USPTO Waives Petition to Revive Fees for Patents, Patent Applications, Trademarks and Trademark Applications Abandoned Because of an Inability to Respond Due to COVID-19

To give patent and trademark applicants as well as patent and trademark owners relief from the implications of the COVID-19 outbreak, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) determined that the COVID-19 outbreak qualifies as an “extraordinary situation” and exercised its authority to waive certain petition fees. For patent owners and applicants unable to timely reply to a communication from the USPTO due to COVID-19, the USPTO is waiving any petition fee associated with the revival. Similarly, for trademark applications and registrations abandoned, canceled or expired due to an inability to timely respond to a communication, the USPTO is also waiving any petition fee associated with the revival. To utilize the waiver, a copy of this Notice must be enclosed along with a timely filed petition to revive. The USPTO will treat enclosure of this notice “as a representation that the delay in filing the reply was due to the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak, and as a request for sua sponte waiver of the petition fee.” Continue Reading

Trademark Fraud Sparks Rare Bipartisan Action

By C. Dennis Loomis on March 17, 2020 Posted in Trademark

In a political environment in which even a global virus pandemic cannot seem to foster bipartisan legislative cooperation, the growing surge in fraudulent trademark applications – many of which are maturing into issued trademark registrations – has done just that.

On March 11, 2020, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Ranking Judiciary Member Doug Collins, R-Ga. – less than two months ago embroiled in vituperative combat over presidential impeachment – jointly introduced the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020. They are joined by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., Sen. Tom Tillis, R-N.C., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. The bill seeks to protect legitimate brand owners, as well as consumers, from the consequences of trademark registrations based on applications, largely emanating from China, that falsely “prove” actual use of the given mark in commerce – the sine qua non for an enforceable trademark – using falsified specimens purporting to prove use. For example, the specimen of use submitted by the trademark applicant may be a manipulated digital image that adds the applicant’s trademark hang tag to a stock photo of the goods claimed in the application. Continue Reading

USPTO Tightens Unintentional Delay Standards for Certain Petitions to Revive, Acceptances of Delayed Maintenance Fee Payments, and Delayed Priority or Benefit Claims

By Fabian Koenigbauer on March 2, 2020 Posted in USPTO

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) allows for the revival of abandoned applications, acceptance of delayed maintenance fee payments, and acceptance of delayed priority or benefit claims by the filing of a petition.[1] Abandoned applications can be revived only if the abandonment was “unintentional.”[2] Delayed maintenance fee payments and priority or benefit claims are accepted only if the delay was “unintentional.”[3] For unintentional delays, “[t]he Director may require additional information where there is question whether the delay is unintentional.”[4]

Because of an applicant’s duty of candor and good faith and obligation to inquire about underlying facts, the USPTO had thus far not required any additional information[5] – an assertion on the petition stating that the delay was unintentional was sufficient. On March 2, the USPTO issued a Federal Register Notice clarifying that additional information is required when the delay has been for more than two years: Continue Reading

Breaking Down the Briefing in Google v. Oracle: Petitioner’s Brief

By Theresa Weisenberger on February 27, 2020 Posted in Copyright Infringement

A decade-long dispute between Google and Oracle regarding Google’s alleged infringement of Oracle’s copyright in its application programming interface (API) will culminate in a Supreme Court decision that will have lasting effects on the copyrightability of software. This post, which summarizes Google’s opening brief, is the first in a series analyzing the briefing and issues in Google v. Oracle.

The case focuses on whether Google impermissibly copied portions of Oracle’s Java API in developing an API that would allow Java-based programs to operate on Google’s Android platform. In Java, sets of code called “methods” can be invoked to perform basic functions within a larger application. An API, which allows developers to invoke methods, includes two parts for each method: the declaring code and the implementing code. The implementing code (or “implementation”) is the code that performs the underlying steps of that method. The declaring code (or “declaration”) identifies a method by name and illustrates the method’s location within the three-level hierarchy Java requires: The declaring code takes the format Java.package.class.method.

A developer uses a “call,” which corresponds to the declaration, to invoke the method. For example, an API for a method for determining a maximum of two numbers may have a declaring code of Java.lang.Math.max, and a call to invoke this method may be Java.lang.Math.max(a, b), where a and b are the two numbers that are to be compared. The parties do not dispute that Oracle has no copyright claim to the calls used by developers to invoke the API, but they do disagree on whether Oracle has a copyright claim to the declarations. See Brief for Petitioner at 22, 25, Google LLC v. Oracle Am., Inc. (No. 18-956), available here. Continue Reading

What Does Brexit Mean for Your European Union Trademarks?

By Deborah A. Wilcox on January 31, 2020 Posted in Trademark

The United Kingdom withdraws from the European Union today. The implementation period runs for the next 11 months, through Dec. 31. During this time, European Union trademark filings (“EUTMs”) will continue in full force in the U.K.

