principle of efficient administration, yields a simple rule: start with chain links that are, in general, easiest and cheapest to test, and when the chain fails, stop the process. That way, the costliest and most complex doctrines—the trickiest "links in the chain"— are often avoided, and in any event are put off until later. Therefore, § 101 should often be avoided, both at the Patent Office and in the courts. We justify this not only on efficiency grounds, but also by analogy to the Supreme Court rules of avoidance.

In Part IV, we apply this simple principle. It leads to several recommendations. First, though the PTO has good reasons for its longstanding practice of rejecting claims for multiple reasons, we recommend that §101 be used only as an exception or last resort even at the PTO. Next, we contend that the courts should proceed in a stepwise fashion, beginning with §§ 102, and 103, and 112, changing the order of doctrines as dictated by pragmatic considerations, and stopping as soon as a claim is conclusively invalidated. In all cases, the complex and costly process of deciding whether a claim presents patentable subject matter under § 101 should be deferred until very late in the process. Therefore, we recommend, courts should in effect hold off on the difficult task of evaluating claims under § 101—ideally deploying the full § 101 analysis only when that is essential, i.e., when a claim passes muster under the other validity doctrines.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1953512. Thanks!

Sarnoff: Derivation and Prior Art Problems with the New Patent Act

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, Guest Post, Patent, Patent Legislation, , ,

In a new Patently-O Patent Law Journal essay, Professor Joshua Sarnoff (DePaul) highlights a set of important problems in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. The essay, titled Derivation and Prior Art Problems with the New Patent Act focuses primarily on the elimination of 35 U.S.C. § 102(f) and its implications regarding the patentability of material that was either wholly or partially derived from another source.

Professor Sarnoff writes: 

Legislation sometimes is enacted that obviously requires either immediate revision or creative administrative and judicial interpretation. The new Leahy-Smith America Invents Act's derivation and prior art provisions fall in that category. Whether or not the move from a first-to-invent to a first-inventor-to-file system is viewed as good policy and as authorized by the Constitution, the particular changes made to the prior art provisions may not prevent or invalidate patents on inventions derived from others, i.e., when the applicant has obtained knowledge of an invention from another, original inventor and then files for a patent on the same or a similar invention. In particular, obvious inventions made with unauthorized derived knowledge will now be patentable, given the elimination of prior art section § 102(f). Absent creative interpretations by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the courts, the new derivation proceedings will not prevent a first filer from obtaining a patent even if the first filer's invention is merely an obvious extension of information derived from another. Further, the new act adds a narrow and poorly understood category of prior art that may generate years of needless litigation to re-settle the currently well-understood boundaries of the public domain. I discuss these problems in detail below.

There is some hope that Congress and the Administration will take Professor Sarnoff's concerns to heart.

Read the article: Joshua D. Sarnoff, Derivation and Prior Art Problems with the New Patent Act, 2011 Patently-O Patent Law Review 12 at /media/docs/2012/10/sarnoff.2011.derivation.pdf.

Prior Patently-O Patent Law Journal Articles include:

The Use of Online Databases for Legal Scholarship

Academic Studies, Patent, Rantanen, , ,

By Jason Rantanen

Many empirical studies of Federal Circuit jurisprudence rely on searches of one of the leading legal databases such as Westlaw or Lexis.1 Relying on a search of a single database is potentially problematic, however, if the substantive content of the databases is not identical – in other words, if Lexis and Westlaw don't contain the same universe of cases, any claims about the results are necessarily limited by the dataset being used. 

In order to avoid this problem in connection with an empirical study of inequitable conduct that I'm working on, I recently performed a comparison of results obtained by a keyword search on Westlaw versus an identical search on Lexis.  This comparison revealed that although the data obtained from the two sources is largely comparable, small differences do exist that certain types of searchers may want to take into account.

The chart below shows the results, by year, produced by searching for the term "inequitable conduct" in the Federal Circuit databases for Lexis and Westlaw.2,3  In large part, the results suggest that there is relatively little variation between the two databases: in the context of this analysis, only 30 out of 681 (4.4%) Westlaw opinions were not found in Lexis and only 6 out of 657 (0.9%) Lexis opinions were not found in Westlaw.  Furthermore, in no instance did a precedential opinion appear in one database but not another.  Rather, all of the single-database hits were nonprecedential opinions.  In addition, nearly all of the nonprecedential opinions appearing in only a single database issued prior to 1991.   That said, there is a significant difference with respect to nonprecedential opinions for the period prior to 1991: nearly all the nonprecedential opinions from this time period are found in only one database.4  Thus, while it may not be efficient for most practitioners to run keyword searches on multiple databases, scholars conducting empirical research on Federal Circuit decisions, or individuals searching for older party-specific nonprecedential opinions, may want to be sensitive to the differences between the two databases.

