@PatentBuddy

@PatentBuddy

by Dennis Crouch
The recently filed petition for certiorari in CareDx and Stanford University v. Eurofins Viracor, Inc. (Supreme Court 2023) offers an opportunity to examine the patent eligibility doctrine in the context of an important health diagnostics innovation.The inventions at issue relate to early detection of organ transplant failure, which obviously hold significant potential to save lives and reduce reliance on invasive exploratory surgical procedures.

Carl Oppedahl has been focused on the USPTO's electronic filing and docketing system for several decades.Most recently, he has been calling out the USPTO for "pants-on-fire lies" about the workability of the DOCX standard.The PTO plans to institute a $400 surcharge for those who fail to use DOCX starting at the end of June 2023.

by Dennis Crouch
Calculating damages for patent infringement can be a complex task, particularly when the invention is an improvement to an existing machine or product.The Supreme Court's 1884 decision in Garretson v. Clark, 111 U.S. 120, helped establish a rule requiring apportionment in cases involving improvement patents.

A 22-story office tower in San Francisco that was worth $300 million in 2019 is for sale.It's expected to sell for around $60 million, real-estate brokers told The Wall Street Journal.It's the latest example of the commercial real-estate crisis as cities deal with the impact of remote work.A 22-story office tower in San Francisco is expected to sell for around $60 million - 80% less than it was valued at in 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Social media can be mentally draining.And when mentally drained, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don't need or want according to our recent experiments on how social media affects behavior.As a professor of advertising, I have studied social media behavior for years.

by Dennis Crouch
37 C.F.R. § 11.18(b) imposes crucial responsibilities on patent applicants, attorneys, and agents.Documents submitted to the USPTO implicitly certify that:


Statements made are true or are are believed to be true (based upon information and belief) and do not include any attempt to conceal a material fact; and
That a reasonable inquiry was conducted to confirm that: (i) statements have no improper purposes, (ii) legal contentions are supported by existing law or valid arguments for change, (iii) allegations and factual contentions have or are likely to have evidentiary support, and (iv) denials of factual contentions are based on evidence or a reasonable lack of information or belief.

by Dennis Crouch
In the patent context, functional limitations describe inventions in terms of their function or intended use, rather than their specific structure or components.Such claims have been subject to much debate and litigation throughout the history of the US patent system.Notable Supreme Court cases like O'Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) 62 (1854) and Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker, 329 U.S. 1 (1946) significantly impacted patent practice and the balance between functional and structural claim drafting.

"It is now up to Congress to decide whether to change the law to allow inventions to be protected regardless of how AI is used in the inventive process, and to help the US maintain its position as a world leader in innovation." - Professor Ryan Abbott
One day before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is set to hold its first public listening session on AI inventorship, the U.S. Supreme Court today denied certiorari in the case of Thaler v. Vidal, which asked the Court to consider the question: "Does the Patent Act categorically restrict the statutory term 'inventor' to human beings alone?"

The following are my remarks given on April 25, 2023 to the USPTO as part of their AI listening session:
by Dennis Crouch
Members of the USPTO, and fellow participants of this AI Listening Session, thank you for inviting me here today and for taking time to consider these important issues.I want to also thank the prior speakers who have done a great job laying out many of the issues.

by Dennis Crouch The Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Vidal, a case involving inventor Dr. Stephen Thaler's attempt to patent an invention created by his artificial intelligence (AI) system, DABUS.Thaler argued that DABUS, not himself or any other human, conceived the invention and identified its significance.

Guest post by Camilla A. Hrdy, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University of Akron School of Law Are NDAs unenforceable when they protect more than trade secrets?The standard answer is no.NDAs can prevent disclosure of contractually-defined "confidential" information that is shared in the course of a confidential relationship, even if it is not technically a trade secret.

Generative AI can seem like magic.Image generators such as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, or DALL·E 2 can produce remarkable visuals in styles from aged photographs and water colors to pencil drawings and Pointillism.The resulting products can be fascinating - both quality and speed of creation are elevated compared to average human performance.

By Chris Holman
Amgen Inc. v. Sandoz Inc., 2023 WL 2994166, - 4th - (Fed.Cir.Apr. 19, 2023)
In 2019, Amgen acquired worldwide rights to apremilast (OTEZLA) from Celgene $13.4 billion in cash, in connection with Celgene's merger with Bristol-Myers Squibb.Apremilast was the only oral, non-biologic treatment for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and in 2020 apremilast generated $2.2 billion for Amgen.

There are ways of controlling the new technology-but first we have to stop mythologizing it.As a computer scientist, I don't like the term "A.I."In fact, I think it's misleading-maybe even a little dangerous.Everybody's already using the term, and it might seem a little late in the day to be arguing about it.

Generative AI is coming for white-collar roles.If your sense of worth comes from work-what's left to hold on to?A few months ago, I was waiting for the subway with a friend, a professional editor, who had never used a large language model (LLM).Standing on the platform, she told me about an article she'd been working on.

"Despite Vidal's disagreement with VLSI, she stopped short of imposing sanctions 'because I agree that, for the most part, the allegations contained in the Rehearing Request were already asserted in a publicly available blog article,' she said."U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal said in an Order filed yesterday in IPR2021-01229 between Patent Quality Assurance (PQA)/Intel and VLSI Technology that VLSI's reference in its Rehearing Request to an "unsolicited, anonymous, and improper ex parte communication" about the relationship between PQA and Intel that Vidal had put under seal has put VLSI on thin ice and in danger of being sanctioned.

