Name: Fighting Abusive Patent Litigation During a Year of Health Crisis: 2020 Year In Review
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Fighting Abusive Patent Litigation During a Year of Health Crisis: 2020 Year In Review

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Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe coronavirus dominated the news cycles, and our personal lives, in 2020. Scientists around the world raced forward to create a vaccine. Alongside that massive effort to create a critical new invention, we saw a renewed debate about patents and their role in helping, or hindering, innovation.&nbsp;&nbsp;At EFF, we’ve been the watchdog for years when patent owners abuse their monopolies. Unfortunately but predictably, some patent owners actually saw the rise of the COVID-19 health emergency as a business opportunity.&nbsp;Shortly after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, a patent troll called Labrador Diagnostics . Even worse: Labrador used that were originally issued to Theranos, the defunct blood-testing company whose former CEO is now . Following the , Labrador agreed to grant royalty-free licenses to those working on COVID-19 tests.&nbsp;&nbsp;Labrador wasn’t the only example of a patent owner misbehaving this year. Lawsuits by patent trolls went up during 2020. By mid-year, they were &nbsp;[pdf], and 30% higher than 2018. In May, we wrote about that sued five different companies, including ResMed, a company that makes ventilators. Swirlate, a limited liability company based in a “Pack and Mail Shoppe” in a strip mall in Plano, Texas, is linked to IP Edge, a large patent assertion company owned by three IP lawyers.&nbsp;In an emergency situation, policymakers should have taken big steps to protect the innovators who were coming up with low-cost COVID tests from patent threats that would stifle their life-saving efforts. In March, we wrote about : using 28 U.S.C. § 1498, a law that allows the government to use or authorize others to use patented technology and make itself, rather than private entities, the defendant in a related patent infringement lawsuit – along with limiting damages to reasonable compensation. Policymakers also could have embraced something like the , to make sure that IP doesn’t become an obstacle to the creation and distribution of treatments for the disease.&nbsp;&nbsp;Unfortunately, that’s not the direction Congress went in. Pro-patent lobbyists and lawyers went back to work, suggesting the old they pushed before the crisis: even more patents. Some patent-system insiders are seeking to , like tests that measure biological facts of what’s present in a human body.&nbsp;So lawmakers dabbled with ideas that would make the patent system worse, not better. This year, we&nbsp;advocated against , and a bill that would have authorized customs agents to . Another bad bill, the would have created a special class of patents deemed by the government to be “inventor-owned,” then given them special privileges that make it easier to sue people and more harmful when they do. For instance, “inventor-owned” patents, which , would have been able to avoid review processes at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) designed to filter out bad patents, as well as created by the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent patent plaintiffs from taking advantage of especially patent-friendly judicial districts.&nbsp;&nbsp;Even though we were often on the defense this year, it isn’t all bleak. One bright spot: we , which went up to the Federal Circuit.&nbsp;&nbsp;Uniloc is one of the most prolific patent trolls, having filed more than 170 patent infringement lawsuits in 2018 alone. In a case it filed against Apple, an important issue came up—did Uniloc even have the right to sue anyone? The documents were likely to shed light on Uniloc’s relationship with its litigation funder, Fortress Investment Group. Fortress was the same group that assisted with the Labrador lawsuits over Theranos’ old patents.In July, the Federal Circuit upheld Judge William Alsup’s decision that Uniloc’s sealing request had been “grossly excessive.”&nbsp;The case continues, with a narrower dispute remaining over third-party confidentiality in a smaller set of documents, such as the identification of companies that have patent licenses from Uniloc.&nbsp;When it comes to transparency in patent litigation, the Uniloc case led unexpectedly to another victory, as well. Because oral arguments in the Federal Circuit appeal took place in April, during the coronavirus outbreak, the court held that it would have to be done remotely. We filed a motion asking for full public and media access to the telephonic hearing. The Federal Circuit , providing real-time audio access to the public for the first time.&nbsp;&nbsp;Users and technologists have been harassed for years by patent trolls—typically, shell companies whose business boils down to patent threats and lawsuits, rather than creating any goods or services of their own. Patent trolling is a business that , is , and can even .