Related: Further Scrutiny of Andrei Iancu Shows That He's on Both Sides of Troll Battles and PTAB Battles

Photo credit: The American Lawyer

Summary: In an effort to curtail quality control at the US patent office, voices of the litigation 'industry' promote the irrational theory that the demise of the US is all just the fault of patent reform

THE appeals (or petitions) at the USPTO are working. Many patents are being invalidated when they lack merit. Thanks to PTAB...

Michael Loney, the managing editor of Managing IP, took note of (and apparently graphed) the effects of PTAB fees going up after all the PTAB shaming. It's no secret that patent extremists have bullied USPTO officials into making PTAB less accessible (less affordable) and as Loney explained: "The increase in PTAB fees on Jan 16 had an impact on petition filing. Spike of 37 petitions on Jan 15 per Docket Navigator. As well as smaller but significant numbers of 18 petitions on Jan 12 and 10 on Jan 11..."

Last year was another record year for PTAB; will that trend carry on in spite of these price hikes? We shall see.

Meanwhile, Loney takes note of Allergan's troubles amid its patent "scam" (attempting to dodge PTAB by misuse of tribal immunity). "There are now about a dozen class-action antitrust lawsuits pending against Allergan", he wrote, "that allege “a multi-pronged effort to block generic versions of Restasis from coming to market.”"

So Allergan not only resorted to patent scams but also let poor people die in the process. We hope that PTAB will soon invalidate all those patents that Allergan is trying to shelter behind tribes. Allergan knows darn well why it's trying to avoid PTAB.

Dennis Crouch also wrote about Allergan. The firm is collapsing, it already faces multiple probes, it is laying off staff and it engages in patent scams. Here is what Crouch said:

There are now about a dozen class-action antitrust lawsuits pending against Allergan that allege “a multi-pronged effort to block generic versions of Restasis from coming to market.

[...]

The outcome of the antitrust lawsuits will at least partially depend upon the pending PTAB IPR proceedings. The patents at issue were invalidated following a bench trial in the E.D.Tex. with Federal Circuit Judge Bryson sitting by designation as the trial court. Allergan has appealed that order.

In this particular case, PTAB does a public service outside the context of patents alone. Allergan's abusive tactics can be stopped by invalidation of key patents.

In other news about PTAB, WiFi One makes another belated appearance. To quote:

The Federal Circuit’s softening of the appeal bar (35 U.S.C. €§ 314(d)) in WiFi One will now allow the Court to consider matters unrelated to the merits of an institution decision, and in some cases, well-established precedent of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB).

We already wrote several articles about this case. It is worth noting this comment about the EPO, bemoaning the patent microcosm's rants about PTAB:

Lucky this wasn't a US IPR decision. My ears wouldn't have survived the sonic whine from the "IT'S NOT FAAAIIIIIIRRRRRRRR!!!!" brigade. Aeroplanes would have fallen from the sky and satellites knocked out of their orbits, and all because the spoiled brats are throwing their toys out of their prams.

It is NOT a point of law of fundamental importance. All points of law can have deleterious effects, but luckily I, and many others, have studied my subject. Foresight is a wonderful thing!

PTAB is meanwhile being bashed by the patent trolls' lobby (IAM et al). Yesterday we saw the Conservative, Koch-funded lobbyist Adam Mossoff complaining about lobbying and defending patent trolls, as usual. They have a new tactic; seeing that the US is declining, based on press reports, they blame it all on AIA/PTAB/IPRs. Mossoff wrote: "It is lobbying money like this - and the hundreds of millions these companies have spent lobbying over the decade before 2017 - that created the "patent troll" narrative in D.C. and the resulting moral panic about the fundamental role of #patent rights in #innovation economy..."

Mossoff has long denied that patent trolls are a problem (let alone that they exist). Here is another new example (Moskowitz). To quote: “Score another one for Seoul while Silicon Valley slides. The U.S. dropped out of the top 10 in the 2018 Bloomberg Innovation Index for the first time in the six years the gauge has been compiled. South Korea and Sweden retained their No. 1 & No. 2 rankings.” #AIA #PTAB to blame"

I challenged him on this baseless claim and there's quite a conversation there. He very much refused to accept that other factors played a role in this decline. "This is laughable," I told him, "and a self-serving deception blaming patent reform for US decline..."

He stood firm with his claim nonetheless. IAM soon joined in, arguing things to the same effect. IAM cites the Chamber of Commerce as a source for some drama intended to claim that patent policy (e.g. AIA) has been the cause for a decline of the US. "DC sources tell IAM that Andrei Iancu confirmation vote for @uspto director is expected before mid-February," it said, having also written this blog post about it:

In a confirmation hearing performance that played well with a broad range of stakeholders, Iancu gave every indication of being fully aware of some of the gripes levelled against the US patent system and made a point of calling for balance on more than one occasion. “The accused infringer in one case may be the IP owner in another and a patent owner in one area of technology or science may be a member of the public trying to design around someone else’s patent in another area,” he told the commitee. “The playing field must be even for all.”

[...]

If Iancu is confirmed by the middle of February, then his start in the job will coincide with the US Chamber of Commerce’s launch of its 2018 International IP Index, an analysis of IP regimes around the world in which the US last year slumped to 10th (tied with Hungary) in a ranking of the relative strength of countries’ patent systems. The latest index is due to be published on 8th February and if the US were to slip again it would give Iancu a sense of the scale of the task that he faces.

That last paragraph is pure propaganda from a corporate front group, the Chamber of Commerce.

There is still time to stop this appointment, which is about putting a patent 'industry' mole in charge of the USPTO. It's not hard to envision what he would do. ⬆