Figure 1: Hits Resulting from Search Term "Inequitable Conduct" in Lexis and Westlaw5

 
Search comparison

1 See, e.g., Christopher A. Cotropia, "Determining Uniformity Within the Federal Circuit By Measuring Dissent and En Banc Review," 43 LOY. L.A. L. REV. 801, 811 (2010); Christian E. Mammen, Controlling the "Plague": Reforming the Doctrine of Inequitable Conduct,24 BERKELEY TECH. L.J. 1329, 1348 (2009);  Craig Allen Nard, Toward a Cautious Approach to Obeisance: The Role of Scholarship in Federal Circuit Patent Law Jurisprudence, 39 HOUS. L. REV. 667, 678 fn 40 (2002); Christian A. Chu, Empirical Analysis of The Federal Circuit's Claim Construction Trends, 16 BERK. TECH. L.J. 1075, 1092 (2001); but see R. Polk Wagner and Lee Petherbridge, Is the Federal Circuit Succeeding? An Empirical Assessment of Judicial Performance, 152 U. PA. L. REV. 1105, 1145 (2004) (using results from both Lexis and Westlaw).  In addition, some early empirical studies used the United States Patent Quarterly as their source (see, e.g., John R. Allison & Mark A. Lemley, How Federal Circuit Judges Vote in Patent Validity Cases, 10 FED. CIR. B.J. 435, 436 (2001)), which apparently contains some, but not all, nonprecedential patent decisions.  See e.g., Wirco, Inc. v. Rolock, Inc., 17 U.S.P.Q.2d 1084, 1990 WL 12901 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 14, 1990) as opposed to Mechanical Plastics Corp. v. Unifast Industries, Inc., 1988 WL 25422 (Fed. Cir. March 28, 1988).

2  For purposes of creating this chart, I used the additional limitation "CO(c.a.fed.)" to exclude CCPA and Court of Claims decisions, some of which are included in Westlaw's "ctaf" database.  In addition, I separately compared the results from a keyword search of the entire "ctaf" database to the results from the Lexis search in order to identify any Lexis-only hits that might have been excluded by the Westlaw court limiter.  This process did not reveal any such hits.

3 These results include every search hit that contained the term "inequitable conduct," regardless of the context.  It thus should not be viewed as reflecting any measure of substantive inequitable conduct determinations.  In addition, hits resulting from search terms appearing only in the database-specific casenotes were excluded, as were instances where the database contained duplicate entries of the case opinion or included a copy of a withdrawn opinion.   For more substantive analyses of inequitable conduct jurisprudence, see Lee Petherbridge, Jason Rantanen & Ali Mojibi, The Federal Circuit and Inequitable Conduct: An Empirical Assessment, ssrn id 1686102; Mammen, supra note 1.

4 In addition to double-checking the single-database cases against the search results of the other database, I also spot-checked several decisions against the Lexis/Westlaw case database as a whole by using terms from the parties' names and the Federal Reporter citation, where available.  Although in some instances this resulted in a hit, the contents of those hits were blank.  See, e.g., Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. v. Tanner, 738 F.2d 454 (1984) (nonprecedential) (no opinion in Westlaw; opinion in Lexis).

4 Although the results for 1997 appear equal, each database contained one opinion for that year that is not in the other database.

Missouri Law Review Patent Law Writing Competition: $5,000 Award

Academic Studies, Law School, Patent

The Missouri Law Review announces a student writing competition in association with its annual Symposium to be held February 25, 2011, at the University of Missouri School of Law. Submissions should fit with the symposium topic of "The Patent Jurisprudence of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit." The winner will be awarded a $5,000 cash prize.

Eligibility: Submissions should follow the format of a case note or law summary cited in Bluebook style and must be submitted by January 14, 2011, via email to umclawrev@missouri.edu with the subject line "Patent Law Writing Competition." The submission must be between 20 and 30 pages and have at least 125 footnotes. The submission should be unpublished, and the author must be willing to publish the work in the Missouri Law Review. The competition is limited to current law students studying in a U.S. J.D. program. Current members of the Missouri Law Review are excluded from participating. Send questions to the Missouri Law Review at umclawrev@missouri.edu.