&nbsp;One of a few tools that make a small but noticeable dent in the harmful business of patent trolls is a process called inter partes review, or IPR. This process allows for specialized judges at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to take a second look at patents, to see if they should have been granted in the first place. Through the IPR process, the office has in recent years, including many software patents asserted by litigious patent trolls.&nbsp;This year, the Patent and Trademark Office has reversed course. They’ve stopped instituting many IPR petitions for bureaucratic and procedural reasons, rather than carrying out the job as Congress intended. That’s why, together with several other groups supporting patent reform, , and insist that it do the job it was told to do—perform inter partes reviews efficiently and according to the rules.&nbsp;The all-out attempt to wreck IPRs hasn’t stopped. In the final days of the Trump administration, PTO director Andrew Iancu . Hundreds of you have spoken out against that proposal, which we hope will be set aside.&nbsp;In 2021, we’ll be on guard to safeguard elements of patent law, like IPRs and transparency in patent litigation, that have made the patent system a bit more fair for small business and technology users.&nbsp;&nbsp;This article is part of our Year in Review series..Share ItA recently introduced patent bill would authorize patents on abstract ideas just for including computer jargon, and would even legalize the patenting of human genes. EFF wants you to take action against this bill.After pushing for more than three years in a lawsuit brought by a notorious patent troll, Uniloc, against Apple, EFF is challenging a federal appellate court’s decision that imperils the public’s ability to understand what happens in patent litigation.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the...For more than three years, EFF has been to court records in a patent case between Uniloc, one of the world’s most prolific patent trolls, and Apple, one of the world’s biggest tech companies. The district court has ruled three different times that the public...Imagine getting a letter in the mail—and then another, and then another—telling you that if you don’t pay $25,000 to a company you’ve never heard of, you’ll have to shut down the small business that you’ve worked for years to build. That’s exactly the situation faced by a group of...At EFF, we’ve always stood up for the freedom to tinker and innovate. Unfortunately, our patent system doesn’t promote those freedoms. In some areas, like software, it’s causing much more harm than good. And the system is rife with patent trolls: companies that are focused on licensing and litigating patents,...WASHINGTON, D.C.— On Monday, December 6, at 10 am ET, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), standing up for public access to courts and transparency in patent litigation, will urge a panel of judges to unseal documents that a notorious patent troll is trying to hide. At a federal appeals court...The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) grants more than 300,000 patents each year. Some of those patent grants represent genuine new inventions, but many of them don’t. On average, patent examiners have to spend on each application. That’s not enough time to get it right....Even people who get sued over patents often can’t figure out who is demanding money from them. We’re glad to see the issue of patent transparency come back to Congress, in the form of a recently introduced bill called the “Pride in Patent Ownership” Act. However, because the bill lacks...Landmark Technology, a patent troll that has spent 20 years threatening and suing small businesses over bogus patents, and , has been sued by the State of Washington.Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a claiming that Landmark...Update September 10, 2021: This bill has been this week, by the same sponsors. EFF continues to support this legislation. The International Trade Commission, or ITC, is a federal agency in Washington D.C. that investigates unfair trade practices. Unfortunately, in recent years, it has also become a magnet...Share It

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe coronavirus dominated the news cycles, and our personal lives, in 2020. Scientists around the world raced forward to create a vaccine. Alongside that massive effort to create a critical new invention, we saw a renewed debate about patents and their role in helping, or hindering, innovation.&nbsp;&nbsp;At EFF, we’ve been the watchdog for years when patent owners abuse their monopolies. Unfortunately but predictably, some patent owners actually saw the rise of the COVID-19 health emergency as a business...

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Joe Mullin

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Fighting Abusive Patent Litigation During a Year of Health Crisis: 2020 Year In Review

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