Tag Archives: Trade Secrets

The following are a collection of posts on trade secrets. Trade secrets are essentially of two kinds. On the one hand, trade secrets may concern inventions or manufacturing processes that do not meet the patentability criteria and therefore can only be protected as trade secrets. This would be the case of customers lists or manufacturing processes that are not sufficiently inventive to be granted a patent (though they may qualify for protection as a utility model). On the other hand, trade secrets may concern inventions that would fulfill the patentability criteria and could therefore be protected by patents. In the latter case, the SME will face a choice: to patent the invention or to keep it as a trade secret.

Texas Trade Secrets

Thomas v. Hughes, 20-50671, 2022 WL 620238, at *1 (5th Cir. Mar. 3, 2022) [Opinion]

Texas attorney Lee Ann Hughes purchased Performance Probiotics, LLC from the company founder Pearcy.  At the time of the purchase, Hughes was Pearcy’s attorney – a red flag.   In addition to the purchase agreement, PPI agreed to license Pearcy’s proprietary formulation of probiotics at a rate of 14% of net sales with an option to purchase the rights for $100k at the end of five years.   But, PPI did not pay the royalties and instead simply used the formulation without payment (a second red flag).

Percy sued in Texas state court an won a verdict of almost $1 million for trade secret misappropriation (by PPI) but just $1 against Hughes for breach of attorney fiduciary duty.  But, PPI did not pay the money owed on the judgment — instead filed for bankruptcy.  At that point, Percy (as well as PPI’s bankruptcy trustee Thomas) sued Hughes personally for the money owed.  The veil-piercing action included allegations of fraudulent transfer pre-bankruptcy, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty to the company — this time all against Hughes.   A jury found that Hughes was liable for all of it — although by that time the interest pushed the award up to $1.5 million. In addition, the jury awarded $1.2 million in punitive (“exemplary”) damages. The district court additionally ordered:

  • Disgorgement of $900k in compensations Hughes received from PPI;
  • Injunction against Hughes and her new companies from using the trade secret formulation until the judgment is fully satisfied;
  • Joint and several liability against Hughes personally for the prior judgment against PPI; and
  • Attorney fees of $400k. (This brings the total due to about $4 million).

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit has affirmed (with only a slight modification).

Under Texas law, trade secret misappropriation requires the following three elements:

  1. existence of a trade secret
  2. acquisition of the trade secret through a breach of a confidential relationship or improper means; and
  3. unauthorized use of the trade secret.

Sufficiency of the Evidence: A litigant in federal court must take particular actions at trial in order to preserve a right to appeal a verdict on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds.  In particular, the issue must be raised first in a pre-verdict R.50(a) JMOL motion; and then the same issue must be renewed as part of a post-verdict R.50(b) JMOL motion.  On appeal here, Hughes argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Percy’s formulation was a trade secret.  Although Hughes made that argument in her R.50(b) motion, she did not make the argument in a pre-verdict R.50(a) motion.  On appeal, the Federal Circuit stuck to the rules and refused to consider this particular challenge. “Because Hughes did not challenge the existence of a trade secret or improper use in her initial Rule 50(a) motion, those issues were not properly raised in her post-trial Rule 50(b) motion. We therefore decline to address them on appeal.”

Trade Secret Damages: Although you have to prove damages in a trade secret case, the Texas Supreme Court allows for “flexible and imaginative” approaches.  Here though the damages were easy to calculate because they were part of the contract – 14% of net sales + 100,000 for the purchase price.  On appeal, the court affirmed the award.

Injunction: Hughes argued that the money paid fully compensated the defendant and thus no injunction was appropriate.  The appellate court disagreed:

While it is true that the jury awarded “legally measurable damages” to Pearcy for Hughes’s misappropriation of trade secrets, the history of this case makes clear that such damages, without more, are incapable of remedying “the situation sought to be enjoined.” The Comal County jury originally awarded damages against PPI for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. But that award did not stop Hughes and companies she controlled from misappropriating Pearcy’s trade secrets again. Moreover, the money damages awarded to Pearcy compensate for past misappropriation, while the injunctive relief was fashioned by the district court to prevent future misappropriation—until the court’s judgment is satisfied, neither Hughes nor her companies have any more right to use Pearcy’s trade secrets than they did before. We agree with the district court that “the evidence adduced at trial and supported by the jury’s verdict shows that without injunctive relief, [Hughes] could continue harming Plaintiffs, which would … defeat the entire purpose of this long, expansive litigation.”

Slip Op.

 

 

The DTSA Giveth But Does Not Taketh Away

Further thoughts on the Defend Trade Secrets Act and inevitable disclosure

Guest post by Maxwell Goss. Dr. Goss is a business litigator with Rossman Saxe, P.C. in Troy, Michigan. His practice focuses on non-compete, trade secret, intellectual property, and shareholder law and litigation. Dr. Goss blogs at Law and the Creative Economy.

Last week I wrote about the doctrine of “inevitable disclosure” as it relates to the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), the statute that created a general, private cause of action for trade secret misappropriation under federal law. Because inevitable disclosure is of continuing importance and controversy, I wanted to unpack the issues further here. As discussed below, the DTSA leaves room for trade secret plaintiffs to assert inevitable disclosure.

Trade secret plaintiffs frequently face problems of proof. Gathering evidence that a suspected individual or company has actually misappropriated trade secrets, or legitimately threatens to misappropriate trade secrets, can be a substantial hurdle to getting a lawsuit off the ground.

Take a typical scenario where an employee of company A goes to work for company B, and A alleges that the employee is using its trade secrets on behalf of B. In some cases, company A will have evidence that the employee swiped its secrets before leaving, perhaps by emailing himself a customer list or downloading technical specifications onto a flash drive. Company A might even have evidence that company B is now using the secrets, perhaps because it is soliciting A’s customers or has launched a product based on A’s specifications. In many cases, though, the activities of the employee and the new employer are a black box. The employee was exposed to trade secrets at Company A, and is now working for Company B, but Company A has not uncovered evidence of specific disclosures to Company B. Company A may have reason to believe the employee must be disclosing secrets to B, or threatens to do so, but has no way to confirm this directly prior to filing suit and obtaining discovery—a catch-22. Is company A without recourse?

Enter the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine. Under this common-law doctrine, a trade secret plaintiff may base a claim for trade secret misappropriation on a showing that disclosure of trade secrets is “inevitable.” In PepsiCo, Inc. v. Redmond, the landmark Seventh Circuit case on inevitable disclosure, a former employee of PepsiCo went to work for a competing beverage company. Notably, there was no allegation that the employee had stolen specific information and given it to the competitor. Instead, PepsiCo argued that the employee could not help but use the company’s trade secrets to help its competitor “achieve a substantial advantage” and “respond strategically” through his knowledge of PepsiCo’s pricing, distribution, and marketing information. Because his reliance on such information was inevitable, the court affirmed an injunction barring the former employee from assuming his position at the competitor company.

The doctrine of inevitable disclosure is controversial, and is only recognized in some jurisdictions. One objection is that it essentially allows courts to impose a non-compete on those who never signed a non-compete agreement. Another objection is that it facilitates abusive lawsuits against former employees based on flimsy evidence. Yet another objection is that it can enable a company to obtain an injunction that damages a competitor without any evidence of wrongful conduct by the competitor itself. Unsurprisingly, then, inevitable disclosure was frequently discussed in the lead-up to the passage of the Defend Trade Secrets Act. As enacted, the DTSA did ultimately limit the application of the doctrine. Though the language of the DTSA largely tracks that of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), which has been enacted in some form in nearly all states, the DTSA departs from the UTSA in that it expressly disallows injunctions that “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship” and prohibits any conditions placed on a person’s employment in an injunction based “merely on the information the person knows.”

In light of this language, many observers have concluded that inevitable disclosure is a dead letter under the DTSA. For example, one article states that the DTSA “explicitly rejects the inevitable disclosure doctrine under federal law.” To take another example, I recently attended a (very good) presentation in which it was stated that inevitable disclosure is “foreclosed” by the DTSA. And I would be remiss not to mention that I myself declared in a CLE presentation last year that “[t]he DTSA seemingly rejects inevitable disclosure by dictating that conditions on employment in an injunction may not be based merely on information the person knows.”

But the doctrine of inevitable disclosure lives on under the DTSA, albeit in a diminished form. As explained in my previous post, the court in Molon Motor and Coil Corp. v. Nidec Motor Corp. recently held that a plaintiff had successfully stated a claim for trade secret misappropriation under the DTSA where it had pled allegations supporting an inference that a former employee who went to work for a direct competitor would inevitably have disclosed the plaintiff’s trade secrets to the competitor during the period in which the DTSA has been in effect. The court added: “Of course, further discovery could upend any or all of this, but at this stage, continued use beyond the May 2016 effective date [of the DTSA] is plausible.” Notably, the court then ordered the parties to discuss a “discovery plan on the trade secret claims.” In short, the plaintiff’s allegations of inevitable disclosure entitled it to move forward on both its federal and state trade secret claims.

It would be easy to dismiss Molon as dealing only with a narrow issue of limited importance. The Court’s principal concern, after all, was how the DTSA applies where the alleged theft at issue preceded its passage—an issue relevant in only a few and declining number of cases. But the ruling should not be dismissed so quickly. In reaching its holding, an essential part of the Court’s analysis was that was that inevitable disclosure can in fact support a DTSA claim. This conclusion has at least two potential implications applicable beyond the specific procedural posture of the case.

First, the DTSA could be used to secure jurisdiction in federal court and then state law could be used to secure an injunction based on inevitable disclosure. Consider companies A and B again. Company A wants to sue an employee of company B in federal court—for instance, because of perceived advantages in bringing the case before a federal judge or because of the streamlined process for obtaining discovery across state lines under the federal rules. But suppose the parties are citizens of the same state. Prior to passage of the DTSA, unless there had been some hook other than diversity jurisdiction for bringing the case in federal court, company A would have been forced to bring the case in state court. Under the DTSA, diversity of citizenship does not matter. Company A can bring the case in federal court regardless of the parties’ citizenship.

