Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Federal Circuit, a So-called 'Court', Increasingly Refuted by US Courts and the Appeal Board (PTAB)

Sanity fights its way back into a system which is dominated by large corporations and trolls-leaning 'think tanks'

CAFC corruption
The above [1, 2, 3, 4] are symptoms of a much broader and systemic problem



Summary: The US Federal Circuit (initiator of software patents), or “CAFC” as it's commonly referred to, gets increasingly involved in patent cases and spreads its bias on such matters in ways that even patent professionals find dubious

"The data released from the USPTO in its annual report shades the truth somewhat," wrote Patently-O yesterday. "but includes a number of important signals."



"The Federal Circuit may as well just become synonymous with or renamed to Federal Patent Court."The EPO's report also shaded the truth. That's what these self-serving (and not independent) reports do. In the case of the USPTO -- as is increasingly the case under Battistelli at the EPO -- only numbers count, not quality. The integrity of the processes (notably examination) is severely compromised in the name of short-term monetary gains. This is not acceptable.

Another new article from Patently-O says that "the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) hears patent appeals, but some readers may be surprised when told that the CAFC also hears, inter alia, appeals from the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“CAVC”)."

Techrights spent years writing about the Federal Circuit, which is rife with corruption and patent maximalism, including software patents which originally came about from there. Anything that gives CAFC even more power would put at risk the entire system. Patently-O says that the "Federal Circuit Now Receiving More Appeals Arising from the PTO than the District Courts". It's all about patent feuds now. Good for patent lawyers, not for anybody else except their biggest clients (large corporations). "Appeals arising from district court patent infringement cases," wrote Patently-O, "have historically made up about a third of the court’s docket. In 2011, for example, appeals from the district courts constituted 33% of appeals filed, while appeals from the PTO were about 9%."

The Federal Circuit may as well just become synonymous with or renamed to Federal Patent Court. Here is a patent lawyer (from Troutman Sanders) writing about CAFC, bemoaning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), as usual, as PTAB helps crush software patents. To quote one paragraph, "Judge Newman wrote in dissent that the PTAB’s interpretation runs afoul of the AIA’s intent to create an efficient alternative forum for resolving patent disputes, since a failure to resolve all claims before the PTAB leads to duplication in district court."

Actually, the district courts would not be needed if the USPTO properly did its job in the post-Alice era and PTAB completed the job by throwing in the trash invalid (e.g. abstract) patents that the USPTO erroneous of fraudulently (for personal gain) granted. Years ago we noted that the USPTO had been giving financial incentives to accept patent applications rather than reject/decline them. What kind of system is that? Is there any illusion left of objectivity?

MIP, another patent maximalism site, wrote yesterday about "PTAB issues to watch in 2016". It said that the "Patent Trial and Appeal Board is taking a harder line on institution, while PTAB watchers eagerly await a face-off at the Supreme Court over claim construction and the Federal Circuit increasingly pulls the Board up on procedural issues" (SCOTUS has already issued its judgment on that in the Alice case).

Writing about CAFC, Patently-O says that "In a split decision [it] has again rejected a jury verdict" (so much for justice). "Here," said the author, "the alleged infringing meters are designed to be bolted down to exterior walls and left in place for years. Of course, it is fairly easy for an electrician to move these meters and install them, but they are designed to operate in a fixed location once installed. The majority ruled that the best (and only reasonable) construction of the term involves both of these requirements (portability and non-permanent location)."

"Decades after CAFC brought all sorts of ludicrous patents to the US (notably software patents) they seem to be fading or ebbing away."Another new Patently-O post by Dennis Crouch says: "In an interesting and important mandamus ruling, the Federal Circuit has ordered the district court to withdraw its order compelling discovery of communications with non-attorney patent agents."

The Federal Circuit sure isn't doing much to improve its image. It engages not only in its own turf wars but also others'. Consider some belated comments on the recent Lexmark case (EN | ES) that appear in patent maximalism blogs [1, 2]. It increasingly seems like CAFC is so biased that it merely works for corporations, not for justice.

"US courts have become much more defendant friendly," wrote a software patents proponent yesterday, "district courts routinely find against plaintiffs asserting patents – particularly NPEs [patent trolls] – and if they don’t the Federal Circuit (CAFC) often overturns district court judgments."

This patent maximalist, Joff Wild, basically bemoans courts which don't support software patents (the trolls' favourite weapon) and he adds: "Specific decisions from the Supreme Court – Alice, Myriad and Mayo, for example - have had a direct impact on patentability in areas such as software, biotech and business methods."

This is of course a good thing. Decades after CAFC brought all sorts of ludicrous patents to the US (notably software patents) they seem to be fading or ebbing away. Patent maximalists (which include patent lawyers) won't tolerate this defeat. Neither will CAFC.

Recent Techrights' Posts

OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
 
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!
Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC
Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds
Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery
Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market)
Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too
Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster
Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla
India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters
online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???
Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago)
how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s
When the So-called 'Cancel Culture' Sees Everything in Free Software Through the Scopes of 'Sex' (Because It Cannot Argue on Technical or Legal Grounds)
Losing the plot
Links 26/11/2023: Debunking So-called G.A.I. and Sierra Leone's National Curfew
Links for the day
In the 'Phoronix Universe', Single Job Openings at AMD Are News, But Not ~400 Layoffs
like a classifieds section
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Microsoft Shamelessly Attacks Both Git and Projects in GitHub, Using Plagiarism in "AI" Clothing (Exit GitHub Now!)
A mountain of plagiarism
Microsoft Loses Market Share, Market Price of Windows Plunges to Almost Nothing (28 Dollars for Vista 10)
GNU/Linux has grown so potent that Microsoft now charges only dozens of bucks for Vista 10
Professor Eben Moglen Stands with Snowden While Moglen's 'Critics' (Microsofters) Keep Defaming Prominent Whistleblowers
Don't listen to Microsoft liars and weasels, who merely try to "replace" Moglen and override his message
"Check Point" + Microsoft Partnerships Extend to Anti-GNU/Linux FUD
a close partner/pusher of Microsoft tries to alter the narrative (change reality itself)
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 25, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, November 25, 2023
Links 26/11/2023: Fresh Concerns Over North Korea Satellite Ambitions and South China Sea Patrols
Links for the day
Eben Moglen Explains the Connection Between FSF and SFLC (Both of Which Under Attack by Microsofters)
Old clip