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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Recommendations for Evolving Patent Eligibility of Hardware
Hanchel Cheng
Regardless of whether a patent practitioner’s clients favor a stricter or more lenient eligibility regime, patent eligibility decisions continue to evolve. We need a line drawn for what practitioners expect to be clearer. Hardware inventions are facing patent eligibility challenges that would have seemed more likely in software inventions. Recent court decisions have shown that what once made a hardware invention eligible may no longer fly.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Fishing for Joint Patent Ownership Under 'BASF v. CSIRO'
Richard S.J. Hung, Jacob N. Nagy and Evangeline T. Phang
A recent Federal Circuit opinion sheds light on the process for settling co-ownership disputes pursuant to an underlying agreement. Although the precedential opinion does not change the rules of contract interpretation, it suggests considerations when drafting ownership agreements.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Choosing Between Trade Secret and Patent Protection: A Primer for Businesses
Darren M. Franklin
When deciding whether to apply for patent protection on an innovation or whether to keep the innovation confidential as a company trade secret, there are many considerations that a business must take into account stemming from the different characteristics of each.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Clarity on Patent Eligibility Law Could Be Coming In 2022
Scott Graham
The murkiness around patent eligibility is one reason innovators have been turning more toward trade secret law to protect their inventions.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Artificial Intelligence and Subject Matter Eligibility In U.S. Patent Office Appeals
James W. Soong
For the foreseeable future, patent applications involving artificial intelligence technologies, including machine learning, will increase with the continued proliferation of such technologies. However, subject matter eligibility can be a significant challenge in securing patents on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Artificial Intelligence and Subject Matter Eligibility In U.S. Patent Office Appeals
James W. Soong
For the foreseeable future, patent applications involving artificial intelligence technologies will increase with the continued proliferation of such technologies. However, subject matter eligibility can be a significant challenge in securing patents on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Supreme Court Looking to Resolve Federal Circuit Split In Patent Act §101 Case
Eric Alan Stone and Catherine Nyarady
The Supreme Court is considering a petition in a §101 case, in which the Federal Circuit split six-to-six in denying rehearing en banc, and in which the Supreme Court recently called for the views of the Solicitor General.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
U.S. IP Reform Needed to Prepare for AI Era
Andrei Iancu and David J. Kappos
For the U.S. to maintain its technological edge, it must encourage Americans to make more discoveries in AI and other emerging technologies. This in turn requires providing strong IP rights to incentivize and protect the huge investments required to make those discoveries.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
DOJ Looking to Develop New SEP Policies
Bruce Love
The Justice Department has confirmed it is looking to develop new policies surrounding how standard-essential patents might be used as tools for anticompetitive practices. The change in policy will mean big business for law firms that can combine highly technical IP advice with their antitrust and litigation practices.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Say What? Are PTAB Judges Really ‘Inferior Officers’?
Ben Clark
United States v. Arthrex, Inc.
Proving that even the driest of constitutional issues can have significant practical effect, the U.S. Supreme Court recently heard argument in United States v. Arthrex. Before the Court was whether administrative judges of the PTAB have been appointed unconstitutionally.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Synergizing Patents to Drive Innovation and Growth
Siraj Husain
As intellectual property continues to influence business operations, more companies are considering defensive patent pools as a strategic measure to guard against threats that can stifle innovation and growth for both businesses and industries.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
The Dark Side of Licensing: How to Prepare for the Audit
David Schnider
The audit clause itself is not something to be feared. It is a necessary means for the licensor to protect its interests and to guard against unscrupulous licensees. But it is a mistake to think that the clause is there solely to prevent malfeasance.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
From the PTO to the FDA: What to Consider When Branding Clinical Trials
Brandon Leahy Susanna Lichter and Eva Yin
The legal implications of branding generally arise initially for companies during the process of selecting a company name and any initial product or service names. For drug development companies, however, careful consideration should also be paid to the implications of branding a clinical trial.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
IP News
Joshua R. Stein and Jeff Ginsberg
Federal Circuit: Post-Employment Assignment Clause Void Under California Law
Federal Circuit No New Trial for Improper “Pennies on the Dollar” Rhetoric
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Marking, Notice and Knowledge: What Patent Licensors Need to Know
Brenda Holmes
A patentee should consider patent marking issues when negotiating a patent license, as well as during the term of the license. Otherwise, the patentee may find that its damages for patent infringement are limited due to its licensee’s failure to mark.
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent Trolls
John Chen
With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or “patent trolls”), companies that don’t make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
You Know What It Is: Taco Tuesday and the Failure-to-Function Doctrine In Trademark Law
Brandon Leahy
The foundational requirement that a trademark function as a trademark has received little attention in the case law. More recently, however, there has been an apparent uptick in scrutiny of trademark use by the USPTO and TTAB, as well as fresh academic attention paid to the issue.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Patenting Diagnostic Tests: Can We Expect Changes?
Leslie Kushner
This article discusses the jurisprudence applied to determining patent eligibility of claims for diagnostic methods, and the expectation for changes in analysis of patent eligibility under §101 in the near future.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
The Madrid System Turns 30: The Pros and Cons of Using the Madrid Protocol in the United States and for U.S. Based Companies
Stacey C. Kalamaras
This summer, the Madrid System turned 30 years old, and as two more countries prepare to join the Madrid Protocol we look at how the Madrid System has grown as it enters full adulthood.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Seeing Green: Protecting Brands In the Cannabis Industry
David S. Gold
Branding is not a new concept, nor are the various intellectual property laws that protect brands. What is new to most is how this burgeoning industry can take advantage of those laws within the context of state and federal restrictions.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Rights and Obligations In Patent Licenses
Tom Gushue
The owner of a commercially successful patent may have competing desires. On one hand, the patent owner wants to protect the patent and secure its maximum benefit; on the other hand, the patent owner wants to avoid enforcement litigation with competitors because it is expensive and puts the patent at risk.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Reflections on Potential Legislative Reform of the Patent Eligibility Standard
Nicole D. Galli
In the last five years, the courts have instead began wading into policy setting without the tools and resources to fully consider all the issues and various interests. Thus, the recent congressional efforts to consider these questions is welcome and, frankly, overdue.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
States Not Immune from PTAB Proceedings, Federal Circuit Rules
Scott Graham
Fifteen states had argued that they and their public universities shouldn’t have to expose their patents to validity review at the patent trial and appeal board.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
As Section 101 and the Progeny of Mayo and Myriad Continue to Wreak Havoc on Portfolios, How Is The Life Sciences Industry Fighting Back?
Wesley Overson, Otis Littlefield, Mat Swiderski, and Stephanie Blij
Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Mayo and Myriad, the Federal Circuit has expanded the holdings and invalidated more patents directed to biological discoveries. If the newly discovered correlations and properties of what is found in nature cannot be patented, what strategies for protection are left for companies doing biological research?