NST Global, LLC, dba SB Tactical v. Sig Sauer Inc. (Supreme Court 2023) This case has a low chance of being granted certiorari, but it still has some interesting elements regarding claim construction and procedure.This is a perfect case for the Supreme Court to issue a GVR (Grant-Vacate-Remand) with an order to the Federal Circuit to explain its reasoning.

By Dennis Crouch
In re Charger Ventures, - F.4th. -, 22-1094 (Fed.Cir.2023)
In this trademark case, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) denying registration of the mark SPARK LIVING for residential real estate, based upon the prior registration of SPARK for commercial real estate.

Take the 1-question survey on LinkedIn.The basic underlying question has to do with whether an NDA or other agreement can effectively limit an inventor's ability to pursue patent protection - even in circumstances where the inventor has not transferred patent rights.[Unfortunately, LinkedIn won't let me embed the survey here].

I just finished watching "Local-first Software" by Peter Van Hardenberg and loved it!He talks about changing the paradigm we're currently in where a program runs in the cloud and we look at it when we're online, to one where the program runs on the device in our hands and we send data to the cloud for "durability or accessibility".

I recently was thinking back to 1996 and the start of my senior year at Princeton University.Although I was a mechanical & aerospace engineering major, I had become fascinated with AI and so focused my senior thesis on developing a new AI model within the department of electrical and computer engineering.

NST Global, LLC, dba SB Tactical v. Sig Sauer Inc. (Supreme Court 2023) This case has a low chance of being granted certiorari, but it still has some interesting elements regarding claim construction and procedure.This is a perfect case for the Supreme Court to issue a GVR (Grant-Vacate-Remand) with an order to the Federal Circuit to explain its reasoning.

"It can no longer be said that patenting in Europe is for the well-heeled applicant.In fact, now it is so cheap that not filing in Europe amounts to patent malpractice."By now, unless you live in a total IP blackout zone, you've heard about the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC).

By Chris Holman
UCB, Inc. v. Actavis Lab'ys UT, Inc., 2023 WL 2904757, - 4th - (Fed.Cir.Apr. 12, 2023)
Rotigotine is a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease.People with Parkinson's disease experience significant gastrointestinal dysfunction, such as difficulty swallowing, which can frustrate the oral administration of drugs.

Guest Post by Professor Jorge L. Contreras The Leaked Draft On March 28, 2023, Reuters reported that a proposed European Parliament and Council Regulation would empower the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to determine "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) royalty rates for European patents that are essential to industry standards (standards-essential patents or "SEPs"), and also to assess the essentiality of SEPs to the relevant standards.

by Dennis Crouch
A decade ago, the US Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions that upended substantial aspects of patent practice.Mayo Collaborative Servs.v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012); and Alice Corp. Pty.Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014).These cases broadened scope of the "abstract idea" and "law of nature" exclusions in ways that largely overlap with other patent law doctrines, such as obviousness, indefiniteness, and even enablement.

"The incongruity in the relief seemingly sought by Chief Judge Moore's complaint is most concerning.Is Judge Newman not competent to remain a judge at all?And if not, why would her accepting Senior Status satisfy Moore?"
IPWatchdog has learned from several sources this week that U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Chief Judge Kimberly Moore has filed a judicial complaint against Judge Pauline Newman under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act.

Ninety-three confirmed or probable cases of blastomycosis have been identified in Michigan's Delta and Menominee counties, according to the local health department, and they are believed to be associated with a paper mill in the town of Escanaba.Blastomycosis is caused by a fungus, Blastomyces, that lives in the environment, especially in moist soil and decomposing matter like wood or leaves, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

by Dennis Crouch
A decade ago, the US Supreme Court issued a pair of decisions that upended substantial aspects of patent practice.Mayo Collaborative Servs.v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012); and Alice Corp. Pty.Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014).These cases broadened scope of the "abstract idea" and "law of nature" exclusions in ways that largely overlap with other patent law doctrines, such as obviousness, indefiniteness, and even enablement.

If you want to sneak malware onto people's Android devices via the official Google Play store, it may cost you about $20,000 to do so, Kaspersky suggests.This comes after the Russian infosec outfit studied nine dark-web markets between 2019 and 2023, and found a slew of code and services for sale to infect and hijack the phones and tablets of Google Play users.

by Dennis Crouch
In Salazar v. AT&T Mobility LLC, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment of noninfringement.Once again, the Federal Circuit was called upon to interpret the claim term "a," this time to determine if Salazar's claim requiring " a microprocessor" was limited to a single microprocessor.

"Given the incredible number of active patents, the question is not 'why are there so many suits?"but "why are there so few?'"The simplest facts are sometimes the most difficult to comprehend.Patent suits are not as pervasive as they are portrayed in the media or by defendants.Remarkably few are filed relative to the number of patents that are active.

April 3, 2023
On March 29, after weeks of delays and uncertainty, Twitter's Developer team announced new pricing tiers for access to the Twitter API that will devastate public interest research.Over the past decade, researchers across the world have relied on Twitter's API to study the impact of social media on democracy, the role of social media in strengthening public health, how social media has been used to amplify marginalized voices, and much more.

After coming up with a core idea for a new product, Inventor jumps on chatGPT and asks the AI to expand upon the product idea, including providing additional design elements based upon the inventor's original description.ChatGPT comes through with flying colors and provides several detailed designs that inventor had not considered.