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Patent opinions now published with original figures

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

I’m happy to announce that patent opinions published on Promote the Progress now include any and all figures from the original slip opinion of the court. See Cordis Corporation v. Boston Scientific for an example.

We process the text of all opinions to add paragraph numbers with linkable anchors, which means that you can now deep link right to a figure from a particular opinion, like so.

All newly posted opinions will be processed to include figures. We are working backward to add figures to previously posted opinions.

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Subscribe to two unique patent caselaw feeds from Promote the Progress

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

I recently launched two new RSS feeds for Promote the Progress that allow patent practitioners to efficiently review the latest caselaw developments. Each of the feeds provides an easy-to-digest overview of every new patent opinion from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (and the Supreme Court) alongside a series of links to pages on the Promote the Progress site that contain additional information about the opinion.

Each feed is intended to be used in the same way – if after reading the overview of an opinion you want to delve into it a bit deeper, just click a link to read the full opinion or the Promote the Progress review. You can also click a link to download a .pdf of the opinion and another to listen to the oral argument.

So what’s the difference between the two feeds?

The opinion overview in the first feed provides a bibliographic overview of the opinion, including an annotated listing of keywords. The second feed includes the introductory paragraph from the Promote the Progress review of the opinion.

You can subscribe to both feeds by email or in an RSS feed reader/aggregator using the following URL’s:

1.Bibliographic summaries

feed address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/promotetheprogress-patentopinions
- or -
subscribe by email

2. Summaries of Promote the Progress case reviews

feed address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/promotetheprogress-patentreviews
- or -
subscribe by email

Want to learn more? Check out the RSS feeds page.

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Chief Judge Michel issues a call to arms for patent system stakeholders

Friday, March 20th, 2009

Chief Judge Michel, in his keynote speech for the recently-held Sughrue Symposium, issued a clear call to arms for patent system stakeholders. Here’s a paraphrasing from my notes on Judge Michel’s talk:chief-judge_michel

“Your country, the Patent and Trademark Office, Congress and the court need you. I can’t even put into words the crossroads we are at now. It’s an unstable time. A time of great risk….and of great opportunity to make things better.”

“Where do you come in? The patent system – which is like twenty systems – needs a net improvement. I suggest that everyone in this room make their perspective heard. Participate in the debate. Send emails, letters, etc. Add your two cents worth because it’s big.”

Judge Michel then did his part by explaining his beliefs on a few current issues. He addressed the current damages provision of the Patent Reform Act of 2009 first:

“If values of portfolios plummet, it’s a step backward. The ’specific contribution’ language is unclear and not familiar, which will lead to uncertainty. There’s also a chance that it may risk adding an aspect of validity to the damages portion of the trial.”

Judge Michel also touched on problems at the Patent and Trademark Office:

“At the Patent Office, carefulness is the problem. Lots of applications that should be granted aren’t. Delay is also a serious problem.”

Here, here’s all around.   Are you answering the call?

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Is The Discovery Channel a patent troll?

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Discovery Communications, the parent company of The Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, recently sued Amazon for patent infringement. The accused device is none other than Amazon’s version of sliced bread, the Kindle wireless reading device.

News of this story left many people asking, “Does Discovery have an electronics division? Is it planning to launch its own electronic reading device?”

Nope and Nope.  Turns out, Discovery is a good old-fashioned patent troll. Um, I mean “non-practicing entity.” The company doesn’t make an electronic reader, nor does it plan on making an electronic reader. Rather, it just happens to be the proud owner of an issued patent that counsel believes Amazon is infringing by making and selling the Kindle.

Troll bashers will assume the company acquired the patent through a bankruptcy proceeding or via some other unsavory tactic. The truth couldn’t be a colder reality, though. Turns out, the company’s founder, John Hendricks is a non-practicing inventor, and the asserted patent is the result of good old-fashioned, home grown inventing.

