Archive for July, 2014

Michelle Lee at the House Judiciary Committee Meeting

Thursday, July 31st, 2014

Michelle Lee appeared yesterday before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary.  You can watch it here:



Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

Judge Gajarsa Cameo at the Federal Circuit

Saturday, July 26th, 2014

Judge Gajarsa made a cameo appearance at the Federal Circuit recently.  He was present to make a motion for the admission of his son to the Federal Circuit bar.  His son, Robert Gajarsa, has apparently clerked for Judge Prost and Judge Chen, as well as Judge Kent Jordan of the Third Circuit.  [Listen].

En banc review of In re Weiler?

Thursday, July 24th, 2014

The Federal Circuit issued a Rule 36 affirmance recently in the case of In re Morrison.  At the heart of the discussion during much of the oral argument was the case of In re Weiler.  The Patent Office explained that In re Weiler supports the proposition that (1) if an Applicant’s application receives a restriction requirement for inventions A and B and (2) the Applicant elects A and only pursues a divisional application for B, (3) the Applicant/Patent Owner of patents for A and B may not use the reissue statute to pursue a third and distinct invention, C.  While most patent attorneys will say — no, that’s ludicrous — such is In re Weiler.  [Listen].

The panel comprised of Judges Moore, O’Malley, and Clevenger questioned the logic behind In re Weiler during the oral argument.   For example, Judge Clevenger pointed out why should restriction practice, which exists merely for the convenience of the Patent Office, deprive a patent owner of a statutory right grounded in the reissue statute? [Listen]. Nevertheless, the associate solicitor from the Patent Office doggedly defended In re Weiler. [Listen] and [Listen]. If you were curious, In re Weiler is not cited in the MPEP.

Restrictions have been relatively common in the biotech arts for quite some time.  Anectdotal evidence suggests that restrictions are on the rise in the electrical and computer arts in recent years.

You can listen to the entire oral argument of In re Morrison [here].

Optional Language in Patent Specification

Friday, July 11th, 2014

Today’s Federal Circuit opinion in H-W Technology, L.C. v. Overstock.com, Inc., ___ F. 3d ___ (Fed. Cir. 2014) is of interest for at least two reasons.   For one, the case adds to the court’s growing body of case law that holds a claim invalid when the claim includes both method and apparatus claim elements.  In today’s opinion, Chief Judge Prost notes:

As noted by the district court, this case is very similar to two cases, IPXL Holdings, L.L.C. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 430
F.3d 1377, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2005), and In re Katz Interactive Call Processing Patent Litigation, 639 F.3d 1303, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2011). In each of those cases this court held claims indefinite for combining two classes of invention.

The claim at issue in IPXL is reproduced below:

The system of claim 2 [including an input means]
wherein the predicted transaction information
comprises both a transaction type and transaction
parameters associated with that transaction type,
and the user uses the input means to either change
the predicted transaction information or accept
the displayed transaction type and transaction
parameters.

IPXL, 430 F.3d at 1384 (citation omitted).

The IPXL court reasoned as follows:

[I]t is unclear whether infringement of [the claim]
occurs when one creates a system that allows the
user to change the predicted transaction information
or accept the displayed transaction, or
whether infringement occurs when the user actually
uses the input means to change transaction
information or uses the input means to accept a
displayed transaction. Because [the claim] recites
both a system and the method for using that system,
it does not apprise a person of ordinary skill
in the art of its scope, and it is invalid under section
112, paragraph 2.

Id.

Similarly, the court in In re Katz stated:

Like the language used in the claim at issue in
IPXL (“wherein . . . the user uses”), the language
used in Katz’s claims (“wherein . . . callers digitally
enter data” and “wherein . . . callers provide . . .
data”) is directed to user actions, not system capabilities.

In re Katz, 639 F.3d at 1318.

The present case falls squarely within the IPXL and
In re Katz holdings. Here, the disputed language (“wherein
said user completes . . .” and “wherein said user selects
. . .”) is nearly identical to the disputed language in
those cases. And, as in those cases, it is unclear here
when infringement would occur. Claim 17 is thus indefinite.

H-W Technology, slip opinion at pp. 12-13.

Also of note is the attention paid by the court to the use of optional language in the patent specification.  Judge Prost wrote for the court:

Regardless of whether this excerpt clearly contains the missing limitation, “no-contact transactions” appear to be optional premium listing services. See id. col. 22 ll. 14–20 (“The services may be categorized according to baseline directory services 1901, premium listing services 1902, and advertising services 1903. A description of the services that can be offered under each category and how these are supported by converged communications content distribution platform owner 1204 (FIG. 12) are described below.” (emphasis added)). The optional nature of such services negates any argument that such a limitation in the claim is implied as necessary to the invention. See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1323 (warning against “importing limitations from the specification into the claims”).

H-W Technology, slip opinion at pp. 7-8.

You can read the court’s opinion here: [link].

Collective Nouns for Patent Professionals

Sunday, July 6th, 2014

I stumbled across an article the other day that noted unusual collective nouns for animals.  For example, a group of crows is referred to as a “murder of crows.”   Some other examples are  a “coalition of cheetahs,” a “convocation of eagles, a “mob of kangaroos,”  an “unkindness of ravens,” a “drove of asses,” and an “embarrassment of pandas.”

In the patent community, we don’t really have any collective nouns for patent professionals.  So, I thought it might be good to get the ball rolling.  Here are some possibilities with some left blank for you to exercise your imagination.

A shrewdness of patent prosecutors.  (FYI, “shrewdness” is also used for a “shrewdness of apes.”)

An ambush of patent litigators.  (An “ambush of tigers” is already in use.)

A gauntlet of patent trolls.

A bellowing of patent bloggers.

A cacophony of patent blog commentators.

A wisdom of PTAB judges.  (“Wisdom” is currently used for a “wisdom of wombats.”)

A __________ of Federal Circuit judges.

A __________ of Supreme Court justices espousing on 35 U.S.C. §101.

A ___________of Federal Circuit clerks.

A ___________ of patent law professors.