Week 8 #4: patent troll cases & info

In this blogpost I will talk a little bit more about patent trolls and how they are affecting our society now.

As I was researching the topic of patent trolls, I came across this study published by UC Hastings and Lex Machina, who analyzed about 13,000 cases spanning about 30,000 patents. What they concluded was that about 56 percent of the patent-related lawsuits filed in the U.S. in 2012 were filed by patent monetization entities. In an earlier blogpost, I introduced patent monetization entities as patent trolls, who are people or companies that license patents but doesn't actually have any business involving the patent.

This puts small companies, particularly startups, at a disadvantage because they cannot easily tell if a patent has been asserted and what territory is being claimed by the patent holder. As a result, tech companies like Google, Blackberry and others are asking the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice to scrutinize NPEs who are hurting consumers and businesses.

I found the top 10 businesses targeted by patent trolls in 2013, which in order are AT&T, Google, Verizon, Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Dell, Sony, Huawei, and Blackberry.

Week 8 #3: patent infringement lawsuit

In this blogpost, I will focus on patent infringement lawsuits. I found this topic very interesting and wanted to share it here.

So how does a patent infringement lawsuit begin? Well it begins with a filing of a complaint alleging patent infringement by the patent holder. The holder must have a "complaint" document and a "summons" document.

In response to this, you can contact an attorney familiar with patents to assist and help you decide on the best course of action. Otherwise, you can choose to deny the proof that the patent owner has provided, negotiate with the owner for a settlement of the lawsuit (which involves agreeing to a license or a statement that you do not infringe the patent), or try to invalidate the patent based on references that show the patent is invalid.

So in order to determine whether you are truly infringing a patent, you should know that the accused must perform each and every element of one or more of its claims, or actively encourage, sell or offer to sell a component that leads to another's infringement.

I thought this information was interesting and important in the event that I ever get filed for patent infringement. I would definitely want to know the procedure and whether or not I am infringing in the first place.

Week 8 #2: patent infringement

In this blogpost I will be talking about patent infringement. After introducing this, I can go further into specific cases of patent infringement in the next blogposts.

So what is patent infringement? It is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention, or importing into the US a product covered by a claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner. In addition, those who encourage others to infringe patents, or supplying or importing components of a patented invention, and related acts can also give rise to liability in certain cases.

A patent owner can then sue you in federal court. If the owner is able to prove infringement, then the court may order you to pay monetary damages and/or stop infringing one or more patent claims. Otherwise, the court may conclude that the patent claim is not valid due to invention being disclosed in other sources or offered for sale.

As we all know, the consequences of a patent infringement can be quite harsh. In an earlier post I talked about Apple v. Samsung, which dealt with patent infringement. The result of this case were millions of dollars in damages. So I will definitely watch out for patent infringement in the future.

Week 8 #1: patent trolls

In this blogpost, I'll be going over a brief overview of a patent troll.

A patent troll is considered a derogatory term to describe people or companies that misuse patents as a business strategy.
Essentially, a patent troll obtains the patents beings sold at auctions by bankrupt companies attempting to liquidate their assets, or by doing just enough research to prove they had the idea first. They can then launch lawsuits against infringing companies, or simply hold the patent without planning to practice the idea in an attempt to keep other companies productivity at a standstill.

Just by doing my initial research on patent trolls, I had a very negative feeling towards them. They seem to discourage innovation and serve only a single purpose to hurt other companies. Trolls are sometimes also known as non practicing entities, which means that their sole purpose is to hold a patent (without using it for products or services) and then sue other companies for money.

In the next few blogposts I will also be talking more about infringement, trolls, and patent litigations.

Assignment 7b: Video Clip #2 (for 3 units)

Below is a summary and personal thoughts on the video about prior art search.

This is where you can find inventions in the prior art, otherwise defined as the information available to the public that can be found in a printed publication format. These can be in a variety of places such as magazines, books, Internet, patents, published patent applications, and others.

So a prior art search is an attempt to find your invention in all the above prior art source locations as described above. We are searching for prior art in a printed publication format, which consist of the sources described and many others.

This step to Obviousness is crucial because you need to know whether your invention is obvious or not. And a way to determine that is to see what has already been filed and see if your invention has made a novel leap from what has already been created. It is very important to do the prior art search otherwise the patent office will do it themselves and if results come out to be obvious, then your patent may be up for rejection.

Assigment 7b: Video Clip #1

Below is a summary and my personal thoughts on the video that is embedded.

If a prior art search of your invention shows obviousness, then you will require the assistance of a patent practitioner to help overcome the finding of obviousness.

Consider a venn diagram. It consists of two circles. If the two circles don't overlap, that means the two circles pertain to different sets, or in other words, they are different and non-obvious.
The video says that if at any point, your circle (which is your invention) completely overlaps with the circle of all known things and inventions, then your invention is "already known" and therefore, obvious.

The idea of the venn diagram is then applied to the prior art search, where your invention is compared to inventions that were previously filed. At this point, if your patent is deemed obvious, you would have to provide arguments to the patent office to overcome the rejection of the invention.

Assignment 7a: Thoughts on Obviousness (#2 for 3 units)

Here I will further talk about the subject of Obviousness.

There are five basic requirements for patentability: Subject matter requirement, written description, utility, novelty, non-obviousness.

The whole idea behind non-obviousness is that it taps into multiple sources of prior art and makes sure that a person with ordinary skills would not have easily thought of the invention that is trying to get patented. The key here is that it needs to be novel, and that given previous prior art, this invention should shed a new light or bring in something new.

Also, Title 35 USC Section 103 helps one to argue whether a patent is obvious or not. It says: A patent may not be obtained through the invention if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.

Lastly, I just wanted to talk about the TSM test, which says that there must be a teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art to combine elements in the prior art in order to find a patent obvious.

Assignment 7a: My opinions on Obviousness

This post will be about my personal understanding from research on the subject of Obviousness.

There are a couple things that are important and come into play:

First thing is that it has to be novel. One must conduct a prior art search because you want to make sure your idea is novel and that it has not been filed as a patent beforehand. And just as a good general thing to do, one should do these searches in order to gain a better understanding of the patent field.

Second part is the part that pertains more to your invention. This part focuses on making sure that your invention is non-obvious, or in other words, the invention needs a little bit more unexpectedness than just an obvious change to the original product / idea. Good rule of thumb here is that your invention must be non-obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the field of your invention. Something that I learned was that there are patent attorneys who will help you determine whether your invention is obvious or non-obvious because there is a blurred line here and many people are confused about it.

Obviousness can also be determined by looking at prior art. Looking at similar products in the prior art search can help one determine whether there was a non-obvious leap in the new invention.