If company A goes this route, is it stuck with the DTSA’s strict limitations on injunctive relief, including the prohibition of injunction based “merely on the information the person knows”? Very arguably not. By its own terms, the DTSA does not preempt state trade secret law, and state law claims will nearly always be available in cases where the DTSA applies. Assuming the applicable state law permits injunctive relief based on inevitable disclosure, company A could file a concurrent claim for trade secret misappropriation under state law and obtain an injunction based on an inevitable disclosure theory. In such a case, the DTSA would be used to obtain federal court jurisdiction while state law would be used to obtain the desired relief.

Second, the DTSA stops well short of barring all injunctive relief based on inevitable disclosure. The limitations on injunctions under the statute apparently extend only to employment relationships: An injunction may not “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship,” and any conditions on employment must be based on “evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the information the person knows.” This suggests that an injunction that does not impact employment may still be based on inevitable disclosure.

For example, if company A can offer evidence that an employee who departed for company B will inevitably disclose A’s trade secrets to B, a court conceivably might grant an injunction prohibiting B from using or disclosing A’s trade secrets. For companies that believe their trade secrets are being misused but cannot get into the “black box” of the competitor’s activities prior to discovery, this could be a major advantage. More controversially, a court could grant an injunction directly against the employee based on inevitable disclosure, provided the injunction does not prevent the employee from working for company B or impose conditions on his or her employment.

If the Molon opinion is any indication, the DTSA giveth but the DTSA does not taketh away. That is, a trade secret owner can use the DTSA to bring its case in federal court, and can avail itself of the distinctive benefits and relief available under the DTSA, without losing its ability to assert inevitable disclosure in jurisdictions recognizing the doctrine under state law. Of course, it is unknown how other courts would address similar issues. (As far as I can determine, while a few opinions have made passing reference to inevitable disclosure in DTSA cases, Molon is the first to directly address the applicability of the doctrine under the DTSA.) At a minimum, though, the opinion indicates that rumors of the demise of inevitable disclosure are greatly exaggerated.

Guest Post: Where we Stand with Trade Secret Enforcement in Federal Courts

Guest Post by Prof. David Opderbeck (Seton Hall), originally published on his blog The CyberSecurity Lawyer.

Introduction

Trade secrets are important to cybersecurity because many data breaches involve trade secret theft.  The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) amended the Espionage Act of 1996 to provide a federal private right of action for trade secret misappropriation.   Some commentators opposed the DTSA in part because it seems redundant in light of state trade secret law and could lead to unnecessary litigation and restrictions on innovation.  Now that the DTSA has been in effect for nearly a year, I conducted an empirical study of cases asserting DTSA claims (with the able help of my research assistant, Zach Hansen).  This post summarizes the results of that study.

Methodology

We ran keyword searches in the Bloomberg Law federal docket database to identify cases asserting DTSA claims in federal courts.  It is not possible to search only on the Civil Cover Sheet because there is no discrete code for DTSA claims.  Our search ran from the effective date of the DTSA (May 26, 2016) through April 21, 2017 (just prior to our symposium on the DTSA at Seton Hall Law School).  After de-duping, we identified 280 unique Complaints, which we coded for a variety of descriptive information.  Our raw data is available online.

Findings

This chart shows the number of filings by district:

We were not surprised to see that the Northern and Central Districts of California, Southern District of New York, or District of Massachusetts were among the top five.  We were surprised, however, to see the Northern District of Illinois tied for first.  This could reflect the influence of the financial services industry in Chicago, but further research is required.

The next chart shows the number of filings by month:

It is interesting to note the decline in filings following the initial uptick after the May 26, 2016 effective date.  Perhaps this reflects a slight lull during the summer months.  Filings then remained relatively steady until March, 2017, when they increased significantly.  This could have something to do with the quarterly business cycle or bonus season, since many of the cases (as discussed below) involve employment issues.  Or, it could reflect a random variation given the relatively small sample size.

We next examined other claims filed along with the DTSA counts in these Complaints:

We excluded from this chart related state law trade secret claims.  Not surprisingly, nearly all the cases included claims for breach of contract.  As noted above, trade secret claims often arise in the employment context in connection with allegations of breach of a confidentiality agreement or covenant not to compete.  Another finding of note was that a fair number of cases assert Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims, although the number is not as high as expected.  Most trade secret cases today involve exfiltration of electronic information, but perhaps many cases do not involve hacking or other access techniques that could run afoul of the CFAA.

We also noted a smaller but not insignificant number of cases asserting other intellectual property claims, including trademark, copyright and patent infringement.  Since many documents taken in alleged trade secret thefts are subject to other forms of intellectual property — particularly copyright — this may show that some lawyers are catching on to the benefit of asserting such claims along with DTSA claims.

Finally, our review of case status revealed the following:

  • 198 cases in various pre-trial stages
  • 61 cases dismissed
  • 5 preliminary injunctions
  • 4 final judgments, including 2 permanent injunctions
  • 3 default judgments
  • 1 case sent to compulsory arbitration
  • 8 undetermined / miscellaneous

At first blush, the number of cases dismissed seems high, given that none of the cases have been pending for more than a year.  We assume the vast majority of these cases settled, though further investigation is required.  In contrast, the number of preliminary injunctions granted seems very low.  Again, further investigation is required, but so far it does not seem that the DTSA is resulting in the kind of preliminary injunction practice we expected to see under a federal trade secret statute.

The Defend Trade Secrets Act and Inevitable Disclosure

When Can a Company That Hires its Competitor’s Former Employee Be Sued in Federal Court?

Guest post by Maxwell Goss.  Dr. Goss is a business litigator with Rossman Saxe, P.C. in Troy, Michigan. His practice focuses on non-compete, trade secret, intellectual property, and shareholder law and litigation.

The Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) was enacted a year ago, on May 11, 2016. One of the most sweeping changes in intellectual property law in recent years, the statute creates a private cause of action for trade secret misappropriation under federal law.

For trade secret owners, the advantages of the DTSA include access to nationwide discovery and enhanced remedies such as ex parte seizure of property to prevent propagation of stolen trade secrets. For those accused of trade secret theft, the DTSA provides substantial protections including strict limitations on the injunctive relief available and entitlement to a hearing no later than seven days after a property seizure.

An open question has been the status of the controversial “inevitable disclosure” doctrine under the DTSA. Under state law in some jurisdictions, courts will enjoin a company’s former employee from working for a competitor if the company establishes that the employee would “inevitably” use its trade secrets in his or her new position. Trade secret owners like the doctrine of inevitable disclosure because actual misappropriation can be hard to prove. At the same time, the doctrine has been criticized as effectively allowing courts to impose a non-compete on someone who never signed a non-compete agreement.

How does inevitable disclosure fare under the DTSA? The statute provides that an injunction to prevent misappropriation may not “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship,” and that any conditions placed on a person’s employment in an injunction must be based on “evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the information the person knows.” In light of this language, some have concluded that the inevitable disclosure doctrine is a dead letter under the DTSA.

But a recent court opinion indicates otherwise. Interestingly, the opinion was issued on May 11, 2017, the one-year anniversary of the DTSA, by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, a federal court in the Seventh Circuit, where inevitable disclosure was first definitively recognized. In Molon Motor and Coil Corp. v. Nidec Motor Corp., the plaintiff, a maker of bespoke motors and gearmotors, sued a competitor after an employee who had allegedly downloaded the plaintiff’s designs and technical data went to work for the competitor.

The defendant moved to dismiss the case, arguing (among other things) that the DTSA did not apply because the alleged acts at issue occurred before the DTSA was enacted in May 2016. The court rejected this argument. Noting that the “key question is whether the inference of inevitable disclosure reasonably extends to continued use beyond the Act’s effective date,” the Court reasoned:

At least on the limited record—the Third Amended Complaint—the alleged trade secrets are not of the nature that would necessarily go stale in the course of a couple of years. A motor design, and the quality control data associated with it, plausibly would retain its trade secret value well into the future. If it is plausible that some of the alleged trade secrets maintain their value today, then it is also plausible that Nidec would be continuing to use them. Of course, further discovery could upend any or all of this, but at this stage, continued use beyond the May 2016 effective date is plausible.

In short, even though the plaintiff company’s former employee had allegedly downloaded the files and gone to work for the competitor before the DTSA went into effect, the court found it plausible that there was a “continuing use” of the information by the competitor after the statute went into effect. Based on this finding, the court allowed the plaintiff to go forward on its DTSA claim.

How does this ruling square with the DTSA, which requires that an injunction be based on “evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the information the person knows”? Though the Molon opinion does not connect the dots, the answer, in part, seems to be that the opinion was addressing a motion to dismiss, not a motion for injunction. A court may not be able to enjoin someone based on inevitable disclosure under the DTSA, but this does not mean a plaintiff may not sue someone based on inevitable disclosure under the DTSA. That is, even where injunctive relief may not be available as an initial matter, a trade secret owner might nevertheless file a claim and move forward with discovery—which could ultimately turn up the evidence necessary to fully substantiate a claim.

Molon represents a significant development in the body of law unfolding under the DTSA. In jurisdictions where inevitable disclosure is recognized, the ruling could help trade secret owners get a case off the ground even where information obtainable in a pre-suit investigation is necessarily limited. On the other hand, defendants will be quick to point out that Molon does not alter the specific allegations needed to plead a trade secret claim premised on an inevitable disclosure theory. Moreover, where an injunction is sought, it should be emphasized that any conditions placed on employment under the statute must be based on evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely information the person knows.

What the Defend Trade Secrets Act Means for Trade Secret Defendants

USTR’s Special 301 Report

Each year, the US Trade Representative releases its “Special 301 report” – identifying countries that fail to provide “adequate and effective” intellectual property rights protection as well as “fair and equitable market access” to US persons relying upon IP rights.

The 2016 Report included substantial information regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and commitments “to protect IP and to combat counterfeiting, piracy, and other infringement, including trade secret theft.”

Newly released 2017 Report does not mention the now-scrapped TPP – however President Trump is expected to conduct an aggressive set of bilateral trade negotiations.  His nominee for USTR – Robert Lighthizer – is moving through Senate Confirmation and will likely be confirmed within the next few weeks.  A holdup for Lighthizer is that he has previously lobbied the U.S. Government on behalf of foreign companies and groups in his role as a lawyer at Skadden.  This situation is common for almost any top level American trade negotiator working in the private sector.

