Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a news post covering how the “nomination hearing to vet Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick . . . touched on several key points relevant to the intellectual property system”;
- a blog post discussing how the joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management requiring a return to office and hiring freeze “could significantly impact patent operations”;
- an article analyzing how the “Federal Circuit has been urged by startups and attorneys to reject calls by Google to tighten rules for admitting patent damages testimony” in the court’s upcoming en banc case; and
- a report suggesting “recent actions to purge diversity programs from the federal government and private sector could undermine one of the top objectives of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in recent years: expanding access to innovation.”
Eileen McDermott drafted a news post for IPWatchdog covering how the “nomination hearing to vet Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick . . . touched on several key points relevant to the intellectual property system.” McDermott highlighted Lutnick’s claim in the confirmation hearing that China’s practice of “us[ing] our patent office against us . . . is going to end, we are going to study that, and we are going to work on ending that and making sure our American inventors get taken care of quickly and effectively.”
Dennis Crouch authored a blog post for PatentlyO discussing how the joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management requiring a return to office and hiring freeze “could significantly impact patent operations.” Crouch suggested that, “[d]espite several studies demonstrating the program’s effectiveness in improving examiner retention and morale, the agency now faces the daunting task of unwinding remote work arrangements that have been in place since 1997.”
Ryan Davis penned an article for Law 360 analyzing how the “Federal Circuit has been urged by startups and attorneys to reject calls by Google to tighten rules for admitting patent damages testimony” in the court’s upcoming en banc case. Davis pointed out that, “[w]hile Google’s opening brief urged the full court to hold that judges must ‘serve as rigorous gatekeepers’ so that only reliable evidence is admitted, startups and lawyers backed EcoFactor’s position . . . arguing that evaluating an expert’s credibility is a task for jurors.” You can view our coverage of the en banc case here.
Theresa Schliep filed a report for Law 360 suggesting “recent actions to purge diversity programs from the federal government and private sector could undermine one of the top objectives of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in recent years: expanding access to innovation.” According to Schliep, “[t]he elimination of diversity programs at the USPTO represents an about-face for an agency that has endeavored to diversify its personnel and, more broadly, encourage inventorship in the economy among underrepresented groups.”