North America

A Surprising Insight About the USPTO’s “Patent Death Squad”

Under the America Invents Act, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was given broad new powers to “correct” past mistakes in issuing patents through the power given to the PTAB, the Patent Trials and Appeals Board. The PTAB is an administrative law that decides issues of patentability, formed on September 16, 2012 under …

A Surprising Insight About the USPTO’s “Patent Death Squad” Read More »

How Abstract Is Your Automobile?

Be careful about the vehicle you’ve been driving. As sturdy, tangible, useful, and inventive as it looks to you, it may turn out to be merely an abstraction, perhaps nothing more than the mere idea of “transportation” or “going places,” making it unworthy of the thousands of patents protecting its numerous technologies — if the …

How Abstract Is Your Automobile? Read More »

Unpatentable “Abstract” Claims in US Patent Law: How To Know It When You See It, Thanks to Abstract Art

The US Supreme Court recently ruled that “abstract” concepts are not eligible for patents. The 2014 case, Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Intl. or more simply Alice, is said by some to mean the death of thousands of patents if not entire industries. Critics such as Gene Quinn say it is unworkable, vague and …

Unpatentable “Abstract” Claims in US Patent Law: How To Know It When You See It, Thanks to Abstract Art Read More »

David and Googleliath (or VSL vs. Google): A Small Company Fighting a Giant Reminds Us Why Software Patents Matter

A small start-up company fighting one of the great giants of all time: it’s a classic story of David vs. Goliath, or in this case, David vs. Googleliath (a.k.a. VSL vs. Google). Many small companies have claimed that Google misappropriated trade secrets or other IP, but rarely has Google graciously (and accidentally) cooperated in providing …

David and Googleliath (or VSL vs. Google): A Small Company Fighting a Giant Reminds Us Why Software Patents Matter Read More »

Another Surprise from China: The Tralin/Tranlin IP-Backed Financing Results in Jobs and Green Technology for the US

In a previous post here, I reported a huge loan to a Chinese paper company backed by its mostly Chinese IP as collateral. The 8 billion RMB obtained by China’s Tralin Paper (Quanlin Paper in Chinese, though they use www.tralin.com for their website), one of the biggest IP-backed loans in the world, not only shows …

Another Surprise from China: The Tralin/Tranlin IP-Backed Financing Results in Jobs and Green Technology for the US Read More »

America’s Anti-Patent Revolution: Stoking the Engines of Innovation Fatigue

My latest post here at Innovation Fatigue lamented the actions of the USPTO in their apparent war on patents involving natural products. New information makes the story even more troubling than before, indicating that more than just judicial error and bureaucratic blindness was involved. The steps taken appear much more deliberate and political than that, …

America’s Anti-Patent Revolution: Stoking the Engines of Innovation Fatigue Read More »

Scroll to Top