The key news each year is the “Watch List”

Priority Watch List: Algeria  Argentina  Chile  China  India  Indonesia  Kuwait  Russia  Thailand  Ukraine  Venezuela

Regular Watch List: Barbados  Bolivia  Brazil  Bulgaria  Canada  Colombia  Costa Rica  Dominican Republic  Ecuador  Egypt  Greece  Guatemala  Jamaica  Lebanon  Mexico  Pakistan  Peru  Romania  Switzerland  Turkey  Turkmenistan  Uzbekistan  Vietnam

Regarding China, the USTR writes:

China must enact new measures and policies that provide stronger and more effective protection for IP; allow market access for IP-intensive products, services, and technologies; and enhance the effectiveness of civil enforcement in Chinese courts.

Read the report: 2017Special301ReportFINAL

 

Trade Secret Protections at the Patent Office

The USPTO is hosting a free symposium on Trade Secret Protections – May 8, 2017, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT at the Alexandria HQ as well as via webcast. More info here: https://www.uspto.gov/​learning-and-resources/​ip-policy/​enforcement/​trade-secret-symposium.

DTSA enforcement continues to primarily focus on charges against former employees who join a competitor.  In Santander Securities v. Gamche, 2017 WL 1208066 (E.D. Penn. April 2017), the case centers on Gary Gamche who left Santander and joined a competitor Citizens Securities as a financial advisor – taking with him a list of his clients.  Similarly, in Brand Energy v. Irex, the construction company claims its former employees stole its proprietary business information (target bids and potential customer information); joined competitor Irex; and began poaching business.  So far, there are only a few DTSA decisions. In Brand, the Pennsylvania District Court  recently denied the defendant’s 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted – finding that the alleged use easily fits within very broad definition of misappropriation found in the new federal statute.

Although the DTSA is limited to post-enactment misappropriations, the court in Brand held that it can apply to “continuing misappropriation that occurs after the effective date.”   Following Adams Arms, LLC v. Unified Weapon Sys., Inc., 16–cv–1503, 2016 WL 5391394, at *5–7 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 27, 2016).

In addition to the DTSA claim, the court found that the RICO and CFAA claims had been appropriately pled.

CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) is interesting in that it imposes liability on anyone who knowingly “accesses a … computer without authorization, or exceeds authorized access” of the computer.  Here, Brand’s theory is that of ‘indirect access.’ After leaving BRAND, the defendants convinced a current employee to access the database and provide information.  According to the judge here, the defendants can be seen as accessing the computer (albeit indirectly and non-electronically via the employee) without authorization.  The statutory justification for this outcome is the court’s conclusion that Congress could have particularly defined “access” as “personal access” or “direct access” but instead left the term broadly stated.

 

 

Brand Energy v. Irex.

USPTO Leadership Updates

In what I expect will be a several-month-stasis several-week-stasis, the USPTO has reshuffled some of its personnel to fill vacant slots and better-fit with the Trump administration. [Updated]

Michelle Lee remains at the top as Director of the USPTO and Undersecretary of Commerce.  As one of the few political-appointee holdovers from the Obama administration, Lee’s position remains somewhat tenuous, but I expect that it will be solid for at least several months weeks.  One noticeable gap is that the Commerce Dep’t website still fails to indicate Dir. Lee’s position. [LINK]

Second-in-command is Anthony Scardino, Acting Deputy Director of the USPTO and Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property.  One problem with this appointment is the statutory requirement that the Deputy Director be a member of the PTAB which requires “competent legal knowledge and scientific ability”, 35 U.S.C. 6, and also have “professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.” 35 U.S.C. 3.  My understanding of the Agency’s position is that these requirements only apply to actual Deputy Directors and not an “Acting Deputy Director.”  Dir. Lee apparently sees Scardino’s position as filling an important administrative roll, but there is no chance that he will be appointed to the position of Deputy Director.  In addition Scardino apparently will not be participating as a member of the PTAB.

[Updated to correct typo] Joe Matal has been quiet for the past few years, but is not now rising again and has been named the acting Chief of Staff of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office – “principal policy advisor” to the Director.  For the past several years, Matal has worked as an Associate Solicitor in the USPTO’s Office of Solicitor.  Prior to that, he worked as counsel for Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and was a primary drafter of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.

Paul Rosenthal is now the Acting Chief Communications Officer – moving from his prior position as Deputy Chief that is now being filled by Paul Fucito.

Finally, Drew Hirshfeld and Mary Boney Denison remain as the respective Commissioners for Patents and Trademarks as do the directors of the regional offices, all of whom had ties to the Obama Administration but are also very well respected IP attorneys.

I’ll take this chance to give a big shout-out to Russ Slifer who joined the PTO in 2014 to join and was named Deputy Director by Michelle Lee the next year.  Russ stepped down in January.  Thank you for your service to the agency and the profession!

 

Tony Scardino, USPTO Deputy Director (Acting)

Anthony P. ScardinoTony Scardino, Chief Financial Officer of the agency is now also the Acting Deputy Director of the USPTO (as recently revealed by the USPTO FOIA Response).  It is a bit of an oddity as to how Scardino jumped to the head of the line in almost violation of the USPTO rules of succession that provides for CFO to take an acting head leadership role only if there is no Commissioner for Patents, Commissioner of Trademarks, or Administrator for Policy and External Affairs.  However, the rules of succession do not provide in particularity as to who becomes Acting Deputy Director when the Deputy leaves but the Director is still in place.  Thus, I would suggest that Dir. Lee is within her authority to select a qualifying person to fill that role. (It may also be that the PTO has a non-public succession plan.)

The statute requires the Deputy Director and Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce to be a person “who has a professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.”  35 USC 3(b).  Scardino’s professional background and experience in IP law appears to be wholly based upon his 7-years as Chief Financial Officer of the Agency.  Under the prior Peterlin precedent, Scardino’s experience is almost certainly sufficient.  See, Aharonian v. Gutierrez, 524 F. Supp. 2d 54, 55 (D.D.C. 2007):

[O]ne would expect Congress to speak in precise terms if it intended the courts to monitor the minimal qualifications for agency officers. Here, Congress has given only the broadest of instructions—that the Deputy Director should have “a professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.” 35 U.S.C. § 3(b). The statute is silent as to the content of those terms. Were the decision subjected to APA review, the Court—not Congress—would be the ultimate source of the standards by which the qualifications of Ms. Peterlin would be judged: Is a law degree necessary? Is it sufficient? Are law school courses in intellectual property a requirement? Is certification to practice before the USPTO? Is law firm experience? How many years? If Congress had intended the extraordinary situation in which judicial review would reach to the very qualifications of agency officers for their policymaking positions, its statute would not be drawn “in such broad terms that … there is no law to apply.” See Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 410, 91 S.Ct. 814, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971) (citation omitted).

Thus, although we have a very interesting question as to why Scardino was moved up rather than PTO Commissioner Drew Hirshfeld, the shift would be quite difficult to challenge in court.  Almost certainly, this leapfrogging came about with substantial input from the Trump Administration.  That result leads me to the potentially disturbing potential that the next appointed PTO leaders will also sidestep the requirements of “professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.”

One difference between Scardino and Peterlin is that Peterlin is an attorney while Scardino is not (nor is he a patent agent).  This is relevant because Scardino is also deemed a member of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  The statute requires, however, that those members “be persons of competent legal knowledge and scientific ability.” 35 U.S.C. 6.  Of course, his CPA background may assist with judging Covered Business Method (CBM) cases.   Note here – I think that the best interpretation of the statute is that while the Director and Deputy Director are both members of the Board, the competency requirement of Section 6 only applies to the appointed judges.

 

Implementing and Interpreting the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA)

undefinedI am looking forward to our event at the University of Missouri School of Law on Friday, March 10, 2017: Implementing and Interpreting the Defend Trade Secrets Act.  Sponsored by our Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship (CIPE) and the Business, Entrepreneurshisp & Tax Law Review (BETR)

Key Points for Friday:

Speakers include Mark Halligan from FisherBroyles in Chicago; Peter Menell, Professor at University of California, Berkeley School of Law; Robin Effron,
Professor at Brooklyn Law School; Yvette Joy Liebesman, Professor at
Saint Louis University School of Law; Orly Lobel, Professor at
University of San Diego School of Law; and me (Crouch).

Some Background Reading:

  • Menell, Peter S., Misconstruing Whistleblower Immunity Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (January 3, 2017). UC Berkeley Public Law Research Paper No. 2893181. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2893181
  • Effron, Robin, Trade Secrets, Extraterritoriality, and Jurisdiction (December 1, 2016). Wake Forest Law Review, Vol. 51, No. 6, 2016; Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 475. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2896137
  • Lobel, Orly, Enforceability TBD: From Status to Contract in Intellectual Property Law (June 2, 2016). Boston University Law Review, Vol. 96, 2016; San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 16-217. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2788857
  • Goldman, Eric, Ex Parte Seizures and the Defend Trade Secrets Act (November 30, 2015). Washington and Lee Law Review, Vol. 72, No. 284, 2015. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2697361
  • Cannan, John, A (Mostly) Legislative History of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (May 4, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2775390

 

USPTO Still Michelle Lee’s For Now

What an oddity – for the past 26 days, it has been an open secret that Michelle Lee remains USPTO Director but officials at the office have repeatedly refused to confirm or deny that role or to provide any answer to the question “Who is in charge at the USPTO?”

According to a Politico squib report, both Rep. Darryl Issa and USPTO PR Director Paul Fucito have confirmed that Dir. Lee is “in charge” but it is unclear whether she is still USPTO Director.

Paul Fucito tells [Politico Reporter] Nancy that Lee has been signing the certificates since since Inauguration Day. That function by law is handled by the director, but Fucito declined to clarify Lee’s status at the agency.

[Politico Report]  I requested both confirmation and further comment from the USPTO and Department of Commerce and was provided with “no comment.”

Representative Issa is now the Congressman with the most direct influence and oversight of USPTO activities in his role as chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.   Also communicating with Politico, Issa indicated his support for Dir. Lee but suggested that she may be transitioned into another administration role outside of the USPTO – such as trade negotiations or as a member of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.  Thus, we may still have a new USPTO director this spring.

