Bonum Certa Men Certa

Oil States is a Lost Cause for Enemies of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB); Now They Push Droplets v Iancu Instead

The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been restoring patent sanity in recent years and judges must adapt. The Eastern District of Texas (EDTX, or TXED below) remains the outlier.

Docket Navigator chart
Image credit/original: Docket Navigator



Summary: The latest PTAB news and updates from courtrooms where frivolous litigation with low-quality patents carries on

THE Oil States decision will come soon (Supreme Court 2018). It'll likely be a depressing one for the patent microcosm, or one they'll attempt to spin. For the USPTO it'll mean more of the same, i.e. PTAB correcting and affirming examiners.



"The Oil States decision will come soon (Supreme Court 2018)."The anti-PTAB brigade has been SLAPPing us recently; it does not wish to be criticised. The anti-PTAB brigade also tries to bring another anti-CAFC or anti-PTAB or anti-IPR case to the Supreme Court (in essence defending bogus patents from scrutiny). Yesterday Patently-O promoted Droplets v Iancu, heralding this "new petition for writ of certiorari questions the extent that the Federal Circuit can affirm a PTAB IPR decision on grounds different than those relied upon by the Board."

Seems like nitpicking. Why should judges not be able to go further than PTAB? If a patent is deemed bogus, then so be it, based on the underlying evidence. What ultimately matters is patent justice. To lawyers, however, justice isn't what's most profitable, hence their PTAB bashing is likely to carry on.

"What ultimately matters is patent justice. To lawyers, however, justice isn't what's most profitable, hence their PTAB bashing is likely to carry on."Yesterday we saw Robert Jain from Unified Patents announcing a new milestone, having disarmed a patent troll called Pen-One. "On April 4, 2018," he wrote, "the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 7,281,135 owned and asserted by Pen-One Acquisition Group, LLC, an Equitable IP subsidiary and a well-known NPE. The '135 patent, directed to an identity verification system, has been asserted against such companies as Apple and Samsung."

Samsung and Apple are targeted here, so they have a common/shared interest in this IPR (this troll is a problem they have in common). But that does not mean that they're friends. The latest in the patent battles of Apple (Apple Inc. v Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., et al) was also noted yesterday by Docket Navigator, which wrote:

The court granted in part defendant's motion to exclude the testimony of plaintiff's technical experts because their application of the "designer of ordinary skill in the art" and "ordinary observer" standards to identify the relevant article of manufacture was improper.


Incidentally -- and also quite exceptionally -- Docket Navigator publishes some new charts. It shows how different patent (and beyond) judges decide on cases and included is the "reprehensible" (politicians call him that) Gilstrap, named on the left among names/breakdown of judges. Mind the IPR barcharts.

"The US patent system, if properly reformed by AIA/PTAB, would decrease the number of lawsuits (as well as lawyers) and hence discourage such unfortunate incidents that harm small businesses the most."Regarding another new patent decision, Docket Navigator spoke of a "Parade of Horribles", citing the text from ATEN International Co., Ltd. v Uniclass Technology Co., Ltd. et al.

It's a jury deciding, i.e. people who are likely nontechnical:

Following a jury trial, the court denied defendants' motion for attorney fees under 35 U.S.C. €§ 285 because plaintiff's litigation positions and tactics as a whole were not exceptional.


What's at stake here is who pays for the lawyers, but as usual the lawyers don't need to care all that much. They just do the billing, so plaintiffs and defendants both lose money; the question is, who loses more money.

The US patent system, if properly reformed by AIA/PTAB, would decrease the number of lawsuits (as well as lawyers) and hence discourage such unfortunate incidents that harm small businesses the most.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025