U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced today the Patent Litigation Integrity Act (S. 1612) “to address the growing threat of so-called ‘patent trolls'” who “purchase existing broad patents and then threaten businesses of infringing” them. Sen. Hatch issued a press release and one-page summary of the proposed legisltation, which provides two reform measures.
First, the
As anticipated by our prior post about a second discussion draft of patent reform legislation, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va) joined others in introducing today a patent reform bill entitled the “Innovation Act“. They also provided a section-by-section summary of the Innovation Act. This bill includes the prior proposed enhanced
Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va) released a second discussion draft of a patent reform bill directed to concerns about patent litigation abuse, which draft replaces his prior May 2013 discussion draft. This second discussion draft includes the requirement to plead what standard setting organization obligations apply to an asserted patent, stating:
On Friday, U.S. International Trade Commission Administrative Law Judge David P. Shaw issued a Notice of Initial Determination in In the Matter of Certain Wireless Devices with 3G Capabilities and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-800. This investigation was originally instituted nearly two years ago based on a complaint filed by InterDigital against Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, and LG, in which InterDigital accused the companies of infringing several InterDigital patents alleged to be essential to various 3G cellular communications standards. The evidentiary hearing was held in January 2013, and the case involves the intersection of a two issues that have drawn a lot of attention lately — the assertion of standard-essential patents at the ITC (and what if any relevance FRAND licensing obligations have to the proceedings), as well as patent infringement cases brought by non-practicing entities (InterDigital is an NPE that has been deemed a “patent troll” by some, while others take a more favorable view of the company’s activities).
So far, it appears that InterDigital’s SEP infringement assertions have failed (at least for now). While the public version of ALJ Shaw’s Initial Determination won’t become available for at least a few weeks, Friday’s Notice indicates that ALJ Shaw found no violations of Section 337 with respect to any of the seven remaining asserted patents.
Continue Reading ITC rules against InterDigital’s claims of 3G-essential patent infringement in preliminary finding
In the wake of the ITC’s landmark exclusion order barring imports of certain Apple 3G products, we noticed an interesting question raised by Prof. Brian J. Love of Santa Clara law school, among others:
Professor Love is referring to one of several legislative recommendations and executive actions related to the patent system and patent litigation
Vermont recently became the first state to pass legislation specifically directed to patent issues (a law which, as noted by Camilla Hrdy at Patently-O, has interesting federalism implications and may or may not run into federal preemption issues). But even more patent-related activity has been taking place here in Washington, DC. Over the last
This afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet held a hearing titled “Abusive Patent Litigation: The Issues Impacting American Competitiveness and Job Creation at the International Trade Commission and Beyond.” This hearing comes on the heels of a broader hearing on abusive patent litigation held by the same committee two months ago, as well as a different hearing in July 2012 that generally addressed the ITC’s role in deciding patent disputes. Several witnesses representing a variety of diverse backgrounds and interests testified today before the subcommittee, including:
A link to the video webcast of the full hearing is available at the House Judiciary Committee’s website, along with PDFs of each witness’s prepared testimony. Our friends at Patent Progress also live-tweeted the event — take a look at their Twitter feed @PatentProgress for their blow-by-blow account.
As we anticipated, while standard-essential patents were not the focus of this particular hearing, the issue of SEPs was indeed given some attention. In his opening remarks, Congressman Melvin Watt noted concerns some have expressed about the potential for improper usage of standard-essential patents in seeking injunctive relief, and Congressman Ted Poe briefly quizzed Prof. Chien about the propriety of asserting standard-essential patents in the ITC.
Continue Reading House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on abusive patent litigation and the ITC focuses on non-practicing entities, litigation costs, and remedies
Patents have been getting a lot of attention on Capitol Hill lately, with the reintroduced SHIELD Act and the recent Congressional hearing on “abusive patent litigation.” Next week patents will get even more airtime, as the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet will hold a hearing titled Abusive
There’s been much ado in the patent community over the past week over the re-introduction of H.R. 845, the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act of 2013 — more commonly known as the SHIELD Act. This legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), seeks to “protect American tech companies from frivolous patent lawsuits that cost jobs and resources” by implementing a “loser pays” fee-shifting paradigm for patent infringement cases brought by certain types of non-practicing entities. (A prior version introduced last year, H.R. 6245, was much more limited in its implementation of fee-shifting.)
While this is a bit off-topic for our blog, we thought this proposed legislation is sufficiently important to our readers that we’d do a brief post on it — especially given the penchant by some NPEs to assert standard-essential patents. The legislation (at least as it’s currently drafted) has raised a lot of questions and issues and has generated a lot of commentary (both pro and con) from the business and legal communities. After the jump, we’ll run through a quick summary of the provisions of the SHIELD Act, some first impressions about questions it may raise, and provide some links to a variety of others’ views on the proposed law.Continue Reading The new (and improved?) SHIELD Act