We will not begin to see action until a Commerce Secretary (likely Mr. Ross) is confirmed and puts in place his pick for PTO Director.  This will likely happen next week.

For anyone pushing patent reform this term – either at the PTO or in the courts, you should recognize that all roads lead through Rep. Issa – nothing will go forward without his direct support.

 

 

Patentlyo Bits and Bytes by Anthony McCain

Get a Job doing Patent Law                  

March 10: Implementing and Evaluating the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016.

I am really looking forward to our next event here at Mizzou sponsored by the Center for Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship.  March 10: Implementing and Evaluating the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016Featured Speakers include Berkeley Law Professor Peter Menell and Trade Secrets Expert Mark Halligan (among others).  I am really excited about our dynamic keynote speaker Professor Orly Lobel from the University of San Diego.  Professor Lobel is the author of the great book Talent Wants to Be Free

thumbnail_lobel-author-1

Details:

  • University of Missouri School of Law (Courtroom)
  • March 10, 2017: 8:25 am – 2:00 pm.
  • No cost to attend – CLE as well.

Let me know if you are planning to attend, I would love to meet up in person – Dennis Crouch (crouchdd@missouri.edu)

Supreme Court Update: Are Secondary Indicia of Invention Relevant to Eligibility?

by Dennis Crouch

The Supreme Court is on recess until Feb 17.

I don’t know if my end-of-April prediction will hold true, but I do expect Neil Gorsuch to become a Justice on the United States Supreme Court.  As a 10th Circuit Judge, Gorsuch never decided a patent case, but does have a handful of interesting IP cases.

There are a few petitions filed that we have not discussed here: 

 In its newest petition, DataTreasury takes 101 for a new spin by taking the 101/103 analysis to its next logical level.  If we are going to include a 103 analysis as part of the eligibility doctrine then lets go whole hog.  Thus, DataTreasury asks: whether a court must consider secondary indicia of invention as evidence in its eligibility analysis? In the case, the Federal Circuit had affirmed the PTAB judgment without opinion under R.36. A second eligibility petition is found in TDE Petroleum Data Solutions, Inc. v. AKM Enterprise, Inc., dba Moblize, Inc. TDE asks the court to “please reconcile Diehr and Alice.” (I’m not literally quoting here).  The patent at issue (No. 6,892,812) claims a four-step process of “determining the state of a well operation.” (a) store several potential “states”; (b) receive well operation data from a plurality of systems; (c) determine that the data is valid by comparing it to a threshold limit; and (d) set the state based upon the valid data.

In Wi-LAN v. Apple, the patentee revives both Cuozzo and Markman claim construction arguments – this time focusing on “whether claim terms used to define the metes and bounds of an invention are generally given their “plain and ordinary meaning,” or are redefined (limited) to match the scope of the exemplary embodiments provided in the specification.”

duPont v. Macdermid asks whether summary judgment of obviousness is proper because of the factual disputes at issue.  Similarly, in Enplas v. Seoul Semiconductor, the petitioner argues that a finding of anticipation by the PTAB must be supported by findings each and every element of the subject patent claim is disclosed in the prior art.  In Enplas, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB on a R.36 Judgment Without Appeal — it difficult for the petitioner to point to the particular deficiencies.

 

=== THE LIST===

1. 2016-2016 Decisions:

  • Design Patent Damages: Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., No 15-777 (Total profits may be based upon either the entire product sold to consumers or a component);  GVR order in parallel case Systems, Inc. v. Nordock, Inc., No. 15-978.  These cases are now back before the Federal Circuit for the job of explaining when a component

2. Petitions Granted:

3. Petitions with Invited Views of SG (CVSG): 

4. Petitions for Writ of Certiorari Pending:

  • Claim Construction: Wi-LAN USA, Inc., et al. v. Apple Inc., No. 16-913 (“plain and ordinary meaning”)
  • Is it a Patent Case?: Boston Scientific Corporation, et al. v. Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC, No. 16-470 (how closely must a state court “hew” federal court patent law precedents?) (Appeal from MD State Court)
  • Anticipation/Obviousness: Google Inc., et al. v. Arendi S A.R.L., et al., No. 16-626 (can “common sense” invalidate a patent claim that includes novel elements?) (Supreme Court has requested a brief in response)
  • Anticipation/Obviousness: Enplas Corporation v. Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd., et al., No. 16-867 (“Whether a finding of anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 must be supported by findings that each and every element of the subject patent claim is disclosed in the prior art?”)
  • Anticipation/Obviousness: E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company v. MacDermid Printing Solutions, L.L.C., No. 16-905 (summary judgment of obviousness proper)
  • Jury Trial: Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, et al., No. 16-712 (“Whether inter partes review … violates the Constitution by extinguishing private property rights through a non-Article III forum without a jury.”) [oilstatespetition]
  • Jury Trial: Nanovapor Fuels Group, Inc., et al. v. Vapor Point, LLC, et al., No. 16-892 (Can a party forfeit a properly demanded trial by jury without an explicit, clear, and unequivocal waiver?)
  • Is it a Patent Case?: Big Baboon, Inc. v. Michelle K. Lee, No. 16-496 (Appeal of APA seeking overturning of evidentiary admission findings during reexamination – heard by Federal Circuit or Regional Circuit?)
  • LachesMedinol Ltd. v. Cordis Corporation, et al., No. 15-998 (follow-on to SCA); Endotach LLC v. Cook Medical LLC, No. 16-127 (SCA Redux); Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., et al, No. 16-202 (SCA Redux plus TM issue)
  • Eligibility: TDE Petroleum Data Solutions, Inc. v. AKM Enterprise, Inc., dba Moblize, Inc., No. 16-890 (Please reconcile Diehr and Alice)
  • Eligibility: DataTreasury Corporation v. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., No. 16-883 (secondary indicia as part of eligibility analysis).
  • Eligibility: IPLearn-Focus, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., No. 16-859 (evidence necessary for finding an abstract idea)

5. Petitions for Writ of Certiorari Denied or Dismissed:

(more…)

Guest Post: Administrative Law Matters Even More following Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee

By David Boundy

David Boundy of Cambridge Technology Law LLC, a patent law firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, practices at the intersection of patent and administrative law, and consults with other firms on PTAB trials and appeals. In 2007–09, David led the teams that successfully urged the Office of Management and Budget to quash the USPTO’s continuations, claims, information disclosure statements, and appeal regulations under the Paperwork Reduction Act.

This paper is a short version of an article in the current issue of ABA Landslide, vol. 9, no. 3, electronic edition.  It’s a follow up to my earlier paper on the Cuozzo case, which ran in Patently-O in February 2015.

Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee[1] illustrates an important lesson for the patent bar: federal courts are far more familiar with administrative law than with patent law. Almost every federal court hears several times as many administrative law cases as patent cases. Even the Federal Circuit sees at least as many administrative law issues (involving various federal employees and contracts) as patent law issues. We patent lawyers need better administrative law issue spotting skills, and when a case presents them, we must argue on administrative law grounds with administrative law expertise. Basic principles of good advocacy urge us to argue our cases on the courts’ choice of turf.

Cuozzo is a prime illustration.  In Cuozzo, the Supreme Court narrowly decided that the PTO’s decision to institute an inter partes review (IPR) against Cuozzo’s patent was unreviewable.  Notably, the Court’s reasoning clarifies that many decisions to institute are judicially reviewable, so long as the issues are cloaked in administrative law terms rather than patent law terms. Cuozzo’s loss stems from Cuozzo’s briefing that failed to mention a dead-on administrative law statute, and that was all but silent on the Supreme Court’s administrative law precedent. Cuozzo creates many future opportunities for informed administrative law advocacy.

The AIA, Its Preclusion Statutes, and Cuozzo’s Path to the Supreme Court

The 2011 America Invents Act (AIA) created new patent reviews within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR), and covered business method review (CBM). Congress included preclusion statutes that limit judicial review of USPTO decisions to institute such reviews.

The preclusion statutes for IPR and PGR decisions to institute, 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) and § 324(e) respectively, are essentially similar: “The determination by the Director whether to institute [a review] under this section shall be final and nonappealable.” Compared to other preclusion statutes (discussed in the full Landslide paper), this is decidedly on the weak end of the spectrum of preclusion statutes.

In February 2015, the Federal Circuit gave its first deep consideration to these statutes in In re Cuozzo Speed Technologies LLC.[2] The IPR petition against Cuozzo’s patent had applied reference A to claim 10, and references A, B, and C to claim 17 (which depended from claim 10). However, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted on references A, B, and C against claim 10. The PTAB cited no statute or regulation, only its own naked claim of “discretion” to mix and match among the grounds in the petition.

The IPR ended in cancellation of claim 10, on references A, B, and C.

Cuozzo appealed the final decision to the Federal Circuit, and challenged the decision to institute. The Federal Circuit held that § 314(d) precluded all review of all issues embedded in a decision to institute: “On its face, the provision is not directed to precluding review only before a final decision. It is written to exclude all review of the decision whether to institute review.”[3]

In June 2016, the Supreme Court issued its further decision.  Where all decisions leave open issues, Cuozzo introduces several internal contradictions.  Let’s look at the background administrative law case law, and how Cuozzo fits—or misfits.

APA § 706: Government-Wide Grounds of Judicial Review

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), in 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), confines judicial review of agency action to a specific list of errors—a court may set aside agency actions that are:

(A) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;  …
(C) in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right;
(D) without observance of procedure required by law; …

Section 706(2) is famously deferential to agencies, but it doesn’t insulate agencies totally. Courts set aside agency decisions that fail standards of “reasoned decisionmaking” by failing to explain an important point, giving an irrelevant explanation, omitting consideration of important factors or basing a decision on impermissible factors, deciding without evidence, deciding on legal error, acting beyond jurisdictional authority, and the like.

APA § 704: Preliminary Decisions Are Reviewable with Final Agency Action

Procedural lapses usually find review under 5 U.S.C. § 704: “A preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action or ruling not directly reviewable is subject to review on the review of the final agency action.” Thus, if an agency’s final decision is infected by error earlier in the process, the final decision can be attacked on the basis of that underlying error.