This CNet article explains Mr. Hendricks efforts:

“…John Hendricks is a bit of an inventor. In the 1990s, Hendricks tried his hand at coming up with systems to digitize content. He explored technologies involving the digitization of TV content as well as e-book systems. In 2004, he sold the TV patents but Discovery kept the e-reader patents.”

According to most definitions, Discovery, in this matter, appears to qualify as a patent troll. The company doesn’t manufacture or market anything under the patent, and arguably waited for a market to develop before filing its lawsuit.

But could The Discovery Channel really be a troll? Or, is it possible that Discovery is doing nothing more than enforcing its rights that flow from Mr. Hendricks’ decision to disclose his invention to the world?

This is certainly one to watch. We might just have to redefine “patent troll” once again.

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Allowance rates at all three Trilateral Patent Offices below 50%

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Yesterday, the European Patent Office announced that its grant rant dropped – for the first time since the Office opened in 1978 – to below 50%. IAM Magazine was quick to notice that this places the allowance rates of all three trilateral offices – the United States, Europe, and Japan – below 50%.

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Patent and Trademark Office blames looming cash crunch on recession, ignoring other likely contributing factors

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

It’s no secret that a cash crunch is looming at the USPTO.  Applicants are filing fewer applications and the Office is issuing fewer patents. Office income is down as a result.

According to this article, Acting Director John Doll blames the decrease in filings on the global recession. He noted that he had “…talked to a large corporation…and they’re going through their patent portfolio to see what’s core.”

While the recession certainly deserves some of the blame, the article fails to mention other possible causes for the reduction in filings: KSR v. Teleflex and its application by the Office, examination quality issues, and the growing uncertainty surrounding patent protection in the courts. The company “going throough [its] portfolio” may simply be focusing on the applications that are likely to pass patentebility muster in light of KSR, as opposed to being the victim of budget cuts.  It seems likely that all of these things are contributing to any decrease in the overall use rate of the patent system.

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New Promote the Progress feature – Read patent law opinions on your Amazon Kindle

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Over the last several months, I’ve become a big fan of the Amazon Kindle. My wife bought me one for Christmas last year, and I’ve had trouble putting it down ever since. The device has quickly become my indispensable reading companion. Now, I’m using the device in several of my regular tasks for Promote the Progress…and will soon begin publishing Kindle-optimized versions of court opinions for your enjoyment.

You see, beyond being a wonderful platform for reading electronic books bought from the Amazon Kindle store, the device also allows you to read electronic documents that you convert to Kindle format. Once converted, you can load the documents onto your Kindle and take them with you, right alongside your book collection.

This feature clearly has tremendous potential for legal professionals who review lots of documents (and who among us doesn’t?). The device even has primitive annotation tools, which should raise the second eyebrow of every lawyer in the crowd.

For a wonderfully forward-looking account of using the Kindle in a law firm environment, read Denise Howell’s post, A fully Kindleized law firm.

Over the last month or so, I’ve been working the Kindle into my Promote the Progress workflows. I’m generating Kindle versions of patent-related opinions from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and am mostly happy with the output (will be working out a few formatting kinks going forward).

What’s in it for you, you ask? Simple – I’m making the Kindle versions of the opinions available for download, right alongside the .pdf files. Just go to the download page for an opinion of interest, and look for the Kindle box right below the .pdf box (see Vehicle IP v. General Motors, as an example).

We’re attacking coverage as follows:

1) all new opinions will have Kindle versions available as soon as we post the web and .pdf versions;

2) We will post Kindle versions of all opinions issued between January 1, 2009 and today within the next several weeks; and

3) We will begin working backward from December 31, 2008 with “special dispatch” and will post Kindle versions of these opinions as they become available.

4) We will promptly respond to any request to provide a Kindle version of an opinion that has not yet been processed. If there’s an older opinion you want Kindleized, just let us know and we’ll put it at the top of the list for processing.

I hope the Kindle users out there enjoy this new and exciting feature of Promote the Progress. I have a few ideas for additional Kindle-based features on the horizon, too, so keep watching!

