(April 11th, 2017) Your weekly dose from the world of patents. The Patent Chronicle is led by Syam Anand, who has been at the core of CSG’s development and an entrepreneur himself. This section is your go to destination every week for a capsule dose on the hottest happenings in the patent world. Syam has clinically dissected out every news on the decision, the background and the impact. He is also in the process of building his scicomm team for this section. If you would like to come aboard, mail him at syam.anand@sciwri.club
Organizations request to free USPTO of Federal hiring freeze
Decision: Around twenty organizations directly requested the president to exempt USPTO from the federal hiring freeze. The letter ended by reminding him of the “America first” slogan.
Reason: The 45th president and his administration had instituted a federal hiring freeze that prevents USPTO also from filling several hundred vacancies including support staff. This is in spite of the fact that the government continues to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from fees earned by USPTO. Many including the signatories of the letter consider this a tax on innovation as their fees are diverted to general government funding. The US is now ranked #10 along with Hungary in patent system strength.
Impact: Left unaddressed, the challenges faced by US inventors in the domestic and more importantly in the international arena, will increase. Inadequate staffing will cause further backlog on patent prosecution and post-grant procedures. It will directly affect US innovation.
Read more here
Read the letter here
https://twitter.com/QUT_IP/status/849769577978372098
UK court steps in to guide fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND)
Decision: UK High Court ruled that it would decide how much should be paid to use an essential patented technology (in this case mobile phone technology).
Reason: The FRAND commitment serves to harmonize the private interests of patent holders and the public interests of standard-setting organizations while attempting to meet industry standards. Those who own patents and those who want to use the patented technology interpret FRAND differently. Often times licensing prices choke off future development of the technology and its use.
Impact: The British High Court had not intervened to decide licensing prices before. Could end up becoming a trendsetter in UK. Licensing royalties that appear exorbitant may start getting litigated in UK courts. Technology adoption, research and development could benefit from favorable outcomes on this and future FRAND rulings. FRAND (RAND in the US) is an outlier like compulsory licensing as far as licensing practices go.
Read more here
Huawei may be barred from selling its smartphones in the UK after Unwired Planet International won in a long-run….https://t.co/AkmraBmiYK
— fimo 🇩🇰 (@fimo_DK) April 9, 2017
RNA-based ProQR Cystic Fibrosis drug gets EU, US patents
Decision: ProQR therapeutics gets EU and US patents on Fast Track for restoring dysfunctional CFTR using RNA oligonucleotides.
Reason: The application enjoyed the Orphan drug designation in both Europe and the US.
Impact: The methods of treatment using the oligos are in clinical trials. If successful, patients will be able to self-administer the oligos with a nebulizer. Earlier trials have successfully restored CFTR function in patients containing two deletions in CFTR.
Read more here
#ProQR granted patents protecting cystic fibrosis treatment QR-010 in US, EU.https://t.co/7aflbuhZwA$PRQR #biotech #stocks pic.twitter.com/4z7KydYvQp
— bored2tears (@bored2tears) April 3, 2017
20% workforce hit in Acorda as MS patents lose protection
Decision: Delaware court invalidated 4 (out of 5) patents covering Acorda’s MS drug Ampyra.
Reason: The patents were found to be obvious. The active ingredient in Ampyra is an old organic compound, 4-Aminopyridine that had limited patent protection. It appears that Acorda management were taking undue risks knowing that the protection was weak and very likely to be contested.
Impact: Restructuring of Acorda as it axes the workforce on MS and turns its focus to Parkinson’s disease where it holds IP and encouraging clinical trial data.
Under threat of early Ampyra knockoffs, Acorda plans to chop 100 jobs https://t.co/5BvqDl5baL pic.twitter.com/Z449OMPSug
— analyst land news (@analystlandnews) April 5, 2017
PAX, a new alliance to protect Android systems from trolls
Decision: Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, HTC, Foxconn Technology Group, Coolpad, BQ, HMD Global, and Allview forms the Android-networked cross-license abbreviated “PAX”.
Reason: Open-source software faces legal challenges from trolls and real patent owners. There have been attempts to forms alliances in the hopes of putting resources together to meet these challenges.
Impact: The alliance is free and open to join. Thus, the alliance’s success will depend on who all joins. PAX follows similar efforts such as Open Innovation Network (OIN) that was formed to protect Linux from legal challenges. OIN was successful. PAX could translate into lower costs for Android users. PAX owns more than 230,000 global patents.
Read more here
Google, top Android partners agree to share patents under PAX venture – https://t.co/w7Y5fA3xyn pic.twitter.com/y1nqL2jP67
— Android Community (@Androids) April 4, 2017
LOT, a mutual defense alliance against PAEs grows in membership
Decision: Cisco, Slack, Daimler and Udemy joins LOT (License on Transfer)
Reason: Uptick in Patent Assertion Entity (PAE; Troll) activity and lack of attention from Washington D. C. According to LOT, there is a 500% uptick in troll activity in the last 10 years.
Impact: Initiated by Google in 2014, with mostly tech companies, LOT is now more diverse with members such as GM, Honda and JP Morgan. It works on a simple principle- if any member were to sell a patent to a troll, they cannot use the same against another member in LOT. According to LOT 80, billion dollars (80,000,000,000 $) are lost in needless patent troll litigation. Alliances such as OIN, PAX and LOT will reduce risk, and resources spend on troll-initiated litigations. LOT has 600,000 plus patents in their shelf.
Read more here
#Slack, #Cisco join a Google-backed LOT Network https://t.co/a6TbvFCiUI via @FortuneMagazine
— LOT Network (@TheLOTNET) April 5, 2017
About the author:
Authored by Dr Syam Anand, PhD (Indian Institute of Science, IISc; Post-Doctoral research, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Faculty, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Founder and US Patent Agent, Mainline Intellectual Property LLC, Ardmore, Philadelphia USA). Syam has over 20 years experience in diverse areas of Science with domain knowledge in Life Sciences and Intellectual Property. Dr. Anand is also an inventor and budding entrepreneur. A rationalist, Dr. Anand enjoys science at all levels and advocates the use of scientific methods for answering all questions and solving all problems and make common people curious and interested in understanding their worlds.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/syamprasadanand
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Blog design: Abhinav Dey
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