Supreme Court’s Presumption of Judicial Review

Since the days of Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court has relied on a strong presumption that judicial review is available for executive branch action.[4] Agency decisions are presumed to be reviewable, and preclusion statutes are construed narrowly. Even within the scope of preclusion, an agency decision that reflects “brazen disregard” of procedure, or “abuse,” or that has sufficiently grave consequences, often can be reviewed.  Likewise, the Court has always held agencies to scrupulous observance of their own procedures. The presumption of review has always been extraordinarily high for procedure, and the “holes” in preclusion statutes for procedure and “abuse” have always been quite large. Cuozzo is an extraordinary outlier. Among the principles established in Supreme Court precedent:

  • Courts accept judicial review of underlying issues in agency decisions, even if the final decisions are unreviewable, especially where procedural fairness is at stake.[5]
  • Preclusion statutes are read narrowly—they preclude only what they say they preclude, and no more. Even where a statute precludes review of an end result decision, underlying issues are not precluded unless the preclusion statute speaks expressly to those underlying issues.  “[R]eview is available to determine whether there has been a substantial departure from important procedural rights, a misconstruction of the governing legislation, or some like error going to the heart of the administrative determination.”[6]
  • Courts read statutes closely to split issues finely, and will review issues (especially underlying issues) that differ by a hair’s breadth from precluded issues. When a statute precludes benefit amounts for individual claimants, “challenges to the validity of the Secretary’s instructions and regulations[] are cognizable in courts of law.”[7]
  • When an agency statute, regulation, or guidance promises the public that an agency or agency employee “must” or “will,” the agency must follow those procedures “scrupulously.” Review of agency decisions under § 706(2)(D), “without observance of procedure required by law,” is “strict” and “without deference.”[8]

Review under § 704/§ 706 is a persistent substrate. To preclude review, especially of underlying issues, Congress must speak expressly.

Cuozzo’s Brief, the Majority Opinion, and the End Result: Cuozzo’s Specific Institution Is Nonreviewable

The Cuozzo majority opinion follows the basic contour of 50 years of precedent: preclusion statutes are to be read narrowly. However, on the facts, Cuozzo lost—the Court characterized Cuozzo’s complaint to be a “mine-run claim,” “an ordinary dispute about the application of certain relevant patent statutes,” and “little more than a challenge to the Patent Office’s conclusion, under § 314(a), that the ‘information presented in the petition’ warranted review.”[9] That is, the Supreme Court understood the case to be a good faith difference of opinion in application of validly promulgated law, not a case of an agency tribunal exercising naked “discretion” against a party, making up new rules on the fly with no grounding in any text, and asserting those new rules in a context with no opportunity for rejoinder. Because the Court was not informed of the procedural basis for the case, the Cuozzo opinion stands in striking contrast with the Court’s precedent that requires agencies’ “scrupulous” observance of procedure, and strict “no deference” judicial review for procedural issues.

The Supreme Court majority opinion embeds a number of internal contradictions that leave a great deal of unclear ground. The majority’s holding, if applied to the facts—at least the procedural facts as we patent lawyers understand them—leads to the opposite result.

Most of these contradictions in the majority opinion, and perhaps the final result itself, are invited error. Cuozzo’s brief treats the case as a patent law case, arguing page after page of Title 35 U.S.C. and Federal Circuit patent law cases.[10] Cuozzo’s opening brief cites Supreme Court “preclusion of review” cases only as a cursory afterthought—a single string cite, with no discussion of analogies to precedential cases. The brief compounds the error by citing a 1946 case that had been overruled by the Supreme Court in 2013.  The table of authorities in Cuozzo’s opening brief has only a single cite to Title 5 U.S.C., and only one more in the reply brief.

But reviewability is an administrative law issue, and that’s where the Court decided it.

Even though Cuozzo’s briefs are all but irrelevant to the administrative law bases on which the Court decided the case, the reasoning comes so close to going Cuozzo’s way. Cuozzo demonstrates the importance of identifying the turf where a court is likely to decide an issue, and arguing it there.  And that may well be administrative law, rather than patent law.

Cuozzo’s “Long Paragraph”

The heart of the majority opinion is a long paragraph toward the end of section II, beginning “Nonetheless.” The majority explains that most issues arising under patent law are precluded, but that issues arising under other bodies of law are not. Review remains available for constitutional questions, and most importantly, for issues slotted into one of the pigeonholes of APA § 706.  The latter half of the “long paragraph” reads as follows:

[W]e do not categorically preclude review of a final decision where a petition fails to give “sufficient notice” such that there is a due process problem with the entire proceeding, nor does our interpretation enable the agency to act outside its statutory limits by, for example, canceling a patent claim for “indefiniteness under § 112” in inter partes review. Such “shenanigans” may be properly reviewable in the context of § 319 and under the Administrative Procedure Act, which enables reviewing courts to “set aside agency action” that is “contrary to constitutional right,” “in excess of statutory jurisdiction,” or “arbitrary [and] capricious.”[11]

The latter half of the long paragraph, especially the last sentence, opens a wide barn door. The Cuozzo majority’s long paragraph indicates that the full reach of § 706 applies to underlying issues in decisions to institute.  Cuozzo tells us that issues that are losers when presented in patent law vocabulary become winners when wrapped in administrative law vocabulary.

Cuozzo Could Have Argued an Administrative Law Jurisdictional Issue

Cuozzo’s brief doesn’t squarely present the issue of the PTAB’s transgression of its own jurisdictional boundaries. Section 312(a) reads, “A petition . . . may be considered only if . . . the petition identifies, in writing and with particularity, each claim challenged, the grounds on which the challenge to each claim is based . . . .” Section 314(a) reads, “The Director may not authorize [institution of an IPR] unless the Director determines that the information presented in the petition . . . shows that there is a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail . . . .” These are plainly jurisdictional statutes, confining jurisdiction to the grounds in the petition. The APA, in § 706(2)(C), provides that a court shall set aside agency action “in excess of statutory jurisdiction.” Yet, Cuozzo’s brief argues only breaches of the AIA, not the administrative law jurisdictional issues that—the majority tells us—would be reviewable under administrative law principles.

The Supreme Court has been quite strict in enforcing agencies’ jurisdictional boundaries, no matter (in the Cuozzo majority’s words) how compelling “one important congressional objective” might be.[12]

Cuozzo’s brief fleetingly nibbles at the edges of the issue, and even cites one of the important cases in this line (for a different proposition), but never squarely frames the challenge as “in excess of [the agency’s] jurisdiction”—neither brief mentions § 706 at all.  And thus Cuozzo lost the issue.

The latter half of Cuozzo’s “long paragraph” places jurisdictional issues within the scope of judicial review, so long as they are framed in an § 706(2)(C) administrative law context, not a patent law context.  Subject matter jurisdiction is central to a court’s duty to prevent agencies from “act[ing] outside . . . statutory limits,” or in the language of § 706, “in excess of statutory jurisdiction.”

Had the issue been presented squarely as a challenge to PTAB action beyond its jurisdiction, with the patent law issues argued as underlying support for APA § 706(2)(C) “in excess of jurisdiction” grounds, Cuozzo likely would have obtained a favorable result, and the Court majority would not have been left grasping at inconsistent straws to reach its decision.

Several more omissions from Cuozzo’s brief, and internal contradictions in the majority opinion, are discussed in the full Landslide paper.  The full paper shows that Cuozzo lost a very winnable case because the opening brief argued patent law principles to the near exclusion of administrative law principles. The patent bar is left with a resultant set of internal contradictions in the Cuozzo decison, with all the problems and opportunities they create.  And the Federal Circuit is left with a difficult task of reconciling Cuozzo’s reasoning against its end result.

Conclusion

The full paper gives a number of other examples of questions that come out differently depending on whether they’re argued as patent law issues or administrative law issues. There are many differences between the powers of an Article III court and of an agency tribunal, differences between appellate review of an Article III court vs. judicial review of an agency, differences in the arguments that an appellant and appellee can raise, and differences in limits on raising new issues on appeal. Unfortunately, Cuozzo’s brief did not exploit those differences or cite the applicable administrative law.

The key take-away is that almost every PTAB proceeding and appeal presents a “target rich environment” of administrative law issues. Teams that include administrative law expertise will successfully exploit many opportunities that are invisible to teams without that expertise.

Because of internal tensions in the Cuozzo decision, many issues remain to be decided by the Federal Circuit, and will be decided differently depending on how well parties match their argument turf to courts’ choice of decision turf.

Endnotes

[1]. Cuozzo Speed Techs. v. Lee (Cuozzo III), 136 S. Ct. 2131 (2016).

[2]In re Cuozzo Speed Techs. LLC (Cuozzo I), 778 F.3d 1271 (Fed. Cir. 2015), reissued without change to the reviewability discussionCuozzo II, 793 F.3d 1268 (Fed. Cir. 2015).

[3]Cuozzo I, 778 F.3d at 1276.

[4]. 5 U.S.C. § 702 (“A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.”); Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402 (1971).

[5]Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957); Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535 (1959).

[6]Lindahl v. Office of Personnel Management,470 U.S. 768, 791 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted).

[7]Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 680 (1986).

[8]Reuters Ltd. v. FCC, 781 F.2d 946, 950–51 (D.C. Cir. 1986); see also Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 544 (1988) (“The agency has no discretion to deviate from [its procedural regulations].”).

[9]Cuozzo III, 136 S. Ct. 2131, 2136, 2139, 2142 (2016).

[10]See Brief for the Petitioner, Cuozzo III (No. 15-446), 2016 WL 737452 at xiv, 52-53, 54 (Feb. 22, 20142016); Reply Brief for the Petitioner at iii, Cuozzo III, 2016 WL 1554733 (Apr. 15, 2016).

[11]Cuozzo III at 2141–42 (majority opinion).

[12]FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 125 (2000)

Supreme Court 2017 – Patent Preview

by Dennis Crouch

A new Supreme Court justice will likely be in place by the end of April, although the Trump edition is unlikely to substantially shake-up patent law doctrine in the short term.

