Today the Supreme Court issued its awaited Cuozzo decision and gave strong deference to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (“Patent Office”) power (1) to make an unappealable determination to institute inter partes review (IPR) of an issued patent and (2) to make both procedural and substantive rules governing the IPR process, including what standard the Patent Office wants to use when construing patent claims in an IPR proceeding.  The Court’s ruling on the specific Patent Office IPR regulations at issue here was generally expected.  The broader impact of the decision may be the Court’s indication of how much power Congress gave the Patent Office to regulate IPRs.
Continue Reading Supreme Court confirms Patent Office’s power to regulate inter partes reviews (Cuozzo v. Lee)

Recently the House Judiciary Committee voted  24-8 to approve a revised version of the Innovation Act.  As we previously discussed, the Innovation Act was re-introduced in the House earlier this year in the same form approved by the entire House at the end of 2013.  The Judiciary Committee recently met to mark-up and

Yesterday, we reported on the manager’s amendments to the Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship Act, or “PATENT Act,” a bi-partisan patent reform bill introduced by Senator Leahy and several other Senators.  After two additional amendments by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during yesterday’s mark-up session, the committee approved the bill by a vote of 

On Tuesday, a proposed Manager’s Amendment was released for the Senate’s pending PATENT Act bill.  Following is a recap of the recent wave of patent legislation proposals this year.

Innovation Act.  Since 2013, the House and the Senate have considered various forms of patent reform legislation that attempt to address perceived patent litigation abuse.