Unless the time is extended, beginning Jan. 1, 2021, EUTMs that have already registered will automatically be granted protection in the U.K. The U.K. Trademark Office will give these “comparable TMs (EU)” immediate protection, using the same EUTM registration number but followed by a new U.K. designation.

Any EUTMs that are still pending in the application stage at the end of the implementation period will not be granted protection automatically in the U.K. We recommend that trademark owners file an application directly in the U.K. during the implementation period; that is, sometime during this calendar year. The new application will retain the earlier filing date of the pending EUTM, as well as any priority claim associated with the EUTM, if the specification of goods and/or services is identical to or contained within the EUTM application.

Brexit does not affect European patents, since the European Patent Office is not an EU agency.

Be Sure to Ask Your Scientists the Right Questions or Risk Losing Patent Protection

By Fabian Koenigbauer and Stephanie Lodise on January 27, 2020 Posted in Patent

Welcome to the IP Intelligence Blog. We have merged the Copyright, Content, and Platforms blog into the IP Intelligence Blog to provide a single source for IP updates. We hope you enjoy our thought provoking posts on Intellectual Property related topics.

Under the first-to-file patent system in place in the U.S. and globally, a publication that pre-dates an effective filing date can preclude the patenting of an invention. While outside counsel, in-house counsel, and technical staff are well aware that such potentially novelty-destroying publications should be avoided, if the right questions are not asked, it is possible that scientists may make an inadvertent and unintentional, novelty-defeating, public disclosure.

Typically, when scientists present the results of research at a conference or publish the results of the research in a journal, the initial submissions are confidential. They become publicly available only after a peer-review period. Usually, it is possible to predict the publication date and file a patent application before that date. However, preemptive filing is not possible when the scientists have agreed to “pre-publication.”

There are many websites acting as repositories of scientific research, on which the research becomes publicly available as soon as the results of the research are posted.[1] These websites are designed to allow researchers to publicly “share early results with colleagues and respond to comments and recommendations for improvement, ahead of formal peer review and publication.”[2] Such websites include, but are not limited to https://www.biorxiv.org/ (pronounced “bio-archive”), https://chemrxiv.org/ (pronounced “chem-archive”), and https://arxiv.org/ (for physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, economics, electrical engineering and systems science). Posting research results on any of these websites may constitute a novelty-destroying disclosure of an invention relying on that research.

Given that, anytime a scientist approaches outside counsel, in-house counsel, or technical staff regarding disclosing research results, it is important to ask where the results of the research were or will be submitted and whether the submissions are confidential. It is also important to ask whether the scientist elected “pre-publication.” It may be advisable to include fields in invention disclosure forms that ask inventors not only about submission dates, but if they elected “pre-publication” on any websites.

[1] For instance, bioRxiv indicates that “[b]y posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.” About bioRxiv.

[2] About ChemRxiv.

PTAB by the numbers: A closer look at the most recent PTAB AIA trial statistics

By Fabian Koenigbauer on January 23, 2020 Posted in USPTO

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently posted the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) statistics for December 2019 (first quarter of FY2020).[1] Despite some inconsistences in the data, the statistics reveal some trends:

Inter partes reviews (IPRs) remain the most common type of America Invents Act (AIA) trial.
Life science/chemical patents and design patents are least likely to be challenged in an AIA trial.
More than 50% of all AIA trials will be instituted (except for design patents).
An AIA trial is more likely to settle post-institution.
The majority of AIA trials are resolved before reaching a final written decision.

A more detailed discussion of these trends follows.

I. IPRs remain the most prevalent AIA trials, and the number of AIA trial petitions in FY2020 remains unchanged or appears to show a decrease compared with FY2019.

As of Dec. 31, 2019, 10,966 AIA trial petitions have been filed. The majority of AIA trials are IPRs (93%). Covered-business method reviews (CBMs)_ and post-grant reviews (PRGs) account for only 5% and 2%, respectively. In the first quarter of FY2020, 332 AIA trial petitions were filed (317 IPRs (95.4%), 5 CBMs (1.5%), and 10 PGRs (3%)). Extrapolating the first quarter numbers to all of FY2020, one would expect about 1290-1300 AIA trial petitions for the fiscal year, i.e. about a 10% decrease compared with FY2019. (1464 AIA trials were filed in FY2019, including1364 IPRs (95.2%), 22 CBMs (1.5%), and 48 PGRs (3.2%)).[2] With CBMs sunsetting on Sept. 16, 2020, it will be interesting to see whether the number of CBM petitions increases in FY2020.

The number of IPR petitions almost doubled in December (144) compared with November (74). In fact, December 2019 is the second highest month for IPR petition filings in FY2019 and FY2020. The highest month for AIA petition filings was November 2018 (212 IPRs, 10 CBMs and 2 PGRs) [3], which was an anomaly as the PTAB changed the claim construction standard in November 2018.[4] It remains to be seen if December 2019 is a new trend. Continue Reading

Can Booking.com Trademark Its Company Name? How Will the U.S. Supreme Court Resolve Whether a Generic Term Plus a Top-Level Domain Is Protectable?

