Playing the Numbers Game on U.S. Patent Office Appeals and Trials

Numbers don’t always tell the story, but they can provide interesting highlights. The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) tracks various statistics of patent appeals and trials. The mid-year statistics in 2019 provide an interesting look at the direction of the USPTO. Appeal results remain largely the same, with a longer look at trial […]

IP Legal Considerations for Live Streaming

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If you’re one of the millions of people that log into a social media platform each day, it’s highly likely that you have encountered a rapidly growing number of live streams. Now that live streaming is available to anyone with a smartphone, the potential legal issues and concerns are much more relevant to the average […]

Meet DABUS: An Artificial Intelligence Machine Hoping to Maintain Two Patent Applications in its own Name

By Blog Staff

Three patent offices face questions stemming from the growing implications of artificial intelligence (AI) disrupting the intellectual property legal framework. The United States Patent Office (USPTO), European Patent Office (EPO), and United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) recently received two patent application filings directed to a beverage container and a flashing device used for attracting […]

Claim Construction Must be Resolved Before Making Eligibility Determinations

By Blog Staff

On August 16, 2019, in MyMail, Ltd. v. ooVoo, LLC, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated and remanded a decision made by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California because the court failed to resolve a claim construction dispute before making a patent eligibility determination at […]

“The” Ohio State Tries to Trademark the Word “THE”

By Sarah M.D. Luth

On August 8, 2019 The Ohio State University filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the word mark “THE” to be used in connection with clothing, namely “t-shirts, baseball caps and hats.” Unlike Ohio State’s other trademark applications, which cover the phrase “The Ohio State University” as a whole, […]

Patent Judges Agree that Patent Eligibility Law Needs Fixing: Part 2

By Kirk M. Hartung

In the first part of this series posted last week, I discussed the majority and concurring opinions in Athena v. Mayo decided by the Federal Circuit Court on July 3, 2019. In part 2 of the series, I will review the four dissenting opinions for this case. In the first dissent, Judge Moore (joined by […]

NASA’s Technology Transfer Process

By Gregory Lars Gunnerson

From July 28 – July 31, 2019, I had the pleasure of attending the Association of Technology Managers (AUTM) 2019 Central Region Meeting. AUTM is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing research to life by supporting and enhancing the global, academic technology transfer profession through education, professional development, partnering and advocacy. AUTM’s attendance has been […]

Patent Judges Agree that Patent Eligibility Law Needs Fixing: Part 1

By Kirk M. Hartung

On July 3, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an interesting, though not surprising, opinion discussing patent eligibility for inventions and discoveries. In Athena Diagnostics, Inc. v. Mayo Collaborative Services, LLC, all 12 judges of the Court considered whether the full court should rehear an appeal of a patent regarding […]

IPR Proceedings to Pre-AIA Patents is not an Unconstitutional Taking

By Blog Staff

On July 30, 2019, in Celgene Corp. v. Peter, the Federal Circuit (CAFC) held that “retroactive application of IPR proceedings to pre-AIA patents is not an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment.” A provision of the Fifth Amendment, known as the “takings clause”, provides that private property shall not “be taken for public use, without […]