Patents

Apple & Samsung Litigation Shows Need for Patent Reform

December 3, 2012
Intellectual Property, Litigation, Patents

by Thomas Manewitz, UMN Law Student, MJLST Managing Editor

In the past two years, two of the world’s mobile technology leviathans, Apple and Samsung, have engaged in multibillion dollar patent infringement litigation. Specifically, Apple has been seeking damages and fighting for injunctions on several of Samsung’s mobile products in markets across the globe. On August 24, 2012 in the United States, Apple won a 1.049 billion dollar damages award for Samsung’s “willful patent infringement.” In the same lawsuit, Samsung counter sued and won zero damages. In the wake of this trial, Apple is seeking an injunction for 20 Samsung products.

Samsung provides the market with a popular Apple alternative that does not come close to dominating the market share. In the context of the litigation, both Samsung and Apple were forced to release their U.S. sales numbers. Samsung, who is at risk of having its products blocked from the U.S. markets, sold 21 million smart phones and 1.4 million tablets, while Apple sold 86 million smart phones and 34 million tablets. New and different products are now at risk from being removed from consumer markets because of our patent litigation structure. I will not argue that this case alone will temper innovation; however, it does beg the question as to whether or not high profile patent litigation, and the patent system as it currently stands, optimizes the production societal good and innovation. Perhaps the United States patent system should be reorganized based on different principle. For a discussion of the reorganization of the patent system see the United States patent system see Liza Vertinsky’s article in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Tehcnology, “An Organizational Approach to the Design of Patent Law.”

Apple & Samsung Litigation Shows Need for Patent Reform

December 3, 2012
Intellectual Property, Litigation, Patents

by Thomas Manewitz, UMN Law Student, MJLST Managing Editor

In the past two years, two of the world’s mobile technology leviathans, Apple and Samsung, have engaged in multibillion dollar patent infringement litigation. Specifically, Apple has been seeking damages and fighting for injunctions on several of Samsung’s mobile products in markets across the globe. On August 24, 2012 in the United States, Apple won a 1.049 billion dollar damages award for Samsung’s “willful patent infringement.” In the same lawsuit, Samsung counter sued and won zero damages. In the wake of this trial, Apple is seeking an injunction for 20 Samsung products.

Samsung provides the market with a popular Apple alternative that does not come close to dominating the market share. In the context of the litigation, both Samsung and Apple were forced to release their U.S. sales numbers. Samsung, who is at risk of having its products blocked from the U.S. markets, sold 21 million smart phones and 1.4 million tablets, while Apple sold 86 million smart phones and 34 million tablets. New and different products are now at risk from being removed from consumer markets because of our patent litigation structure. I will not argue that this case alone will temper innovation; however, it does beg the question as to whether or not high profile patent litigation, and the patent system as it currently stands, optimizes the production societal good and innovation. Perhaps the United States patent system should be reorganized based on different principle. For a discussion of the reorganization of the patent system see the United States patent system see Liza Vertinsky’s article in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Tehcnology, “An Organizational Approach to the Design of Patent Law.”

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For Your Patent . . .

October 26, 2012
Intellectual Property, Patents

by Caroline Marsili, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

The candidates aren’t talking about patents (with the exception of a brief quip about IP piracy in last Tuesday’s debate). But if it’s “all about the economy,” they should be talking patent policy.

In the presidential and vice-presidential debates of recent weeks, the candidates have exchanged vitriol and “gotchas,” and have established a contrast in both policy and character for voters. Notably absent from the debates has been discussion of innovation, and more specifically, the role of IP policy in innovation. IP policy would seem an attractive platform for discussing job creation, as IP industries account for a vast portion of the Nation’s jobs and GDP (“IP-intensive industries” accounted for 27.7 of all jobs in the economy in 2010). It’s possible that the candidates find common ground on this issue. Alternatively, the topic is, for the time-being, moot in the wake of the America Invents Act, the full effects of which are yet to be seen.

Since its passage just over a year ago, some critics have expressed doubt that the Act will create jobs and promote innovation as promised. Others argue not that the Act is failing, but that it represents a misplaced effort to reform patent policy.

