02.27.18
CAFC and PTAB Are Both Being Insulted by the Patent Maximalists, Who Resort to Offensive Cartoons and Lies
Summary: The plaintiff-hostile patent courts, which have become strict on patent scope, are receiving scorn and abuse from the patent ‘industry’; the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), for example, sees a judge of Mexican heritage caricaturised as shown above
SOFTWARE patents continue their rapid demise in the United States.
Earlier on the Docket Navigator highlighted this new decision wherein a USPTO-granted patent got invalidated (under 35 U.S.C. § 101). “The court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment that the asserted claims of plaintiff’s gaming machine patents encompassed unpatentable subject matter and found that the claims lacked an inventive concept,” said the summary.
“Unified Patents has also just noted that its PTAB petition was likely successful and the “Walker Innovation” [sic] patent likely invalidated.”One can imagine that the court/trial fees (attorneys etc.) were a lot higher than the cost of PTAB petitions (IPRs).
Unified Patent has also just noted that its PTAB petition was likely successful and the “Walker Innovation” [sic] patent likely invalidated. To quote:
On February 23, 2018, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,549,310 owned and asserted by Certified Measurement, a subsidiary of Walker Innovation and well-known NPE. The ’310 patent, directed to a “method and apparatus for secure measurement certification,” has been asserted in multiple cases against such companies as Yokogawa America, ABB, and Alstom.
This has become the norm rather than a rarity. The patent micrososm is just trying to cause a controversy and allege that PTAB does not assess evidence/facts. It’s an old and easy-to-debunk lie (typically promoted in sites of patent trolls) which Patently-O contributed to with a silly (potentially racist) meme he had made about Federal Circuit Judge Rayne (see above, we had made a copy before he removed it and apologised). There’s this new example of efforts to push this lie all the way up to the Supreme Court. We’re not worried because the Supreme Court repeatedly rejected petitions to review Alice-type cases.
“The patent micrososm is just trying to cause a controversy and allege that PTAB does not assess evidence/facts.”We don’t expect the patent micrososm to quit trying all sorts of tricks. Patently-O has already attempted to slow down PTAB and CAFC. Patently-O‘s Dennis Crouch was even asking his students to write essays which suit his agenda some years back (which raises ethical questions about his employer) and days ago he returned to student essays, this time from Lauren Kimmel about “Science Fiction Law”. It wasn’t long ago when we saw high school students exploited by Watchtroll for anti-PTAB propaganda, shrewdly constructed in a “think about the children!” fashion.
Another site of the patent micrososm wrote a PTAB rant last week. Andrew Williams said:
Last year, the Federal Circuit decided the Aqua Products, Inc. v. Matal case en banc in what could be considered the epitome of a fractured decision. After 148 pages and five separate opinions, the only agreed-to result could be summed up in two conclusions: (1) that the PTO had not adopted a rule regarding the burden of persuasion, and that (2) because there was nothing that was entitled to deference, “the PTO may not place that burden on the patentee.” Nevertheless, Judge Rayne’s concurrence-in-part, at Part III, articulated a rule regarding the burden of production, even if there was disagreement whether it was a judgement of the Court or mere “cogitations.” This conclusion was that, in the absence of a properly promulgated rule, “the Patent Office must by default abide by the existing language of inter partes review statute and regulations, § 316(d) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.121, which only allocate a burden of production to the patent owner.” At the time, we did not know whether the Board would follow Judge Rayne’s pronouncement. But in the interim, the picture has become clear.
That’s the same Judge Rayne which Crouch did an offensive cartoon about. Considering what we showed in the previous post, they now have an ally in the Koch Brothers, who are deep-pocketed and notoriously reckless when they intervene in policy. They cannot get the Supreme Court to revisit patent scope, so right now they meddle in Oil States, hoping to undermine the principal or most prolific enforcer of patent scope (PTAB). █
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