Recent: Where Opposition to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB, AIA) Has Come From Over the Past Week If Not Year

Summary: With the Oil States decision expected some time in the coming weeks (or few months), the anti-PTAB lobby gets a little louder again and there are responses to it, such as the letter above

THE value of software patents is being diminished if not outright decimated by Alice. This is a good thing. The USPTO has become more selective, PTAB ensures that examiners do their job properly, and courts mostly agree with PTAB when they affirm rejections of abstract patents.

"So rather than call it "STRONGER Patents Act" why not just call it "ABOLISH PTAB Act"?"The patent trolls' lobby isn't happy; it's still trying to offer tips for dodging PTAB, it selectively covers a reversal of PTAB decisions, which is the exception rather than the norm ("The Court reversed a PTAB decision invalidating Power Integrations’ U.S. Patent No. 6,249,786 (“the patent”) as anticipated because the Board’s decision was based on an unreasonably broad claim construction.") and Steve Brachmann from Watchtroll is promoting an anti-PTAB bill only hours after the site had cherry-picked a reversal of a PTAB decision. Brachmann says, by his own admission: "Most of the STRONGER Patents Act deals with both inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) proceedings used to challenge patent validity at the PTAB."

"The patent trolls' lobby does not really think it'll ever pass (it said this repeatedly), but these people still try."So rather than call it "STRONGER Patents Act" why not just call it "ABOLISH PTAB Act"? Because PTAB is widely supported by just about everyone except law firms and patent trolls (along with a few pharmaceutical giants)? The words "STRONGER Patents" are just pure marketing and in reality the bill strives to weaken patent, i.e. reduce patent quality. We wrote about that several times last year.

The patent trolls' lobby does not really think it'll ever pass (it said this repeatedly), but these people still try. At best, what they might accomplish here is a sort of publicity stunt just in time for Oil States. Richard Lloyd from the patent trolls' lobby (IAM) is the latest to push this anti-PTAB bill ("STRONGER Patents Act") and he wrote the following yesterday:

Patent legislation was firmly back on the agenda last week with the introduction of a version of the STRONGER Patents Act in the House of Representatives and a bill introduced in the Senate to extend the USPTO’s fee-setting authority. The House version of the STRONGER Act is largely the same as the bill introduced in the Senate last year and which has been championed most actively by Senator Coons and supported by the bio and pharma communities and advocacy groups such as the Qualcomm-backed Innovation Alliance.

We wrote about who was behind this bill exactly one week ago and it's clear that just about every technology firm is firmly against it. United for Patent Reform, representing so many companies that it took 3 pages just to list them, said: "The STRONGER Patents Act would damage American innovation and undermine vital congressional reforms that American businesses have relied on to fight patent trolls. Read our letter to Rep Steve Stivers and Rep Bill Foster..."

It's a PDF, so we made a screenshot of it.

"There are actually some people in the patent microcosm who are delusional enough to repeatedly and publicly suggest that patents and patents alone (they mean AIA) is the cause for the decline of the US; they often use "China!" as a dog-whistle.""The STRONGER Patents Act will only distract Congress from the real problems facing the U.S. patent system and plaguing the American economy," Benjamin Henrion quoted from it.

There are actually some people in the patent microcosm who are delusional enough to repeatedly and publicly suggest that patents and patents alone (they mean AIA) is the cause for the decline of the US; they often use "China!" as a dog-whistle. ⬆