All fees ought to be paid/accommodated for by the party that pursued bogus patents

Reference: Inside How the Federalist Society & Koch Brothers Are Pushing for Trump to Reshape Federal Judiciary

Summary: The Conservative effort to bypass the legal process (e.g. by exploiting Native Americans for their immunity) and defend terrible patents; more examples of awful attempts to simply dodge justice -- like those defended by the 'blowhards' of the patent microcosm (Watchtroll et al)

THE Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is a wonderful thing. To oppose PTAB is to oppose patent quality itself.

Who would oppose PTAB? Check out this upcoming event from a right-wing think tank. In it, Microsoft's front group the Business Software Alliance (BSA) is trying to change policy so as to enable a "scam" around PTAB (Michael Shore the "scammer" is there also, not just the Vice President of Global Policy at BSA). It's a stacked panel.

Who promotes this thing? Mr. Mossoff, a Koch-funded scholar best known for defending patent trolls and other predatory behaviour. He speaks of "abuses of PTAB" as if PTAB itself is abusive. It's like these people come from another planet.

Patently-O, which has engaged in endless PTAB bashing for a very long time, spoke about "patent games" the other day. A patent was deemed unpatentable, whereupon came not an objection but games:

In an ex parte reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 6,284,471, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the examiner’s conclusions that NYU’s claims unpatentable under the judicial doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting. NYU and J&J have played a few games with this particular patent family of 30+ patents. The claims relate to antibodies and assay methods associated with a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and is said to cover J&J’s blockbuster drug Remicade used to treat so-called autoimmune diseases.

[...]

The precedent above is not new and was well known to the patentee here by the time of this dispute. Thus, during the reexamination the patentee attempted to retroactively amend its filing to transform the application from a continuation-in-part into a divisional application.

On another day, NantKwest v Matal was brought up by sites of dedicated PTAB bashers. This was referred to as an "attorney fee" (as Patently-O put it) or "lawyer fees" (as Watchtroll put it) case. This is what it's about:

Under patent law, an applicant dissatisfied with the decision of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board can seek review by filing an action against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in U.S. District Court, but under Section 145 of the law “all expenses of the proceedings shall be paid by the applicant.” The USPTO recently re-interpreted “all expenses” to include payment for its lawyers.

If someone gets granted a bogus patent, it's probably that someone who should pay for all the resultant mess. The petitioner (a sort of appellant) does a public service, especially if PTAB deems a granted patent to be invalid at the end. That really ought to be common sense.

It's not hard to understand why some circles fear the Rule of Law, including the Kochs themselves. Not to mention patent trolls, who often operate extrajudicially. ⬆