Deadline: Friday, 1/14/2011

Award: $5,000

Board of Patent Appeals

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, BPAI, Patent

Although the Board of Patent Appeals (BPAI) is working harder than ever, its backlog continues to rise. The first chart below shows the BPAI’s inventory of undecided appeals in ex parte cases. This only includes fully-briefed appeals whose dockets have been transferred to the BPAI and does not include the thousands of other applications where awaiting briefing. The average timing from notice-of-appeal to appellate decision is 29 months.

PatentLawPic1141

I spoke with BPAI officials who identified the jump in early 2009 as a one-time issue involving the bulk transfer of cases that had been previously delayed.

The next chart shows the number of Ex Parte cases decided each month. The average number of cases being decided each month continues to rise. However, the chart also reveals a high month-to-month variability. That variability is explained by the BPAI judge quota system. BPAI judge performance is primarily judged two times per year, and that process is reflected in a systematic incentive for the judges to do more work in Feburary and August and then less work in March and September.

PatentLawPic1142

Although the BPAI is deciding more cases than ever, inventory continues to rise because more appeals are being filed than ever.

Law Review Case Note Topics for 2010-2011

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, Law School, Patent, , , , , , , ,

Dear Law Review Editors: Please send me a note (dcrouch@patentlyo.com) to let me know about patent law focused articles that you publish in your journal so that I can highlight them on Patently-O.

Student Note Topics: Here are some suggestions for patent law focused law review topics for 2010-11 that I would like to see for my own edification. Please send me an e-mail if you choose one of these.

Tags:

Backgrounds of Registered Patent Practitioners

Academic Studies, Patent

PatentLawPic1057

Tom Field and his co-authors have been kind enough to make their patent practitioner background database available to the public [Download 5mb database]. Their data is based on the registration applications that hopeful patent attorneys & agents submitted to the PTO. Using their data, I created a few interesting charts and tables on the educational background of registered patent law professionals.  

As the top chart shows, there is a very wide educational gap between practitioners in the chemical and biological fields and those in the mechincal, electrical, and computer fields. (Here, I included MD, DVM, EdD, and other similar degrees within the PhD category). Overall, 99% of the registration registered practitioners hold a bachelors degree, 29% hold a masters degree, and 15% hold a PhD or equivalent.  Although certainly not a dime-a-dozen, patent law professionals with a biological sciences PhD are more likely to have earned that degree at Harvard than at any other school.

The chart below shows the undergraduate degrees received broadly grouped according to area of technology. 

PatentLawPic1055

 Notes:

  • The PTO anonymized the information before releasing it.

Patent Attorney Backgrounds

Academic Studies, Patent

Professors Ralph Clifford, Tom Field, and Jon Cavicchi have published an interesting study on the technical backgrounds of patent attorneys and agents. After the trio submitted a FOIA request, the PTO handed-over 50,000 pages of patent bar registration applications.  Using that information, the trio created a database of registered patent attorneys and their associated degrees/schools. 

The paper makes the legitimate argument that the PTO should allow folks with a computer science degree to register — especially with the rise in the number of inventions related to computer science. “[A]n institutional bias exists within the PTO that prevents software-savvy individuals from registering with the Office.” 

The following table is excerpted from the article and shows the top-ten institutions where patent attorneys/agents received non-law degrees.

 

Rank Non-Law Degree University Count
1 Univ. Illinois  929
2 Massachusetts Inst. Tech. 908
3 Univ. Michigan 743
4 Cornell Univ. 631
5 Univ. California Berkeley 623
6 Purdue Univ. 602
7 Univ. Texas 582
8 Univ. Wisconsin 545
9 Univ. Maryland 520
10 Univ. Washington 503

Notes:

 

The Business Method Patent Art Units

Academic Studies, Patent, Patentable Subject Matter, Software

By Dennis Crouch

In prior posts, I noted that the USPTO is issuing patents at an all-time-high-rate.  This increase is perhaps most dramatic in the art units that examine applications classified by the USPTO as "business methods."  This post explores the history and the numbers.

* * * * * 

The USPTO patent examiner corps is organized into small technology-specific groups known as art units.  Each art unit has a manager that reports to a technology center director.  About twenty art units have been classified as generally dealing with “business method” patents. (See list of art units).  I’ll call these art units “business method art units” for lack of a better term.  All of the patents issued from these art units are classified in class 705. And, these are the patents and applications that are most likely to be affected by the decision in Bilski v. Kappos (2010).

Under former PTO Director Jon Dudas, the business method art units received special attention.  Individual examiners were given free power to reject pending applications as unpatentable, but claims could not be allowed as patentable until being reviewed by at least a “second pair of eyes.”  Under Director Kappos and Commissioner Stoll, the second pair of eyes regime has been eliminated and, as might be expected, the number of patents being allowed in these art units has risen dramatically. Perhaps coincidentally, this rise also correlates with the Federal Circuit’s October 2008 decision in Bilski.

