Litigation Quality Patent PatentCast

Proper due diligence and contracts can protect a business deal from dragging you and your company into a risky position though protracted patent litigation that scares your customers, shareholders, suppliers, employees, and licensees, not to mention the exorbitant legal expenses and potential money damages. Craige explains how a recent expansion of the “Single Actor Rule” exposes more businesses to patent infringement risk and 3 cost-effective steps you should consider to avoid patent litigation.

Craige lays out how a ruler is the wrong measuring stick for claims Many sophisticated patent clients have learned from other patent attorneys that long claims are bad and short claims are good.  Craige explodes this fallacy with case studies about how a long claim can be ideal or a raw deal, depending on its structure.  Craige exposes the secret ingredient that is essential for every claim, irrespective of its word count.

Case Study: How Not to Write Software Claims Software is patentable when you follow the rules. Craige analyzes how the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) invalidated issued software claims because the claim drafter simply framed the claims in a way that was too abstract. This illustrates an avoidable, but all too common, flaw that leads to the demise of many software claims.

PTAB Defends patent owner against serial IPR Attacks! Man Bites Dog! Shocking news!  It’s not every day the USPTO stands up for owners of patents. This episode of the IPR PTAB Cast describes the hurdles that the PTAB has erected to stop harassment of patent holders so they don’t have to suffer unwarranted serial IPR attacks.  Visit us at ThompsonPatentLaw.com

What, if anything, can you do to stop an infringer while your patent is still “patent pending”? Craige answers this FAQ and adds a bonus answer to a should ask question (SAQ) for an often-overlooked way to monetize your invention. Visit us at: ThompsonPatentLaw.com

PTO not allowed to be “unreasonable” Patent owners gain another small victory! The Patent office’s strongest weapon against patent claim is BRI or “Broadest reasonable interpretation”, but BRI is “unreasonable” when it is contrary to general claims construction principles. The Federal Circuit finds “body: does not mean whatever the examiner thinks it means under BRI especially when the specification uses that term in a very consistent way. Lesson: it pays to be consistent.

A 44 Million Dollar award to a patent owner, Ultratec was wiped away by the Patent Office that invalidated eight patents in an Inter Partes Review (IPR). However, the federal circuit slapped away the IPR because the accused infringer’s expert told one story to the jury and a different story to the patent office. The Expert’s inconsistent testimony may lead to the patent owner getting back that 44 Million Dollars, and keeping eight patents intact!

Pendulum starts to swing to the Pro-patent direction  In IPR (inter partes review), a Patent is being attacked is invalid. One move a patent owner can make is to narrow some claims so they are not found invalid. Until now, the PTO made this very difficult by requiring the patent owner to prove the narrower claims are patentable. Now, the Federal Circuit stepped in and shifts that heavy Burden off of the patent owner and on to the petitioner who is challenging the patent. Good News!

Patent Drafting Danger: Throw The Lists Overboard In this IPR PTABCast episode, The Examiner Whisperer, Craige Thompson, breaks down three strong currents that combine to swiftly carry unsuspecting Patent Owners away from the golden "infringement" shore and out to drown in the sea of "invalidity." Craige reveals some rescue techniques, including proper drafting techniques for Litigation Quality Patents. If you benefit from our show please subscribe and leave us a five star rating.

Do you want to license your patent for $50 million? Well, you better set up your patent to stand up to litigation AND draft a bulletproof licensing agreement, otherwise your license could get your patent killed, and leave you with nothing. See how this happened to Dr. Jung and take steps so it won’t happen to you.

In this episode Craige Thompson characterizes the three phases of the patent life cycle, before, during and after the patent office. Craige introduces his perspective as a veteran patent attorney on how business executives should think about each phase of the patent process. If you have found this episode helpful please support us by leaving an honest 5 star review.

When approaching a prototyping company or manufacturer, technology executives recognize that they must "open the kimono" to share intimate details of their inventions. To help technology executives avoid mistakes that will invite expensive litigation, Craige introduces how a start-up won $91 Million in defending its heart valve replacement technology. This case study involves mistakes made with regard to handling patents, trade secrets, and NDAs in the relationship between inventor and manufacturer

Money in the middle of conventional extremes. One repeatable trick companies can use to mine patentable inventions is to find the "third way" that takes the best (but leaves the rest) from both extremes. In this case, the invention mining formula claims software that automatically configures a memory system to optimize performance based on the type of processor. This has the performance benefit of a custom solution with the affordable cost of a "one size fits all" approach.

Intellectual ventures patent misses a huge potential win because the claim had gone one throw away step too far, on a technology that could have covered SMS text messaging. Craige reveals the litigation and patent drafting mistakes made by both Intellectual Ventures and Motorola and what they could have done differently to change or improve their outcome. Did you know that just characterizing the prior art negatively could narrow your claim scope in a way you didn't even mention in the patent?

Summary: In this episode of the LQP PatentCast™, Craige discusses CardiaQ v. Neovasc. This is great case for Inventors entrepreneurs and small business owners who are considering manufacturing with someone else. This case illustrates how inventors can get screwed over in the process of sharing their ideas. Highlighted are some mistakes you could make when trying to bring your ideas to market. Craige shares some strategies on how to recover when someone tries to rip-off your invention.