The Supreme Court has decided one patent case this term. Samsung (design patent damages).  Five more cases have been granted certiorari and are scheduled to be decided by mid June 2017. These include SCA Hygiene (whether laches applies in patent cases); Life Tech (infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(1) for supplying single component); Impression Products (using patents as a personal property servitude); Sandoz (BPCIA patent dance); and last-but-not-least TC Heartland (Does the general definition of “residence” found in 28 U.S.C. 1391(c) apply to the patent venue statute 1400(b)).

Big news is that the Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in the BPCIA dispute between Sandoz and Amgen.   The BPCIA can be thought of as the ‘Hatch Waxman of biologics’ – enacted as part of ObamaCare.   The provision offers automatic market exclusivity for twelve years for producers of pioneer biologics.   Those years of exclusivity enforced by the FDA – who will not approve a competitor’s expedited biosimilar  drug application during the exclusivity period.   The statute then provides for a process of exchanging patent and manufacturing information between a potential biosimilar producer and the pioneer – known as the patent dance.  The case here is the Court’s first chance to interpret the provisions of the law – the specific issue involves whether the pioneer (here Amgen) is required to ‘dance.’ [Andrew Williams has more @patentdocs]

A new eligibility petition by Matthew Powers in IPLearn-Focus v. Microsoft raises eligibility in a procedural form – Can a court properly find an abstract idea based only upon (1) the patent document and (2) attorney argument? (What if the only evidence presented supports eligibility?).  After reading claim 1 and 24 (24 is at issue) of U.S. Patent No. 8,538,320, you may see why the lower court bounced this. Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling without opinion under Federal Circuit Rule 36 and then denied IPLF’s petition for rehearing (again without opinion).

1. A computing system comprising:

a display;

an imaging sensor to sense a first feature of a user regarding a first volitional behavior of the user to produce a first set of measurements, the imaging sensor being detached from the first feature to sense the first feature, the first feature relating to the head of the user, and the first set of measurements including an image of the first feature, wherein the system further to sense a second feature of the user regarding a second volitional behavior of the user to produce a second set of measurements, the second feature not relating to the head of the user; and

a processor coupled to the imaging sensor and the display, the processor to:

analyze at least the first set and the second set of measurements; and determine whether to change what is to be presented by the display in view of the analysis.

24. A computing system as recited in claim 1, wherein the system capable of providing an indication regarding whether the user is paying attention to content presented by the display.

=== THE LIST===

1. 2016-2016 Decisions:

  • Design Patent Damages: Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., No 15-777 (Total profits may be based upon either the entire product sold to consumers or a component);  GVR order in parallel case Systems, Inc. v. Nordock, Inc., No. 15-978.  These cases are now back before the Federal Circuit for the job of explaining when a component

2. Petitions Granted:

3. Petitions with Invited Views of SG (CVSG): 

4. Petitions for Writ of Certiorari Pending:

  • Is it a Patent Case?: Boston Scientific Corporation, et al. v. Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC, No. 16-470 (how closely must a state court “hew” federal court patent law precedents?) (Appeal from MD State Court)
  • Anticipation/Obviousness: Google Inc., et al. v. Arendi S A.R.L., et al., No. 16-626 (can “common sense” invalidate a patent claim that includes novel elements?) (Supreme Court has requested a brief in response)
  • Civil Procedure – Final Judgment: Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. v. Rembrandt Vision Technologies, L.P., No. 16-489 (Reopening final decision under R.60).
  • Anticipation/Obviousness: Enplas Corporation v. Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd., et al., No. 16-867 (“Whether a finding of anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 must be supported by findings that each and every element of the subject patent claim is disclosed in the prior art?”)
  • Post Grant Admin: Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, et al., No. 16-712 (“Whether inter partes review … violates the Constitution by extinguishing private property rights through a non-Article III forum without a jury.”) [oilstatespetition]
  • Eligibility: IPLearn-Focus, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., No. 16-859 (evidence necessary for finding an abstract idea)
  • Post Grant Admin: SightSound Technologies, LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 16-483 (Can the Federal Circuit review USPTO decision to initiate an IPR on a ground never asserted by any party)
  • Is it a Patent Case?: Big Baboon, Inc. v. Michelle K. Lee, No. 16-496 (Appeal of APA seeking overturning of evidentiary admission findings during reexamination – heard by Federal Circuit or Regional Circuit?)
  • LachesMedinol Ltd. v. Cordis Corporation, et al., No. 15-998 (follow-on to SCA); Endotach LLC v. Cook Medical LLC, No. 16-127 (SCA Redux); Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., et al, No. 16-202 (SCA Redux plus TM issue)
  • Eligibility and CBM: DataTreasury Corporation v. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., No. 16-883 (I have not seen the petition yet, but underlying case challenged whether (1) case was properly classified as CBM and (2) whether PTAB properly ruled claims ineligible as abstract ideas) (Patent Nos. 5,910,988 and 6,032,137).

5. Petitions for Writ of Certiorari Denied or Dismissed:
(more…)

Looking forward to: 

Director Lee: IP is a Necessary Key Piece of President-Elect Trump’s Promised Economic Growth and Job Creation

Today, USPTO Director provided her first Post-Election speech that includes some thoughts on IP policy after Obama.

I believe the incoming administration must and will continue our effort to promote innovation fueled by a strong and robust IP system. Support for IP in the United States has a long history of bipartisanship, and there’s no reason to imagine that changing with a new president and a new Congress, both of whom have economic growth as a top priority. . . .

I’m optimistic the incoming administration will share our appreciation of the importance of intellectual property as a driver of economic growth. As I look ahead, I foresee legislative patent reform changes will continue to be discussed in Congress, though those conversations will likely occur later in the term after some of the other priorities including filling a Supreme Court vacancy, immigration and tax reform are addressed, and any legislative patent reform will likely be more targeted, rather than the comprehensive reforms we’ve seen in prior Congresses. I would hope any legislative proposal will take into account the numerous positive changes that have occurred recently in the patent system including: through the courts, including on attorneys fees, pleading requirements and discovery limits, and at the USPTO through the PTAB and the agency’s efforts to improve the quality of patents in our system. As far as issues, I predict legislative discussions may include venue reform and possibly changes to Section 101 and PTAB. On venue, with nearly half of the patent cases filed in 2015 filed in a single district out of 94 federal judicial districts, it is easy for critics to contend that plaintiffs seek out this district preferentially for the wrong reasons. And the mere perception that there are advantages to be gained by forum-shopping challenges the public’s faith in the patent system. So there will be continuing pressure for legislative (and likely judicial) action on the issue of venue. The scope of any legislative reform remains is to be determined, but I predict that the focus will be on more targeted, rather than comprehensive reform as we saw these past couple Congresses. Further, I anticipate that the USPTO’s work across the globe to ensure that other countries have strong IP protections adequate enforcement mechanisms and remedies, and appropriate technology transfer (or licensing and competition) policies, will continue in the next Administration particularly in such countries as China and others. This is a President-elect that has promised economic growth and job creation in our country, and IP will necessarily be a key piece to achieving that goal. . . .

I firmly believe that the USPTO is healthy, well-functioning and poised to successfully handle whatever challenges and opportunities lie ahead.  . . . When President Obama was inaugurated in 2009, his focus was on leading this nation’s recovery from the Great Recession. One of his first acts was to ask the Smithsonian to provide for display in the Oval Office some patent models that demonstrated past American innovation that led to new jobs and new industries. The president said that throughout our history, Americans solved problems through innovation and IP. He wanted to see reminders of that every day as he encountered the challenges he faced. The Smithsonian provided him with three models: Samuel Morse’s telegraph (1849),  John Peer’s gear cutter (1874), and Henry Williams’ steamboat wheel (1877). As I stood behind the President in the Oval Office earlier this year when he signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act, I couldn’t help but notice those three models along the wall to my left—still there almost eight years later—and feel extraordinarily humbled and honored. I feel that same honor and humility today standing before all of you and reflecting on just how much we have accomplished under this administration.  I’ve been fortunate to lead the USPTO at a time when intellectual property issues have been front and center on the consciousness of the American public and President and to have had the opportunity to help guide the direction in a small way. My hope is that the President-elect keeps the patent models from Morse, Peer and Williams in his office as a reminder of the importance of intellectual property to the economic prosperity that I know he wants for our country.

Read the full remarks here.

Supreme Court Patent Cases: Post Sale Exhaustion

by Dennis Crouch

Substantive Patent Law: Newly filed petition in Merck & Cie v. Watson Labs raises a core substantive patent issue – does the on sale bar apply to secret sales? The defendant asks:

Whether the “on sale” bar found in § 102(b) applies only to sales or offers of sale made available to the public, as Congress, this Court, and the United States have all made clear, or whether it also applies to non-public sales or offers of sale, as the Federal Circuit has held.

The Merck petition is focused on pre-AIA patents.  The PTO (and patentees) are arguing more forcefully that the AIA certainly intended to exclude secret sales from the scope of prior art in cases now pending before the Federal Circuit.

The second new substantive patent law case is Google v. Arendi that challenge’s the Federal Circuit’s limitations on the use of common sense in the obviousness analysis.  In its decision, the Federal Circuit limited KSR to combination patents and held that “common sense” cannot be used to supply missing limitations.  Google argues that the Federal Circuit’s approach is contrary to the broad and flexible obviousness analysis required by KSR.  Patentees bristle term “common sense” – they see an overly flexible analysis as providing opportunities to invalidate patents without evidence.  The question: “Did the Federal Circuit err in restricting the Board’s ability to rely on the common sense and common knowledge of skilled artisans to establish the obviousness of patent claims?”

As these new petitions were being filed, the Supreme Court has also denied the pending obviousness, anticipation, and eligibility petitions.  In addition, Cooper v. Square has also been denied.

Civil Procedure: In J&J v. Rembrandt, the defendant J&J won at trial. However, Rembrandt later learned that J&J’s expert had testified falsely and the Federal Circuit ordered the case re-opened under R.60(b)(3) that empowers district courts to revisit final judgments after a showing of “fraud …, misrepresentation, or misconduct by the opposing party.”  The various circuits follow different standards and procedures for analyzing process and J&J has asked the Supreme Court to reconcile these (in its favor).  Another CivPro petition was also filed by Eon Corp that questions whether an appellee needed to file a R.50 JMOL motion to overturn a jury verdict that was based upon a faulty legal conclusion by the district court (here claim construction).  The Question Presented is:

Whether the Federal Circuit erred in ordering entry of judgment as a matter of law on a ground not presented in a Rule 50 motion in the district court, even though the ground presented a purely legal question.