The following two charts respectively show the number and percentage of patents that issue from the business method art units for each quarter (three-month period) going back to January 2005.  (2010 Q3 only includes two-weeks worth of data). As a bit of perspective, since January 2005, more than 900,000 utility patents have issued. Fewer than 9,000 are associated with these business method art units.

PatentLawPic1033

PatentLawPic1034

As the charts show, the number of patents issued by the business method art units is on the rise — both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of patents being issued. 

Most of the patents issuing from the business method art units are directed toward some type of computer software that helps solve a business problem. Newly issued U.S. Patent No. 7,747,465 is a typical example. The ‘465 patent claims a method and apparatus for determining the effectiveness of internet advertising. The claimed method does not explicitly recite any hardware except for a “manager console”, “dynamic sampling engine”, and “logic module.”  In response to a Section 101 rejection, the applicant amended its claims and then — without explanation — provided the conclusory argument that the application was “directed to statutory subject matter because the claims are either directed to statutory processes tied to a particular machine or directed to statutory apparatuses.”

One problem with studies of business method patents is that there is no accepted definition the term.  The 1998 State Street decision that jump-started business method patenting did not actually involve any method claims.  On the technology front, inventions that look like business methods are often examined in other art units. Rand Warsaw (Bernard Bilski's co-inventor) was issued a patent in 2004 on a method for providing energy efficiency changes based upon historic consumption and weather data.  That patent looks was examined by a non business method art unit in an entirely different technology center. (Patent No. 6,785,620).

An Empirical Study of the Role of The Written Description Requirement in Patent Prosecution

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, En Banc, Enablement, Patent, ,

Table 3[Download the Draft Essay]

Essay Overview: In the pending case of Ariad v. Eli Lilly, an en banc Federal Circuit is considering whether Section 112 of the Patent Act as properly interpreted includes a written description requirement that is separate and distinct from the enablement requirement. Although the USPTO has no direct role in the infringement dispute, the government submitted an amicus curiae brief arguing that a separate written description requirement is “necessary to permit the USPTO to perform its basic examination function.” However, when pressed during oral arguments the government could not point to any direct evidence supporting its contention.

This essay presents the results of a retrospective empirical study of the role of the written description requirement in patent office practice. It is narrowly focused on rebutting the USPTO’s claim that the separate written description requirement serves an important role in the patent examination process. To the contrary, my results support the conclusion suggested by Chief Judge Michel during oral arguments that it is indeed “exceedingly rare that the patent office hangs its case on written description.”

For the study, I analyzed 2858 Board of Patent Appeals and Interference (BPAI) patent opinions decided January-June 2009. Written description issues were decided in 123 (4.3%) of the decisions in my sample. Perhaps surprisingly, I found that none of the outcomes of those decisions would have been impacted by a legal change that entirely eliminated the written description requirement of Section 112 so long as the USPTO would still be allowed to reject claims based on the addition of “new matter” (perhaps under 35 U.S.C. Section 132). New-matter style written description requirement rejections were outcome-determinative in 20 of the 2858 cases – about 1.0% of the cases in my sample. (I am very confident that the PTO will retain its ability to make new matter rejections even if the separate written description requirement is eliminated.)

Although there may be valid reasons for retaining a separate written description requirement, this study safely leads to the conclusion that the government’s conclusory statements regarding the doctrine’s critical importance for patent examination lack a factual basis.

Continue reading the essay. [PDF]

These results fit well with those of UMKC professor Christopher Holman that he reported in his 2007 article, Is Lilly Written Description a Paper Tiger?: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Impact of Eli Lilly and its Progeny in the Courts and PTO , 17 ALB. L.J. SCI. & TECH. 1, 62 (2007).

Design Patent Rejections

Academic Studies, Design Patent, Patent,

Most utility patent applications are rejected at least once on either anticipation or obviousness.  Design patents are different.

As part of a larger project, I combed through 1049 file histories of design patents that issued in the past 12 months. Of those, 5 were rejected on novelty grounds and 8 on obviousness. This leads to a prior-art-based rejection rate of 1.2% (95% CI range of 0.7% – 2.1%).  The vast majority of the patents (81.6%) were never rejected during prosecution.  The most common rejections are under 35 USC 112 paragraphs 1 and 2.  Typically both paragraphs are asserted simultaneously.

