Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:
- a piece suggesting the United States government’s decision to file “a Statement of Interest in . . . a patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division,” is “quite telling, and will be taken as extremely good news by patent owners”;
- an article discussing how a “group of five small businesses on Wednesday signed up prominent appellate lawyer Neal Katyal and former federal appeals court judge Michael McConnell to defend their court victory over President Donald Trump’s tariffs”;
- a blog post examining how “[t]he [United States Patent and Trademark Office] has begun implementing a comprehensive enforcement system for false assertions of small entity and micro entity fee status”; and
- a report covering how “Motorola Solutions Inc. challenged the US Patent and Trademark Office’s retroactive application of a policy shift that killed its efforts to invalidate eight patents in administrative proceedings.”
Gene Quinn penned a piece posted on IP Watchdog suggesting the United States government’s decision to file “a Statement of Interest in . . . a patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division,” is “quite telling, and will be taken as extremely good news by patent owners.” According to Quinn, “it seems clear that the Trump Administration is advocating a new path forward and a return to the possibility of an injunction issuing to patent orders” by issuing this statement.
Dietrich Knauth wrote an article for Reuters discussing how a “group of five small businesses on Wednesday signed up prominent appellate lawyer Neal Katyal and former federal appeals court judge Michael McConnell to defend their court victory over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.” According to Knauth, Katyal said on Wednesday that “the lawsuit was a ‘vital’ challenge to presidential overreach.” Knauth also noted that these small businesses “are also represented by the Liberty Justice Center, a legal nonprofit that focuses on defending economic liberty, private property rights, free speech and other rights.”
Dennis Crouch wrote a blog post for PatentlyO examining how “[t]he [United States Patent and Trademark Office] has begun implementing a comprehensive enforcement system for false assertions of small entity and micro entity fee status.” Crouch explained that this is “a continuation of a process begun under Director Vidal and implementation of statutory changes in 2023.” According to Crouch, “[a]s enforcement begins, there is likely to be some challenge” to the USPTO due to a legal ambiguity that “comes from the 2011 transformation that divided the patent applicant and the inventors as potentially two separate entity groups.”
Michael Shapiro wrote a report for Bloomberg Law covering how “Motorola Solutions Inc. challenged the US Patent and Trademark Office’s retroactive application of a policy shift that killed its efforts to invalidate eight patents in administrative proceedings.” Shapiro discussed how Motorola argued “[a]cting PTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart’s scrapping of a Biden-era rule . . . violated the Administrative Procedure Act.”