Both J&J and Eon are only marginally patent cases, the core procedure case now pending is TC Heartland that would substantially upset the status quo of patent lawsuit concentration in E.D. Texas. Briefing continues in TC Heartland. In recent weeks a set of seven amici briefs were filed on the top side.

Next week Supreme Court conference includes review of the most likely-to-be-granted petition of Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. that focuses on important questions of post-sale exhaustion of patent rights.  The setup – If I buy a used product that was made and sold by the patentee, do I still need to worry that I might get sued for patent infringement?  The Federal Circuit says yes. The Supreme Court is likely to add some caveats to that.  The US Government (Obama Administration via DOJ) has argued that the case should be reviewed and that the Federal Circuit’s position should be rejected. Both parties then filed supplemental responsive briefs.  Lexmark’s best argument here is that these principles are well settled and that Congress can take on the role of tweaking them if needed.

Upcoming Supreme Court Oral Argument: Life Tech (export of components) set for December 6, 2016.

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Remarks by Director Michelle K. Lee at the 2016 AIPLA Luncheon

USPTO Director Michelle Lee offered a set of Remarks at the October 28, 2016 AIPLA Luncheon.  As a presidential appointee, Director Lee is likely nearing the end of her term as USPTO Director.  Although the likely election of fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton suggests a smooth transition that could extend her term beyond January 2017, I expect that she will step-down prior to that point and that Deputy Director Russ Slifer will step-up as Acting Director.

The following are a few snippets from her speech:

Thank you, Denise, for the introduction.  And, good afternoon, everyone.  It’s a real pleasure to be here with you today. I always look forward to the AIPLA annual meeting. In fact, it is the third time I’ve had the honor to speak at this conference. I’m reminded of the first time I spoke at AIPLA, the mid-winter conference in Phoenix, AZ in January 2014. It was literally just a few weeks after I had moved from California to Washington and became acting head of the USPTO. At that conference you all welcomed me to my new role and we began our work together to strengthen and protect the intellectual property system that we know is so critical to our country’s continued economic success.

Almost three years have passed since that meeting, and I find myself honored and humbled every single day to serve in this role and to be a part of an amazing team at the USPTO. I feel it every time I’m at an international conference, seated behind a flag of the United States on the table in front of me, reflecting on how I’m a child of immigrant parents representing the United States of America.  And I feel it today, standing before you, reflecting on just how far the USPTO has come during this Administration.

Today, I’d like to share with you my views of the state of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and how this situates us to meet our future challenges. Back in January 2009, when our President was first sworn into office, the USPTO’s patent application backlog and pendency numbers were at all-time highs. Today, both our backlog and pendencies are now lower than they’ve been in more than a decade, and they continue to go down. That is hardly the only success story. But it’s emblematic of how much the USPTO has charged forward the last eight years, and how strongly it is positioned to face future challenges. This has been a team effort, with incredible work done by my predecessors, Congressional cooperation, the incredibly dedicated and talented staff at the USPTO, and all of you.

Together, we have put the Agency in a spot where we are ready to build on our successes. Today, we are financially more secure thanks to the America Invents Act, a milestone of this Administration, which gave us, among other things, fee setting authority. Additionally, we are more customer-service oriented and more responsive to stakeholder input than ever before. We’ve constantly welcomed—in fact solicited—feedback and input, and are willing to refine and improve where needed. We’ve had more RFC’s, Proposed Rules, and roundtables than ever before–and thank you for your input and patience responding to each. Whether you gave feedback on our EPQI, our 101 guidance, our PTAB implementation and refinements, and/or our transparency of patent ownership proposal, your input has been valuable.

We’ve also brought a broader range of services to support American innovators where and when needed, including: Through four regional offices across the country and over a dozen IP attaches across the globe. And, we’ve worked to provide you with more access to examiner interviews by training and promoting their benefits internally at the USPTO and externally, leading to an increase of 232% more interviewing hours in just eight years.

Finally, and importantly, the USPTO’s relationships with all of its partners is healthier and stronger than ever before–that’s with our users, our employees, our unions, Congress, and within the Administration. I want to take a brief moment on this topic, because I really do believe it is key to the Agency’s success – past and future. Thinking back to even just 10 years ago [under Jon Dudas], the relationship with our users was nowhere near as collaborative, transparent, or productive as it is today. The Agency often didn’t seek much public input on examiner guidance or implementation rules, and interviews weren’t encouraged as they are today. Together, we have changed that dynamic.

Second, we’ve strengthened our working relationship with our employees. All told, we have enjoyed some of the highest rankings in the Partnership for Public Service’s list of Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. And we all know, an engaged workforce produces better work product and services for all of you. Over the last eight years, our attrition rate has reduced significantly to the point where we compete favorably with some top companies in the private sector. Also, we’ve developed a productive relationship with our unions, allowing us to make better and faster improvements in important areas such as our production count system, patent quality, and our telework program.

We have also maintained a healthy working relationship with Congress on both policy proposals and operational issues. From the passage of AIA, to the Defend Trade Secrets Act, to technical assistance on various legislative proposals, we have engaged with our colleagues on the Hill in impactful ways and the USPTO’s voice is a respected one.

Finally, the USPTO is effectively fulfilling its role as principal advisor to the President and Administration on IP policy. I’ve been pleased with the confidence the President and the Secretary of Commerce have shown my team and I, allowing us to pursue policies and programs in the best interest of our innovators. All of this: the greater financial security, the increased customer service orientation and responsiveness, and  the better relationships with all of our stakeholders, has enabled us to make real progress on our priorities, and positions us for even greater success going forward.

There is strong evidence of this in a number of important areas, including patent backlog and pendencies, quality and policy. During this Administration, we have: Reduced the backlog of unexamined patent applications by ~30%, despite an average ~4% year-over-year increase in filings. Reduced our first action pendency by ~38% to 16.2 months, and reduced total pendency by ~25% to 25.3 months. This is due to numerous actions taken by the USPTO leadership team and my predecessors, and the hard work of our examining corps, and we will continue to do more.

Armed with greater finances and a shrinking backlog, we embarked on an unprecedented effort to enhance the quality of patents – a core goal of the Agency. There is a cost to society when the USPTO issues a patent that we should not issue, just as there is a cost to society when we don’t issue a patent that should issue. And just as there is a cost to society when there is a patent in the system that properly issued, but that may no longer be valid due to changes in the case law. Recognizing this, we have enhanced the quality of patents in our system, both before they leave our office through our Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative (led by a new Deputy Commissioner and a newly created department within the Patents organization solely focused on this effort); and after the patents return to the office through our PTAB and other post grant review proceedings (which double check the Office’s work and allow reconsideration in light of evolving case law or newly discovered prior art).

Addressing the second prong first, the new PTAB proceedings have significantly changed the patent landscape. With over 5,000 PTAB petitions now filed, we have one of the busiest dockets in the country. These proceedings are meeting our Congressional mandate of providing a faster, more cost efficient quality check on the patents in the system. With extensive input from all of you, we have worked hard to implement and conduct these proceedings as fairly and efficiently as possible. That’s why I asked my team to engage the public in a series of listening tours that led to a set of “quick fixes” in 2015 and then more substantive revised rules last April. That’s also why we took it upon ourselves to assess the frequency of motions to amend and the reasons for their grants or denial.  We’re applying your input to identify where we can do better. These PTAB proceedings have proven themselves a valuable check on patent quality, particularly in the later part of a patent’s lifecycle.

At this point, it makes sense to bring greater resources to bear if there are questions about a patent’s validity. The economics are different at the beginning of a patent’s lifecycle. The value of a patent is often not fully known at time of filing (perhaps due to the nascency of the technology, industry and/or market), and the time and resources afforded during examination are typically limited. Innovation isn’t served if the USPTO strives to issue very expensive, “bullet-proof” patents after many years of examination. Extensive time and expense would mean that innovators would file too few patent applications, given finite budgets. The purpose of the patent system—to incentivize disclosures to advance the progress of science and the useful arts—would be defeated because too few disclosures would be made. If over time the industry and the market determine that a piece of patented technology is valuable and the public believes it is not valid under current law or newly discovered art, then there is an economic incentive to expend greater resources to test the validity of the patent. And a panel of technically trained judges steeped in patent law is well-suited to perform this double-check quickly and efficiently.  In short, to best incentivize innovation. The USPTO needs to issue IP rights that are as certain, reliable and affordable as they can reasonably be, and offer post-grant proceedings that quickly, accurately and cost-effectively test the validity of certain patents proven to be of economic importance if questions of validity arise.

With all of that said, it is essential that these post-grant proceedings are properly calibrated so that they provide a quality check but do not bar deserving patentees from enforcing their patent rights. It’s why some protections in the AIA are so important, such as restrictions on timing of challenges, thresholds petitioners must meet for institution, and strict estoppel provisions. It’s also why the Agency is committed to revising our rules as many times as needed so these proceedings are as fair and effective as possible within our Congressional mandate. It’s why it is critical, within this framework, the USPTO issue the very best quality patents possible. Patents that are issued correctly in accordance with the law, that are clear providing notice to the public of the patent’s boundaries, and that are issued consistently across the Patent Examination Corps. And, it’s why I launched the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative in 2015, so patent owners can have greater confidence and certainty of their rights in this new environment. Today, we’ve got about a dozen initiatives underway that, we believe, will meaningfully move the needle on enhancing patent quality. This includes making sure we’re getting the most relevant prior art before our examiners as early as possible by: leveraging technology, making prior art cited in our PTAB proceedings available to the examiner handling a related pending child application, and transitioning our entire patent examination corps from the decades old, antiquated U.S. Patent Classification System to the updated, increasingly global Cooperative Patent Classification System. It also includes drilling down on best practices (such as clarity of the record) during examination coupled with targeted training. Developing new and better ways to measure our progress, like our Master Review Form and new Quality Metrics. And, providing a new after-final procedure that offers applicants the opportunity to make a presentation before a panel and receive a detailed write-up of the panel’s decision that  might resolve an issue without going to appeal, or even result in the application being allowed.