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Stanford Is Serving 11 Flavors of NPE
Scott Graham
Stanford Law School made available to the public a database of every patent lawsuit that’s been filed since 2007.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
The USPTO Brings New Guidance to the Section 101 Quandary
Susan M. Gerber and A. Patricia Campbell
Part Two of a Two-Part Article
USPTO Attempts to Provide Greater Clarity for Patent-Eligible Subject Matter
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Patent Eligibility Remains Uncertain — Especially for the Life Sciences — Even After Recent Federal Circuit Decisions and Efforts By the USPTO to Bring Clarity
Susan M. Gerber and A. Patricia Campbell
Part One of a Two-Part Article
Congress is empowered to create a patent system to promote the useful arts, and it has enacted laws to create a patent system that encourages innovation. Balancing that power, however, the courts in recent years have tried to rein in the scope of the patent right by limiting the scope of patent-eligible subject matter.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Use of Arbitration In Place of Inter Partes Review Proceedings
David L. Newman
An IPR might be more efficiently accomplished through arbitration than through a PTAB proceeding, so it should be considered by practitioners.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
IP News
Jeff Ginsberg and Hui Li
Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Does Not Invalidate Section 156 Patent Term Extension
Federal Circuit Holds Assignor Estoppel Does Not Apply in IPR Context
Federal Circuit Reverses District Court Holding of Patent Ineligibility of Computer Security Patent
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
The PTAB’s New Claim Construction Standard: Will the Real Impact Please Stand Up
Justin Oliver
Beginning on Nov. 13, 2018, the USPTO will cease to apply the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) standard for newly-filed IPR, PGR, and CBM trials under the America Invents Act (AIA). Instead, the USPTO will begin “using the same claim construction standard that would be used to construe the claim in a civil action …."
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
The ‘New NAFTA’ and How It Will Affect Intellectual Property Law
Lawrence E. Ashery
The stage is set for the 24-year-old north American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to end and the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), which has implications for intellectual property, to take its place.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
The High Bar for Challenging an Improperly Revived Patent
Scott D. Locke
The recent In Re Rembrandt Technologies decision is a reminder of both the potential consequence of a patent holder’s disingenuous assertion of unintentionality and the challenges that defendants face when raising the improper filing of a petition to revive a lapsed patent as a defense.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Non-Traditional Trademarks: The Elusiveness of Branding a Trend
Olivera Medenica
A look at several unique trademark cases where the plaintiff fashion brand proactively sought to invalidate a competitor’s non-traditional trademarks, an action which reflects a push back on increasingly aggressive litigation tactics by fashion brands seeking to blur the lines between a non-protectable fashion trend and a protectable trademark.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Patent Eligibility of User Interfaces
Lawrence H. Aaronson and James L. Korenchan
Advances in UI Design Can Provide Key Competitive Differentiation and Advantage, Which Makes Protecting Them Critically Important from a Business Perspective
Advances in UI design can also provide key competitive differentiation and advantage, helping to distinguish otherwise commoditized products and services such as computers, Web services, wearables, and appliances. Given this advantage, protecting advances in UI design can also be critically important from a business perspective.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
How Disney Qualified for Design Patent for Marvel’s Captain America Shield
Lawrence E. Ashery
Fans of movies about fictional superheroes are probably familiar with Captain America and his miraculous shield. Recently, however, his shield showed up in a most unlikely place: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Foreign Lost Profits Recoverable for Patent Damages
Elizabeth B. Hagan
The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that a patent owner may recover lost foreign profits for infringement under 35 U.S.C. §271(f)(2). The holding in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical rejects the Federal Circuit’s categorical exclusion of lost profits damages for foreign sales, and expands the potential for increased damages from domestic competitors operating in foreign markets.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Sending Out an SAS: Analyzing the SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu Decision
Richard Hung and Rachel Silverman Dolphin
In a 5-4 decision, with four justices dissenting, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s practice of instituting review on only a subset of an inter partes review (IPR) petitioner’s validity challenges.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Supreme Court Gives Inter Partes Review the Green Light
Athul K. Acharya
Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group
Is inter partes review of a patent grant compatible with Article III and the Seventh Amendment? That was the question presented in Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group and the U.S. Supreme Court answered in the affirmative.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
A Reasonable Royalty Rate Must Be Tied to Facts
Matthew Siegal
Exmark Manufacturing Company Inc. v. Briggs & Stratton Power Products Group, LLC
The rate of the reasonable royalty awarded to a successful patent plaintiff must be based on the facts of the case. A damages expert cannot merely pay lip service to the Georgia-Pacific factors and then “pluck” a royalty rate from thin air.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
IP News
Howard Shire and Michael Block
Claim Preclusion Requires Analysis that Claims in Newly Asserted Patents are Patently Indistinct from Claims in Previously Adjudicated Patents
Claim Elements Taught by Prior Art for Purposes of Novelty and Obviousness are not Necessarily ‘Well-Understood, Routine, and Conventional’ Under §101
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Federal Circuit Holds That PTAB’s Determination on Whether the One Year Time-Bar Is Triggered in Inter Partes Review Is Reviewable on Appeal
Jon E. Wright and Pauline M. Pelletier
On Jan. 8, 2018, the Federal Circuit issued its significant en banc decision in Wi-Fi One, LLC v. Broadcom. In that decision, the Federal Circuit held that the time-bar of 35 U.S.C. §315(b) is reviewable on appeal, thus overturning a prior panel decision and opening the door for parties to challenge how the USPTO has interpreted and applied that statutory provision.
