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Patent Death Squad System Upheld by Supreme Court

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg Patent ‘Death Squad’ ...
irradiated lodge mother
  04/24/18
SCOTUS has repeatedly gone after patent attorneys, no lube
trip chapel alpha
  04/24/18
as they should. LOL that a bunch of nerd autist lawyers (wel...
irradiated lodge mother
  04/24/18
better article U.S. Supreme Court upholds legality of pat...
irradiated lodge mother
  04/24/18
See, Donald Trump is actually liberal
olive gas station patrolman
  05/02/18


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Date: April 24th, 2018 12:17 PM
Author: irradiated lodge mother

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Patent ‘Death Squad’ System Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court

By and

Updated on

Justices vote 7-2 to back system used by Google, Apple

Drugmakers opposed system as improperly taking away rights

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an administrative review system that has helped Google Inc., Apple Inc. and other companies invalidate hundreds of issued patents.

The justices, voting 7-2 on Tuesday, said a review board that critics call a patent "death squad" wasn’t unconstitutionally wielding powers that belong to the courts.

Silicon Valley companies have used the system as a less-expensive way to ward off demands for royalties, particularly from patent owners derided as "trolls" because they don’t use their patents to make products.

The ruling caused shares to drop in companies whose main source of revenue -- their patents -- are under threat from challenges. VirnetX Holding Corp., which is trying to protect almost $1 billion in damages it won against Apple, dropped as much as 12 percent. The patent office has said its patents are invalid in a case currently before an appeals court.

The court’s ruling “will reassure, if not embolden, patent challengers,” said Christopher Bruno, a patent lawyer with Schiff Hardin. Patent owners are likely to turn their focus to asking courts to scrutinize some of the procedures used by the board, he said.

‘Public Rights’

Drugmakers, research companies and independent inventors criticized the Patent and Trademark Office system, saying it makes it harder to fend off competitors and protect their ideas from copycats. Congress set up the system in 2011.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the court’s majority opinion, rejecting contentions that issued patents are the type of rights that must be adjudicated in the federal courts.

"The decision to grant a patent is a matter involving public rights -- specifically, the grant of a public franchise," Thomas wrote. The review system "is simply a reconsideration of that grant, and Congress has permissibly reserved the PTO’s authority to conduct that reconsideration."

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented.

Since the reviews began in 2012, more than 7,000 petitions have been filed, primarily on computer and high-tech patents.

The case is Oil States v. Greene’s Energy Group, 16-712.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3958435&forum_id=2#35908663)



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Date: April 24th, 2018 12:23 PM
Author: trip chapel alpha

SCOTUS has repeatedly gone after patent attorneys, no lube

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3958435&forum_id=2#35908706)



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Date: April 24th, 2018 4:40 PM
Author: irradiated lodge mother

as they should. LOL that a bunch of nerd autist lawyers (well even more nerd autist than normal) should be the most lucartive part of the profession. they shoulda stuck with programming

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3958435&forum_id=2#35910941)



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Date: April 24th, 2018 4:40 PM
Author: irradiated lodge mother

better article

U.S. Supreme Court upholds legality of patent review process

Andrew Chung

4 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday gave its stamp of approval to a government review process prized by high technology companies as an easy and cheap way to combat “patent trolls” and others that bring patent infringement lawsuits.

The phrase "Equal Justice Under Law" adorns the west entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington December 3, 2014. Picture taken December 3, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The justices ruled 7-2 that a type of in-house patent review at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office does not violate a defendant’s right under the U.S. Constitution to have a case adjudicated by a federal court and jury. The court ruled against Oil States International Inc, a Houston-based oilfield services company that had challenged the legality of the process, called inter partes review (IPR).

Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the decision authored by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas to uphold the reviews.

While the ruling gave Silicon Valley reason to celebrate, it was sure to displease name-brand drugmakers, which had called the IPR process a threat to innovation. Firms dubbed “patent trolls” have a business model based on suing other companies over patents rather than actually making products.

The U.S. Congress created the reviews as part of a 2011 law to deal with the perceived high number of flimsy patents that had been issued by the patent office in prior years. Since then, the patent office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board has canceled all or part of a patent in about 80 percent of its final decisions. In 2015, it canceled an Oil States patent on protecting wellhead equipment after an IPR proceeding.

These reviews have been especially popular with companies like Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd that are frequent targets of patent infringement suits. On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies like AbbVie Inc, Allergan plc and Celgene Corp called for the IPR system to be scrapped.

In challenging the review process, Oil States argued that patents are private property that may be the revoked only by a federal court. The standard for canceling a patent is higher in federal courts than in the review proceedings.

Thomas, writing for the court, called the IPR process an extension of the Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to grant a patent.

“Inter partes review is simply a reconsideration of that grant, and Congress has permissibly reserved the PTO’s authority to conduct that reconsideration,” Thomas wrote.

Though it upheld the IPR process, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in a separate case on Tuesday that faulted one aspect of how the reviews are carried out. The justices said that when several parts of a patent are challenged, the patent office does not have the discretion to review only some of them. That ruling split the court along ideological lines, with its five conservatives in the majority and four liberals dissenting.

COSTLY LITIGATION

A ruling striking down the reviews could have diverted the bulk of patent disputes back to federal courts, where litigation is more drawn out and expensive. A patent office review costs about $350,000 to litigate fully, whereas in district court it could be $3 million, Apple said in legal papers.

The case began when an Oil States subsidiary sued in 2012 claiming Houston-based rival Greene’s Energy Group infringed its patent for use in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of oil wells. Greene’s responded by filing an inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the administrative tribunal run by the patent office that conducts the reviews. The board later canceled key parts of the patent.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized Washington-based patent court, upheld that decision in 2016. Oil States appealed to the Supreme Court, telling the justices that the reviews are not wiping out weak patents as advertised but instead “the best United States patents.”

Backed by the President Donald Trump’s administration, Greene’s Energy also had the support of large technology firms including Alphabet’s Google and Intel Corp.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3958435&forum_id=2#35910937)



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Date: May 2nd, 2018 3:23 AM
Author: olive gas station patrolman

See, Donald Trump is actually liberal

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3958435&forum_id=2#35964369)