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Recruiting the Patent and Trademark Office to Twitter

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Over the last several months, Twitter has become a vital component of the Promote the Progress site (follow me at @jmattbuchanan). I use the service to connect with PTP readers and others in the patent community by sharing quick thoughts, links, and other information that doesn’t necessarily warrant a full blog post or case review. In the few short months since I started to use Twitter seriously, I’ve met several interesting patent folks and have participated in numerous fascinating patent-related discussions.

The experience has taught me a lot about engaging a community and developing conversation. While the patent conversation on Twitter is growing (both in quantity and substance), it certainly could use a little help. To that end, I thought it would be great to recruit the Patent and Trademark Office into the mix. The Office is doing some wonderful things with technology and community involvement (the webcast of the recent roundtable discussion on deferred examination is a prime example), but has yet to undertake any social/new media efforts.

Twitter seems like a logical way for the Office to get started in this arena. At a minimum, the Office could use Twitter to post news items and links from its news page. This simple use of the system would provide another avenue to distribute critical information to Office stakeholders. There’s so much more that could be done, though. The Office could use the system to answer questions from the community, to provide live updates from important meetings (e.g., the roundtable, the Public Patent Advisory Committee), etc.

To start the process of recruiting the Office to Twitter, I’ve registered the @uspto account…and will gladly transfer it to someone from the Office that is responsible for IT and/or web technologies and that expresses a genuine interest in developing the account into a serious communications channel for the Office. I have started posting items to the account solely to attract relevant followers, but will only post official items made public by the Office in order to avoid any hesitation by the Office to “adopt” the account later.

When considering whether to use Twitter (either through this account or another), folks from the Office might be interested in reviewing this list of government agencies that are already on Twitter. The list includes NASA (@NASA_Ames_Web, @marsrover, @marsphoenix, and several others), FDA (@foodrecalls), and even President Obama (@BarackObama, although, sadly, he has not tweeted since the inauguration). The Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government collection of resources on webcontent.gov might also be helpful.

The patent community can help the recruiting effort by following @uspto on Twitter and sending a tweet that spreads the word!

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Obama continues search for Commerce Secretary, while PTO continues search for radical administrative reform

Friday, February 13th, 2009

It’s official – President Obama has lost another nominee for Secretary of Commerce. Republican Senator Judd Gregg officially withdrew from consideration for the post, citing political differences with the administration.

As this story was developing, the Patent and Trademark Office held its public roundtable discussion on the possibility of implementing a deferred examination procedure (the request for examination sort, not the de facto deferred sort). The discussion was mostly mundane, but did have a few high points.

One exchange in particular caught my ear -  John Doll and Professor Arti Rai hinted at a planned increase in the fee for filing a Request for Continued Examination. Some feel Professor Rai’s comments carried an implication that the fee should be set high enough to actually discourage the filing of RCE’s (see the comments on this PatentlyO post).  Indeed, late yesterday, a trusted source from the Office, who wishes to remain anonymous, confirmed that “a rumor that has been circulating is that a proposed significant fee increase is forthcoming.” If true, look for statistics regarding increases in various after final procedures first….to justify any later proposed increases as reasonably related to covering the cost of examination.

The roundtable comments by Doll and Rai should serve to put the patent bar on notice: the Office continues to seek radical administrative reform, all while President Obama continues the troubled search for a policy leader in the Department of Commerce. In the absence of policy directives from above, the pursuit for administrative efficiency appears to be guiding the ship.

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Duncan Bucknell’s IP Think Tank podcast – Bilski, Classen, and more

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

I had the honor of being a panelist on Duncan Bucknell’s weekly IP Think Tank podcast this week. Jeremy Phillips of the IPkat was also on the call.

On the patent front, we had a brief discussion on Bilski, Classen, and the potential impact of a new USPTO Director.

Duncan’s doing wonderful work with this brief weekly update that touches on IP issues (not just patent issues) from around the globe. I encourage you to add it to your regular routine.

You can download/listen to this week’s episode here. You can subscribe to the series here.

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