According to the most recent USPTO annual report, design patents had an allowance rate of about 90% during the period FY2005–FY2009 as measured by the percentage of disposals that were allowances.  About half of design patents issued in 2009 were pending for less than one year.

PatentlyO032

These numbers suggest that the US design patent system is operating as a registration system rather than as one based on a true examination.  Along this vein, it is typically easier and cheaper to prosecute a design patent to issuance than to register a product design as trade dress.  To be clear, I support the idea of a design patent registration system. More on that in another post.

Design Patents: Mueller & Brean

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, Design Patent, Patent,

Professor Janice Mueller & Daniel Brean have posted a new working-draft article on design patent protection. The article argues "that courts and the USPTO have previously unrecognized flexibility in how they apply the nonobviousness requirement to designs." The authors recommend, inter alia, that courts (1) recognize that nonobviousness jurisprudence (e.g., KSR) has "very limited, if any, applicability to design patentability"; (2) plant patent patentability requirements serve as a better example; (3) the perspective of a non-expert ordinary observer should be used when considering nonobviousness; and (4) design anticipation should be limited to "strict identity situations."

Read the article here.

The Increasing Role of Published Applications in Patent Examination

Academic Studies, Patent

In 2001, the USPTO began publishing pending patent applications at approximately 18-months after the application's priority date. Over the past eight years, this publication rule has slowly become more integrated with the examination system. As the first chart shows below, most issued patents now cite to at least one US publication. (Patents issued January 1, 2009 – June 23, 2009 cite 4.2 US published applications, on average).

Moving toward Transparency in Prior Art: Patent applicants have historically been frustrated by prior art defined under Section 102(e) of the Patent Act. That section defines a class of "secret prior art" that was not publicly available at the time of an applicant's filing, but that was already on-file with the patent office. By opening-up the application files at an earlier date, the potential unfairness of secret 102(e) prior art is beginning to be reduced because the early publication makes the prior art searchable by the public. Although not directly proving this point, the second chart categorizes the cited US published applications according to their prior art classification. As time moves forward, more applications have become 102(b) prior art (published for more than one year before the applicant's filing) and the percentage of cited applications categorized as 102(e) prior art continues to drop.

Notes:

  • This study is based on an analysis of all US patents issued between January 1, 2000 and June 23, 2009.
  • A cited published application was counted as 102(e) prior art if the publication date of the cited application was later than the filing date of the issued patent that cited the application.
  • A cited published application was counted as 102(b) prior art if the publication date of the cited application was more than one-year prior to the filing date of the issued patent that cited the application.  The graph shown limits the analysis to only issued patents that do not claim a priority date based on a prior patent filing.  Patents that claim an earlier priority date tend to eliminate a portion of 102(b) prior art.
  • See also Dennis Crouch, Published Applications as Prior Art, Patently-O, https://patentlyo.com/patent/2009/07/published-applications-as-prior-art.html (July 28, 2009).

   

   

   

   

  

Reissue Applications over Time

Academic Studies, Articles and Publications, Patent, Reissue

In 2008, the patent office reissued over 640 patents – breaking the prior record of 630 set in 1875. The historic numbers of reissued patents are shown in the first chart below grouped according to year of reissuance.

Although today's absolute numbers rival historic highs of the 19th century, today's relative number of reissued patents is close to the all-time low. The next chart shows the relative percentage of reissues as compared to utility patents granted (denominator based on a moving average of patents issued over of the prior ten years).

The final chart shows a time series of the average reissue pendency as measured from the reissue application filing date to the reissuance date. As is apparent, the pendency has been growing dramatically since 1997. 2009 looks to mark a second record – the first time that average prosecution pendency of reissues applications will be greater than five years.

Background: The reissue process is designed to allow a patent holder to correct a defective patent and is nestled between certificates of correction (minor errors) and reexamination. 35 U.S.C. §251 spells out particular defects that may be corrected in the process: Defect in the specification; Defect in the drawing; Error in claiming too much; or Error in claiming too little. In Medrad, the Federal Circuit broadly read these final two defects to "encompass any error that causes a patentee to claim more or less than he had a right to claim." Medrad, Inc. v. Tyco Healthcare Group LP, 466 F.3d 1047 (Fed. Cir. 2006). A major limit on the reissue process is that "[n]o reissued patent shall be granted enlarging the scope of the claims of the original patent unless applied for within two years from the grant of the original patent." Section 251, final paragraph. The limit on improper broadening of reissues is strict and applies when claims are "broader in any respect." Predicate Logic, Inc. v. Distributive Software, Inc., 544 F.3d 1298 (Fed. Cir. 2008).