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Entertainment Law & Finance
An IP Protection Primer for Entertainment Tech Startups
Dr. Dariush Adli
The tech-heavy entertainment industry is an active field for tech startup companies developing potential patents and trade secrets. But many cash conscious startups are forced to initially neglect protection planning for these intellectual property assets, instead allocating scarce resources to set up and initial operation costs. This article suggests some practical and economical steps for startups, especially those with tight finances, to protect what may become valuable patents and trade secrets.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
IP News
Jeffrey S. Ginsberg and Hui Li
Federal Circuit Affirms Finding That Rembrandt’s Patent Is Not Infringed by Apple’s Accused Products
District Court Transfers Case after Federal Circuit Ordered It to Reconsider Party’s Venue Objections In Light of TC Heartland
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Online Extra
After Years of Setbacks, Patent Owners Try to Turn Tide in Congress
Scott Graham
Patent owners have taken control of the patent reform debate in the 115th Congress, but it’s not clear yet who’s supposed to be listening.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Supreme Court Turns Back the Clock on Venue In Patent Infringement Litigation
Christopher Gaspar and Sean Hyberg
Although TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods answers the question of where a domestic corporation resides in patent infringement cases, it does not fully answer the question of where proper venue lies.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
How Much Did the Federal Circuit Narrow Eligibility for Covered Business Method Review?
Diek Van Nort and Matthew Kreeger
In November of last year, the Federal Circuit narrowed the types of patents eligible for covered business method review in Unwired Planet, LLC v. Google Inc. The court's decision narrowed what patents are eligible for CBM review, and provided some guidance for future cases.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Amending Patent Claims in Post-Grant Trial Proceedings
Cynthia Lambert Hardman
What You Need to Know
The America Invents Act gave patent owners the right to move to amend their patent claims. To date, however, this right has been more illusory than real. Given their dismal success rate so far, many hope that the tide will turn in favor of granting more motions to amend.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Joint Infringement Post-Akamai: Understanding the Impact on Prosecution and Litigation Strategies
Matthew Becker, Norman F. Hainer Jr. and David K. Ludwig
This two-part article aims to deconstruct the new joint infringement standard, provide insight into how the standard might be interpreted and provide practice tips for prosecution and litigation. Part 1 chronicles the Akamai cases that ultimately resulted in a new standard for joint infringement and explores the potential interpretations of that standard.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Online Extra
Apple Loses to Samsung in Supreme Court Design Patent Case
Tony Mauro
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Samsung Electronics on Dec. 6 in its titanic patent dispute with Apple Inc. over design features copied from Apple iPhones.
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The Intellectual Property Strategist
Expanded Means-Plus-Function Analysis Presents New Opportunities and Challenges
Joshua D. Curry and Kate E. Hart
The Federal Circuit's en banc decision in Williamson v. Citrix Online expanded the potential application of 35 U.S.C. §112, ¶6, making it more likely that functional claim language will be construed as a means-plus-function limitation even in the absence of the word "means." This article discusses recent decisions applying Williamson and provides practical insights and strategies for patent owners and accused infringers to consider when addressing the expanded application of §112, ¶6.
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