By Jason Oliver on January 15, 2020 Posted in Trademark

The legal battle between Booking.com BV and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began more than five years ago and concerns whether the online hotel booking company can secure a trademark registration for its name. After filing for trademark protection, Booking.com commenced a federal lawsuit in connection with the USPTO’s refusal to issue a trademark on the grounds that “BOOKING.COM” was too generic. Thereafter, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that the company’s “BOOKING.COM” trademarks could be registrable as descriptive trademarks that have acquired distinctiveness. The district court reasoned that the trademark “BOOKING.COM” had the potential to be non-generic when the public understood the trademark in its totality to refer to Booking.com’s brand. Significantly, the district court reviewed Booking.com’s survey evidence to conclude that the consuming public did not associate “BOOKING.COM” with general online hotel booking services. Rather, the district court noted that survey evidence indicated that participants associated the trademark, which included the top-level domain “.COM” with the specific source of the services.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling on this issue. The appellate court wrote that “when [“.COM”] is combined with [a second term], even a generic [second term], the resulting composite may be non-generic where evidence demonstrates that the mark’s primary significance to the public as a whole is the source, not the product.”

The USPTO petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Fourth Circuit’s affirmance that “BOOKING.COM” can be a valid mark because customers may identify the combined term as a brand name. Namely, the USPTO claimed that the Fourth Circuit’s decision conflicted with earlier Courts of Appeals decisions, which held that the addition of a descriptive component alone to a generic term does not transform the generic term into a registrable trademark.[1] In November 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari on the issue presented and will soon decide whether adding a top-level domain such as “.COM” to a generic name can transform the resulting combination into a federally protectable trademark. Continue Reading

Who Is Holding the Bag: How Will the Supreme Court Resolve the Circuit Split on Recovery of Profits in Trademark Cases?

By Jacqueline Lesser on December 31, 2019 Posted in Trademark

Two weeks from now, on January 14, 2020, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc. on the long-standing circuit split over whether willful infringement is a necessary precondition for an award of profits in a Section 43(a) trademark infringement case.

Under the Lanham Act, a victorious plaintiff in a trademark infringement case may be entitled to an election of either a monetary award of its damages or a disgorgement of the infringer’s profits, subject to equitable principles. 15 U.S.C. §1117(a). However, monetary relief is not a given, and injunctive relief is awarded far more commonly. The remedy is to make the plaintiff whole. While a disgorgement of profits is available, it is not intended to be punitive – in theory it serves as a proxy for actual damages, in a case where actual damages are difficult to prove, or alternatively as a means of preventing unjust enrichment or deterring future infringement.

More than 25 years ago, the Second Circuit, in George Basch Co. Inc. v. Blue Coral, Inc., 986 F.2d 1532 (2d Cir. 1992), adopted a per se willfulness standard in keeping with the then current Restatement of Unfair Competition, as necessary to maintain these “principles of equity.” A finding of willfulness would avoid the risk of a windfall beyond what would be considered appropriate damages. This precondition of willfulness for a disgorgement of profits has been long-standing in cases arising in the Second, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and D.C. Circuits. Continue Reading

POP Addresses IPR Printed Publication Standard

By Timothy Doyle on December 26, 2019 Posted in Patent

The Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) of the Patent Trials and Appeals Board (PTAB) recently answered the question, “What is required for a petitioner to establish that an asserted reference qualifies as a ‘printed publication’ at the institution stage?” According to the POP, “[f]or institution of an inter partes review, a petitioner must establish a reasonable likelihood that a reference is a printed publication.” Hulu, LLC. v. Sound View Innovations, LLC (IPR2018-01039), Paper 29 dated December 20, 2019, at 2.

In Hulu, LLC. v. Sound View Innovations, LLC, petitioner Hulu alleged that claims of patent owner Sound View’s U.S. Patent No. 5,806,062 (the ’062 patent) are invalid as obvious over Dougherty, a textbook that, according to Hulu, was publicly available prior to the 1995 filing of the application that resulted in the ’062 patent. Hulu’s obviousness argument relied upon a copy of Dougherty bearing a copyright date of 1990, a printing date of November 1992 and an ISBN date of August 1994 (Dougherty 1994), which Hulu submitted as an exhibit in its petition. Hulu supported the public accessibility of Dougherty, however, by submitting the table of contents of a copy of Dougherty bearing a copyright date of 1991, a printing date of March 1991 and an ISBN date of January 1992 (Dougherty 1992). The Dougherty 1992 exhibit was date-stamped by the Cornell University Library and was accompanied by an affidavit from the librarian at the Cornell University Library, which stated that Dougherty was indexed and available to the public on September 16, 1992. Continue Reading