The solution? “Don’t just reform patents, get rid of them.” A recent working paper by Boldrin & Levine makes the bold case that our patent system is ultimately more trouble than it’s worth. The authors admit that abolishing patents “may seem ‘pie-in-the-sky'” and acknowledge the glut of transitional issues that would need addressing; just the same, they conclude that the key to reforming our patent system is to get rid of it. Their central beef with the system is the want of empirical evidence that it does what it purports to do: promote innovation and productivity. Meanwhile, there are other incentives for innovation and many negative externalities of the patent system.

Other authors have proposed less radical approaches to revamping the patent system. In her recent article in MJLST, “An Organizational Approach to the Design of Patent Law“, Liza Vertinsky also finds that empirical literature fails to decisively connect patents to innovation and economic growth. However, Vertinsky takes a more optimistic approach to the floundering patent system, arguing that policy-makers should seize reform efforts as an opportunity to tailor the patent law to innovation objectives. The America Invents Act, she argues, isn’t a significant change in the direction of patent policy and instead seeks to remedy narrower concerns with administrative backlog, litigation costs and patent quality. In her view, patent policy should be revamped to encourage innovation based on how individuals and organizations–corporations, Congress, the PTO–really function.

Vertinsky’s “organizational approach” entails a new way of thinking about patents in terms of how patent policy, informed by economic theory, should be fashioned to strengthen the organization of innovation rather than focusing on incentivizing acts of invention. For example, patent laws can be tailored to the needs of different innovation processes across different industries. While sweeping changes in patent policy are unlikely at this time (witness the battles encountered in passing and implementing the America Invents Act), Vertinsky’s proposals should inform discussion among policy-makers about what the patent system can and should do. The Obama Administration’s national innovation strategy neglected to give patent policy a more central role in encouraging innovation, but the desire to build an “innovation economy” is certainly there, and a rational and successful patent policy is vital to attaining the kinds of high-level jobs and industry the country needs and the candidates promise.

(Others think patent policy may not matter at all. What do you think?).

The Written Description Requirement Strikes Back

September 12, 2012
Intellectual Property, Patents

by Nihal Parkar, UMN Law Student, MJLST Staff

The written description requirement for patents often resembles the proverbial neglected middle child–it is left to its own devices and entrusted with its own care. The typical patent practitioner carefully chisels away at the claims with a thesaurus, and then proceeds to encase the exquisite sculpture with a glob of written description. Yes, the detailed description of the drawings and alternative embodiments may follow the core structure of the claims, but let’s face it–the average specification is hardly as painfully beautiful as the average claim.

A recent paper by Aaron Rabinowitz in Volume 12 of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Ending the Invalidity Shell Game: Stabilizing the Application of the Written Description Requirement in Patent Litigation, analyzes this paradox in the context of how courts apply the written description requirement to routinely invalidate patents issued by the USPTO–those very issued patents that have gone through the tortious path of examination at the PTO and have been vetted by examiners and reshaped in course of the ping-pong game of office actions and their replies.

A high level of invalidation by the courts seems problematic. After all, shouldn’t patent owners be entitled to rely on the PTO’s evaluation of their patent, and be freely able to assert the patent against alleged infringers in court, without fearing that the court will find the written description to be as addled with holes as the typical chunk of Swiss cheese? Well, the courts can’t quite be blamed, given that the PTO works in mysterious ways. Reviewing the file wrapper often does not explain how each claim fulfilled the written description requirement in combination with the rest of the specification. A law firm helpfully points out, “Make Sure Your Patents Do Not Prove Their Own Invalidity!” To add to the complexity of the situation, the “written description requirement is separate from enablement.”

Patent owners would be wise to worry about the potential pitfalls of the written description getting shredded between Scylla and Charybdis. As Rabinowitz points out, “over 2000-2009, parties that attacked a patent on written description grounds succeeded more than forty percent of the time.”

Fortunately, Rabinowitz does not merely cry wolf, but supplies some solutions to keep the wolf at bay. To strengthen a patent’s validity, patent applicants can choose “to affirmatively identify the written description support for their claims in the application”. And then eagerly wait for “the PTO to either approve or question the applicant’s statement of support.” Of course, with patent examiners already being somewhat overburdened, the PTO may not be enthusiastic about yet another step in prosecution.

Rabinowitz’ article raises an interesting question that is often overlooked, and provides a practical, workable solution that is likely to be of benefit to patent owners, patent challengers, the PTO, and the courts.

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