Bonum Certa Men Certa

Judge Paul Michel is Not So Retired; Helps the Patent Trolls' Lobby Critique His Former Employer

Retirement money is not enough to keep Michel from intervening as an outsider with powerful connections

Judge Paul Redmond MichelSummary: As the new year begins (and people return from holiday) outlines of Federal Circuit cases are published (3 of them yesterday) and Paul Michel rears his head again (he still meddles by public criticism, wielding influence to impact the court's direction in absentia)

THE Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) improved a lot last year. We are very pleased with its work under the new lead (after Rader left in disgrace). Last year it consistently rejected software patents. It's pretty incredible because only a few years prior to that the opposite was true (under Rader and before Alice).

A very detailed breakdown by Ropes & Gray LLP's Scott A. McKeown has just been published. He calls it "2017 CAFC Guidance"; it's fairly objective and reasonably OK. But watch this advice (how to trick examiners);

Patent prosecutors navigate complex USPTO rules and seemingly esoteric examinational requirements to procure patent rights. In doing so, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) does not have the full force and effect of law. Nevertheless, patent examiners (rarely trained lawyers) adhere to their interpretation of the Manual requirements. To budge examiners off of entrenched, legal positions, savvy prosecutors will keep a trained eye on the Federal Circuit for help.


Patent examiners who read this will hopefully take note; this is how legal firms view you...

A similar breakdown was posted by Dan Bagatell at Law 360. It's titled "Fed. Circ.'s 2017 Patent Decisions: A Statistical Analysis". Much of it is behind paywall, except this: "After each fiscal year end, the Federal Circuit publishes statistics summarizing where its cases came from, the court’s throughput over the year, and its median times to disposition in cases from different sources.[1] The court even tantalizes court watchers (a bit) by providing reversal rates for each agency and for district courts as a whole.[2] But the court does not explain how it calculates its statistics, and the high level at which the court presents the data obscures the juicy details."

Are they trying to 'scandalise' CAFC too now? Not just PTAB? We'll write about PTAB-bashing bias in our next post...

Last but not least, IAM has just said: "Former CAFC Chief Judge Michel runs through his top #patent cases to watch in 2018" (linking to this article from yesterday).

It is extremely disturbing that IAM is connected to and keeps amplifying corrupt judges like Rader and now also Paul Michel. He keeps showing up everywhere (e.g. [1, 2, 3]) even though he retired. He typically sides with the patent maximalists and lobbyists of patent trolls.

This is IAM's introduction:

As with any news platform focused on the patent world, we keep a close eye on the major court cases in the US, particularly those that have a direct impact on IP value creation. Key decisions from district courts, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) and the Supreme Court, ripple throughout the IP world and so it’s important to know the cases that are coming which are likely to have repercussions for our readers. With all that in mind, we asked former CAFC Chief Judge Paul Michel to cast his eye over the Federal Circuit’s docket to identify what he believes we’re likely to be talking (and writing) about in 2018. Here are his top five.


What compels Michel to indirectly compose articles for IAM now? As a reminder, IAM tried to intervene in the appointment of USPTO Director in order to put a disgraced CAFC judge (Rader) in place of Michelle Lee. Rader is a friend of trolls and it's not exactly a secret who pays IAM's bills.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
 
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025
Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
It's also burning the planet
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
Slopfarms are a real pain
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms