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The Senate Judiciary Committee has posted the committee questionnaire of Evan J. Wallach on its website.  Judge Wallach is currently a judge on the United States Court of International Trade and a nominee for the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  You can view the committee questionnarie [here].  Judge Wallach has presided over at least one patent case at the district court level.  No Senate Judiciary Committee hearing has been scheduled for Judge Wallach at this time.

The Federal Circuit has updated its web site with Judge Newman’s eulogy of Judge Friedman that took place at a gathering last month at the Cosmos Club:

Judge Friedman, our colleague and friend, has moved to the banks of memory. We treasure his memory. And we extend our condolences to Judge Friedman’s family, and his friends.

I’m honored to speak for the court, for at this moment Chief Judge Rader is performing a wedding in California – a schedule he couldn’t change. He wrote, from the wedding site: “Please carry my respect and love for Dan in your hearts at his service”. We do indeed.

Respect and love are the markers of our memories of our friend and colleague. We shall not forget Judge Friedman’s dignity, his warmth, his humor. We remember his lifetime of scholarship, his brilliance and his wisdom, all generously shared.

His seventy years of public service started long before he came to the judiciary. In the office of solicitor general, his legal advice to the nation, and his representation as its advocate, had already ensconced him in the annals of good government. So it was fitting that in 1978 President Carter called him to be Chief Judge of the United States Court of Claims — the eleventh chief judge since 1858.

The Court of Claims was at the foundation of nation’s rule of law – that the people can sue their government, and receive even-handed justice. Judge Friedman told me that he expected to finish his career in that role – and then, about a year later, the idea popped up of this curious new judicial structure, supposed to move the court system into the era of science and technology, and somehow incorporating the reputation of the historic Court of Claims.

Judge Friedman knew that I’d been involved in those early efforts, and he told me that he still wondered what the Court of Claims had to do with the progress of science. But I knew that as Chief Judge he had supported the change. He knew – we all knew — that if he did not, it would not have happened.

I thought then, and now — that Judge Friedman had an unusually clear vision of the role of the courts in service to a great nation – and if that service was somehow thought to be slipping, we should do whatever’s in our power to fix it. And he did. I also saw that Judge Friedman’s intellectual curiosity embraced the culture of science. He was fascinated by the movement of electrons, and the advances of chemistry and biology.

Still, with the transition from the Court of Claims, he assured that the precedents of history were preserved, not only by the formality of adopting them, as the Federal Circuit did as its first judicial act — but by reinforcing their truths.

I was the first judge appointed to the new court, and my chambers were next-door to Judge Friedman’s, on the ninth floor. He made sure I felt welcome, as the first intruder into the domain of the Court of Claims. I soon came upon a case involving a claim against the United States, and I mentioned my uneasiness with deciding against the government. He twinkled – we all remember his twinkle – and he said “that’s our job”, and he quoted Abraham Lincoln — about the duty of government to render justice against itself.

I haven’t wavered since.

Yesterday I talked to Judge Gajarsa in New Hampshire. Before I could ask him, he said “Dan was the epitome of what a judge will be.”

Dan’s opinions are a treat to read, not just because they advance the law in some very difficult areas, but because of their elegance of style and the purity of their reasoning.

It would be easy to assume that the scholarly tradition from which Judge Friedman came would be remote from the world of applied science, at least in the arcane new areas of intellectual property law. Instead, he was intensely practical, wise and savvy in the law and the world — with a powerful a sense of justice.

Judge Friedman had, as one would expect, a deep understanding of the judicial process. As a judge, he showed the most profound respect for our inherited law, without diverging from the statutory law. His standards were never compromised. He was a model of judicial elegance. He never showed off, never embarrassed counsel or his colleagues.

Maybe the word is “urbane”. I never saw him badger a lawyer. He never took advantage of his position, looking down at counsel, who can’t answer back.

In bearing and temperament he was made to be a judge. He always listened, and I never saw him show impatience or inattention. He would draw out his colleagues, even as he had the knowledge and confidence of vast experience.

In every way, he will be missed. Dan Friedman’s life was a life of service. He served the law and the nation with a wisdom that’s rare, even among judges. It was a joy to be in his company. We remember his kindness and his smile – and his scholarship, his balance, his sensitivity.

We mourn the loss of our dear colleague, and the nation’s loss of a powerful intellect. He moves to the memory of history.

Here is the link to all of the eulogies: [Link].

 Last year’s AIPLA Electronics and Computer Law Roadshow had one of the best line-ups of speakers that I’ve seen in quite some time.  It got me to thinking what would be the ideal seminar.  Here’s what I came up with for my own personal tastes.  You probably have your own preferences as well.  I don’t know that any of the suggested speakers would actually want to talk on these subjects; but, I think it would be interesting to hear their opinions. 

Day 1

Day 2

 *“The Great Debate I” took place three years ago between the Obama and McCain campaigns on the topic of patent policy. You can view that debate [here].

The Federal Circuit has posted on its website eulogies by some of Judge Friedman’s former law clerks.  You can read the eulogies at this [LINK].

Appeals Filed to Federal Circuit During Fiscal Year 2010

One might wonder if the Senate Judiciary Committee is daring the Obama Administration to make some judicial recess appointments (or complicit in the Obama Administration doing so).  On its website, the Senate Judiciary Committee currently has this post:

Did You Know? President Eisenhower’s appointment of Potter Stewart to the Supreme Court in 1958 was the last recess appointment to the Supreme Court under Article II, Section 2, Clause 3, of the Constitution. In 1960, the Senate passed a resolution – which had no legally binding effect – expressing the Senate’s objection to recess appointments to the Supreme Court.

With two circuit court (Seventh Circuit and Federal Circuit) nominees still waiting for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee after more than a year of initially being nominated (while subsequent circuit court nominees have received hearings within a month of being nominated), one might argue that the Senate has had a fair opportunity to advise the President and chosen not to exercise it.

Here is an article on judicial recess appointments: [Article].  According to the article, judicial recess appointments were most recently used by Presidents Carter and Clinton. 

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Update: The article linked to above was written before the end of the Bush Administration.  President Bush made two judicial recess appointments at the circuit court level.

According to some accounts, the Senate is not currently in “recess” and cannot go into “recess” without the permission of the House.  Instead, the Senate is currently in “adjournment.”

The date of the AIPLA Electronics and Computer Patent Law Summit in St. Paul, Minnesota on August 16th is approaching quickly.  One particularly interesting panel of note will be the one dealing with Therasense v. Becton, Dickinson and Co. that will reunite John Whealan and Ray Chen, who both took part in the en banc oral argument of Therasense.

You can view the details of the program at this link to the AIPLA brochure.

Senior Judge Glenn Archer, Jr. passed away on July 27th. The Federal Circuit posted this announcement on its web site:

The Honorable Glenn L. Archer, Jr., died at Friendship Village’s Hospice of the Valley in Tempe, Arizona on July 27, 2011. Chief Judge Rader, in a message to the court announcing Judge Archer’s death said: “ Glenn was our third Chief Judge and the first Chief Judge of our court to start his judicial career with the Federal Circuit. He led our court through some of our most challenging transitional years. When we recall Glenn, we will speak of his magnificent service including his tenure as our Chief Judge, but we will mostly remember that his heart was grand enough to comprehend the hardships and challenges of every person he encountered. His great compassion made him a great judge and a great leader.”

Judge Archer was appointed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by President Ronald Reagan and assumed duties as Circuit Judge on December 23, 1985. He became Chief Judge on March 18, 1994, and served in that capacity until December 24, 1997, when he assumed senior status. While in senior status, Judge Archer continued to serve on the Federal Circuit and often sat by designation with the Ninth Circuit in both Pasadena and San Francisco, California.

Prior to his twenty-five years on the court, Judge Archer served as Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, United States Department of Justice from 1982 to 1984. During his time in private practice, Judge Archer was an associate in the Washington, DC law firm of Hamel, Park, McCabe and Saunders from 1956 to1960 and a partner from 1960 to 1981. Judge Archer served as First Lieutenant in the Judge Advocate General’s Office, United States Air Force from 1954 to 1956. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1951 and a J.D., with honors, from George Washington University Law School in 1954.

Another interesting aspect of the recent Fuzzysharp v. 3DLabs oral argument was the attention paid to the  Research Corp. Technologies v. Microsoft case decided back in December 2010.  In that case, Chief Judge Rader wrote for the court:

The invention presents functional and palpable applications in the field of computer technology. These inventions address “a need in the art for a method of and apparatus for the halftone rendering of gray scale images in which a digital data processor is utilized in a simple and precise manner to accomplish the halftone render-ing.” ’310 patent col.3 ll.33-40. The fact that some claims in the ’310 and ’228 patents require a “high contrast film,” “a film printer,” “a memory,” and “printer and display devices” also confirm this court’s holding that the invention is not abstract. Indeed, this court notes that inventions with specific applications or improvements to technologies in the marketplace are not likely to be so abstract that they override the statutory language and framework of the Patent Act.

 

This court also observes that the claimed methods incorporate algorithms and formulas that control the masks and halftoning. These algorithms and formulas, even though admittedly a significant part of the claimed combination, do not bring this invention even close to abstractness that would override the statutory categories and context. The Supreme Court has already made abundantly clear that inventions incorporating and relying upon even “a well known mathematical equation” do not lose eligibility because “several steps of the process [use that] mathematical equation.” Diehr, 450 U.S. at 185. Indeed, the Supreme Court counseled:

In determining the eligibility of respondents’ claimed process for patent protection under section 101, their claims must be considered as a whole. It is inappropriate to dissect the claims into old and new elements and then to ignore the presence of the old elements in the analysis. This is particularly true in a process claim because a new combination of steps may be patentable even though all the constituents of the combination were well known and in common use before the combination was made.

 

Id. at 188.  Borrowing from the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Diehr, this court observes that the patentees here “do not seek to patent a mathematical formula. Instead, they seek patent protection for a process of” halftoning in computer applications. Id. at 187. Moreover, because the inventions claimed in the ’310 and ’228 patents are directed to patent-eligible subject matter, the process claims at issue, which claim aspects and applica-tions of the same subject matter, are also patent-eligible.

(emphasis added)

Refreshingly, Judges O’Malley and Reyna noted that Research Corp. is precedent and therefore must be followed.  Judge O’Malley first commented: [Listen].   Indeed, she commented that in view of Research Corp. abstract ideas are only to be found in the most rare of circumstances, essentially: [Listen].   

And, Judge Reyna later added this comment: [Listen]. 

It has already been more than six months since Research Corp. was decided.  The Federal Circuit has noted that it is precedent that must be followed.  Will the PTO’s Subject Matter Eligibility Guidelines committee follow suit with updated guidelines?

The recent oral argument in Fuzzysharp Technologies, Inc. v. 3D Labs, Inc., Ltd.  is extremely interesting if you are involved in the patenting of businesss methods and computer software.  No decision has been issued in the case; but, the oral argument in and of itself is informative.  The issue on appeal concerns whether the district court was in error in granting a summary judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. §101 for the asserted claims.   There are five claims at issue with claim 1 of the 6,618,047 patent reading as follows: 

 1. A method of reducing the visibility related computations in 3-D computer graphics, the visibility related computations being performed on 3-D surfaces or their sub-elements, or a selected set of both, the method comprising:

 identifying grid cells which arc under or related to the projections or extents of projections associated with at least one of said 3-D surfaces or their sub-elements;

comparing data associated with said at least one of 3-D surfaces or their sub-elements with stored data associated with the grid cells;

determining which of said at least one of 3-D surfaces or their sub-elements is always invisible or always visible to a viewpoint or a group of viewpoints by projection based computations prior to a visibility computation; and

 ignoring said determined at least one of the 3-D surfaces or their sub-elements during said visibility computation.

Judge Bryson had a couple of interesting inquiries that were directed toward claiming internal processing of data by a computer, presumably without post-solution activity by the computer (such as displaying).  You can listen to his comments  [here] and [here].

The district court summary judgment order is available here: [Link].

The entire oral argument is available here: [Listen].

The USPTO has a new public training portal that allows the public to view training courses similar to the courses that examiners take.  The home page states:

The USPTO Training Portal offers, via webcast, the same classes that USPTO patent and trademark examiners are required to take. The U.S. Department of Commerce, NTIS, in agreement with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, introduces the USPTO Training Portal!

The patent process is not simple. There are numerous scientific and legal issues to navigate, not to mention specific language and techniques that can help or hurt your application. You may not know all the ins and outs, but the patent examiner does. Why? Because the examiner has specialized training!

Now you can take the same courses as the examiners!

Some of the courses are available for a nominal fee. Others are free.  You can check out the site here: [Link].

The other weekend I discovered that MIT has an “opencourseware” site where it has posted videos of different semester long courses.  Apparently MIT has been doing this for many years — I’m just late to the party in noticing it.  If you like to learn new subjects, want an update on a course that you first took decades ago, or maybe have a child thinking about majoring in science or engineering, you can check out the site at this link: [Link].   It looks like other colleges have similar videos posted on YouTube; but, I think MIT has the most organized approach with its site.

In Diamond v. Diehr, Justice Rehnquist once prompted the government’s counsel with the question “Incidentially, what is an algorithm?”  [Listen].  MIT has a course to answer that question should it ever arise again: [Introduction to Algorithms].