The following is a summary of an interview I conducted with Monica Winghart, Article One’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, about the impact of the new America Invents Act (“AIA”) provisions that went into effect on September 16. Ms. Winghart has more than 15 years of intellectual property experience. Prior to joining Article One,
America Invents Act
SHIELD Act: A Step Towards Patent Troll Litigation Reform?
Meaningful patent troll reform may finally be on the horizon. Last year retailers across the country had high hopes for patent reform. Unfortunately, the version of the America Invents Act that was signed into law by President Obama in September 2011 offered little or no help in stopping or even significantly slowing patent trolls. But…
Federal Circuit Clears Way to Sever & Transfer Patent Cases
The Federal Circuit recently issued an important decision that should pave the way for transferring cases to retailers’ home districts. In In re EMC Corp., Docket No. 100, several co-defendants whose motions to sever and transfer their cases in a pre-AIA multi-defendant suit appeals to the Federal Circuit on a writ of mandamus. Looking only …
How the AIA is Changing Patent Rights for Retailers, Part II – Challenges and Validity Issues
Before the enactment of the American Invents Act (“AIA”), I identified four key provisions of the new law that will impact retailers. My colleague Daniel Farris provided some additional depth into the effects of the AIA on retailers, particularly with respect to the patent prosecution process and creation of patent rights – the first in…
American Invents Act: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
BNA has an interesting article by James Pistorino of Perkins Coie and Susan Crane looking at the impact of the America Invents Act (“AIA”) on district court patent litigation filings. The article looks at 2011 data, only one quarter of which is after enactment of the AIA. But even a quarter’s data tells a clear…
Actual Patent Reform: Addressing the Patent Troll Problem
Andy Kessler, a former hedge fund manager and the author of “Eat People”, has a compelling opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) arguing for further patent reform to reign in the damage patent tolls are doing to the economy. As I have discussed many times, last year’s patent reform (the America Invents…
Multiple Defendant Cases Die Hard
In September, I wrote that the America Invents Act’s (“AIA”) main impact upon patent litigation would be the new joinder rule prohibiting suing multiple, unrelated defendants in a single case. In the two weeks between the Senate’s passage of the AIA and President Obama signing it into law, patent trolls flooded the federal courts with…
Senate Passes the America Invents Act: Patent Reform Headed to the White House
The Senate passed the America Invents Act (the “AIA”) this evening without amendment. So, patent reform is headed to the White House where President Obama is expected to sign the AIA into law within the next two weeks. Based upon that, I will be following up my post from earlier today identifying four key provisions…
What Patent Reform Means for Retailers: 4 Key Provisions of the America Invent Act
The patent blogs are abuzz with detailed analysis of cloture votes and Senate procedure. I will not repeat what my colleagues have already ably done — Patently-O and Patent Docs are two examples. The critical take-away is that the Senate has limited debate on the House version of the America Invents Act, H.R. 1249, (the…
Patent Reform (Almost) Arrives
Today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1249 the America Invents Act. The Senate passed a version of the bill (S. 23) earlier this year, but because there are significant differences in the two bills, the America Invents Act is headed to a joint conference where the differences have to be ironed out before the…