So, this is what we’re doing at a high level. But I’d like to share more specifics about one of our flagship programs—our “Clarity of the Record Initiative”–and some of the great progress we have been making on our Clarity of the Record pilot program. The goal of this program is to develop best practices on how much detail to include in certain key parts of the prosecution record, for example: Interview summaries, or reasons for allowance, or construction of 112(f) limitations. Regarding interview summaries: How many times have you reviewed a file history, noted the patent rejected and then seen the patent allowed after an examiner interview with minimal or no changes to the claims and little or no explanation for the allowance? In this pilot, we worked to provide more detailed summaries including the substance of the examiner’s position, details of any agreement reached, and a description of next steps following the interview. After the pilot concluded, we measured 22 data points focused on clarity, and found an average of 15% improvement in clarity between the pilot examiners and a control group.

On reasons for allowance: How many times have you reviewed a prosecution history, and there is nothing in the record to indicate why the claims were allowed by the examiner? Because it is at the discretion of the individual examiner to set forth reasons for allowance, those reasons have not always been included in every Notice of Allowance. As part of this pilot, participants were trained on setting forth reasons for allowance in every Notice of Allowance. At the conclusion of the pilot, we found a 25% improvement in the clarity of reasons for allowance between the pilot examiners and a control group. Through the pilot, we also found the following practices significantly improved overall clarity addressing each independent claim separately, particularly identifying the applicant’s persuasive arguments (wherever they may be in the record), and identifying the specific allowable subject matter of the claim rather than merely reciting the entire claim as the basis for allowance. This pilot also helped us review the best practices around claim interpretation.

On claim interpretation:  How many times have you seen a prosecution record where there was clearly an issue about how a claim was interpreted, but the record was devoid of any explanation of the claim’s interpretation? In the pilot, the examiners were given training on explicitly setting forth key claim interpretations to minimize ambiguities. For example: Explaining all Section 112(f) presumptions and whether the presumptions were overcome, identifying on the record the structure in the specification that performs the function, and when a prior art reference is used to reject multiple claims, clearly addressing specific limitations in each claim that provide the basis for the rejection.

With our trainings on interview summaries, reasons for allowance and claim interpretations, we saw a statistically significant improvement in clarity when examiners used these best practices. Perhaps the most telling indicator of progress from this pilot is that when these pilot examiners were examining applications not included in the pilot program, they continued to apply the pilot’s best practices. This is a strong indication of the success of our training. Also, the clarity of the record initiative furthers the goal of compact prosecution by encouraging the applicant to rebut the examiner’s on-the-record position promptly and directly if there is disagreement. In short, we are already taking steps to clarify the record and you will see our examiners doing so increasingly over time.

Of course, patent quality also means applying the law accurately and clearly even in areas of the law that are evolving. Including, for example, the 101 jurisprudence on what is patent eligible subject matter. As many of you know, we’ve spent a fair amount of effort on this in recent years. Following major court rulings, we’ve revised our examination guidance, with input from all of you, multiple times and trained our examiners on the new guidance. Based upon input from our stakeholders, we also introduced training focused on clear drafting of 101 rejections and subsequent responses. And, we just announced in a Federal Register Notice two roundtables focused exclusively on the topic of patent eligible subject matter. At the first roundtable, we will discuss potential updates to our examination guidance, and at the second roundtable, we will discuss the impact of the current 101 jurisprudence on innovation, what changes might be considered to further support innovation, and whether such changes are best achieved legislatively, judicially or administratively. We thought it would be helpful to begin the public discussion, to create a record of where there is agreement or disagreement and what, if any, need for improvement. We welcome your participation on this important and complex issue.

As I hope you can see from this quick run-down of our initiatives, we are very excited about EPQI! It is an ambitious effort that is yielding results now and will yield many more in the long run. To learn more about our EPQI progress to date, please join us— mark your calendars—on December 13, at the USPTO, where we will spend a good part of the day sharing details of the results of each of the dozen or so EPQI.  We think you will like what you hear.

Turning now to some of our policy and other accomplishments over the course of this Administration, thanks to the AIA, we can now engage more directly with innovators—through our regional patent offices in Detroit, Denver, Silicon Valley, and Dallas. As you know, I started my tenure in public service as the Director of the Silicon Valley Regional Office. Having had the opportunity to help define the vision of these Offices, and stand up three of the four regional offices, I am very proud of this legacy to our IP system that will endure for generations to come. I’ve always said that, one day when my daughter is old enough, I can point to the Silicon Valley Regional Office in our hometown and say, “Your mom had a hand in opening that office.” And I’d feel very proud about my contribution to our community and society for that. Through these offices, we powerfully expand our ability to educate regional innovators about intellectual property and help small and large businesses and inventors directly access a wider range of services offered by the USPTO.

Additionally, one of the great privileges serving as head of the America’s Innovation Agency is that it is my job to increase opportunities and awareness about STEM, invention and intellectual property and, to me, this means across all geographic regions of this great country of ours and across all demographics. For example, when fewer than 15% of U.S. based inventors listed on a patent are women, it’s clear that we are leaving valuable inventive talent behind. This is something we cannot afford, especially as our companies cannot hire the technical talent they need, and  they are asking Congress to change our immigration laws to provide more flexibility in our visa and immigration system to ensure we can hire the best talent here in the U.S. We have the power to change this. We’ve called this our “All in STEM” campaign—and, true to the complex nature of the problem—it’s a multifaceted approach, including increasing awareness of the issue;

Getting girls interested in science, invention and IP early through efforts like our Girl Scout IP Patch and retaining and supporting women in STEM fields by mentoring, training and simply highlighting the female success stories through social media and inventors baseball trading cards for distribution to our school-aged children, so all our kids can see themselves as inventors! It’s not just a social imperative, it’s an economic imperative as we look compete in an increasingly global and competitive environment. 

And, it is no less an economic imperative to ensure that intellectual property beyond patents is properly calibrated to support creativity and entrepreneurship. We’ve advocated for significant modernizations of copyright law, beginning with our Green and White Papers on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy, where we made in the White Paper legislative recommendations on reforms to statutory damages for copyrights. We completed two historic copyright treaties and sent ratification packages to Congress—One on facilitating access to published works by the visually impaired, and another to expand copyrights for actors in audiovisual works.

On Trademarks, we’ve taken steps to improve the efficiency of our operations by adopting policies to encourage electronic filings of trademark applications which permitted fee reductions; and introducing the first major overhaul of rules at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board since 2007, and I was pleased to recently join the President in the Oval Office when he signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which created a new federal civil cause of action for trade secrets This provided much needed, additional protections to innovators of today, in an environment where confidential business information can be quickly transported or emailed over state—or international—lines. While modern trade secret protection is essential, we are mindful that inventors need to be able to have the choice to instead disclose their invention in exchange for the exclusivity guaranteed by a patent—through reliable patent protection here and abroad.

As many of you know, there’s an entire department at the USPTO devoted to this very mission, complemented by IP attachés stationed in about a dozen countries across the globe. With this team, I have frequently represented the USPTO abroad, helping to ensure that a strong and equitable IP system does not stop at our nation’s borders.  One such trip—to China in 2015—stands out in my mind, both because of the importance of promoting strong IP rights in the second largest economy in the world, and because I experienced, on a personal level, the depth of opportunity offered by our country. As I articulated our positions on these critical IP policy issues with the Vice Premier in Zhongnanhai, Beijing, the central headquarters for the Chinese government, I thought for a moment of my parents back home in the Bay Area. When they bravely left their homeland in China to move to the United States to build a new life, did they ever imagine their daughter would one day be in such a meeting, in such a role? They understood America is the land for those willing to work hard and embrace its values.

I’ve had the honor and privilege of having many great opportunities over the last three years while leading the USPTO, and, I’ve capitalized on those opportunities for the benefit of innovators because, each and every day, I’ve been able to count on an amazing team of public servants at the USPTO working hard to best serve all of you. I firmly believe that the United States Patent and Trademark Office is healthy, well-functioning and poised to successfully handle whatever challenges and opportunities lie ahead.

Our issues are important, complex and nuanced. And while not everyone will always agree with all that the Agency does, we are well prepared to work together and with all of you to accomplish our top priorities and successfully address the challenges ahead. So, thank you for all your help. And thank you for all I know you will continue to do to ensure that our greatest inventions are yet to come.

Maria Pallante Out as Chief of Copyright Office: New Calls for Unified US Intellectual Property Office

In some interesting news – On Friday Oct 21st, Maria Pallante was apparently removed today from her post as Register of Copyright within the Library of Congress and Karyn Temple Claggett moved up as Acting Register.  According to reports, newly installed Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden ordered the change that involved Pallante being locked-out of her computer Friday morning.

An oddity – the US Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress and thus under direct administration of Congress rather than the President (and Congress is not very good at running administrative agencies).  Under the current structure, the Register position is quite weak.  That said, Congress has recently relied upon the Copyright Office to make increasingly important market determinations.  However, the structure means that the President and Executive Agencies cannot rely upon the US Copyright Office for advice about copyright law or rely upon the agency to shape its policy.

In a 2012 post, I suggested creation of a United States Intellectual Property Organization (USIPO) akin to the UK IPO, Canadian IPO, and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  The structure would essentially be an expansion of the USPTO under presidential control although obviously still required to follow law set by Congress.  In 2012 I wrote that:

From a theoretical standpoint, it is unclear whether the [current] fractured administrative structure leads to rights that are either too strong or too weak.  What we can tell is that the [current] structure leads to a lack of coordination in administration of the various IP systems within the US.

A big problem with the fractured administration is that many operating businesses relying upon intellectual property (IP) rights typically do not focus on a single form of IP rights but instead take a layered approach that includes some combination of patent, trademark, copyright, contractual, employment, trade secret, and design rights, for instance. Each form of protection has weak points and overlapping coverage provides a greater level of certainty.  That overlapping nature also creates difficulties for users that hope to rely upon the public domain and fair use.  The overlapping approach suggests the need for a more unified administration approach to help ensure that IP rights serve their policy goals.

In her role as Register of Copyrights, Pallante had advocated transforming the Copyright Office into an executive agency.  It is unclear, however, whether those statements relate to her recent removal.