{"id":25331,"date":"2019-07-09T17:48:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T21:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=25331"},"modified":"2019-07-09T23:41:06","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T03:41:06","slug":"patent-protection-at-a-critical-juncture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/25331\/patent-protection-at-a-critical-juncture\/","title":{"rendered":"Patent Protection at a Critical Juncture"},"content":{"rendered":"

At CFIF, we\u2019ve consistently and unapologetically celebrated<\/a> the central role of intellectual property (IP) rights \u2013 patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets – in making America the most innovative, prosperous and powerful nation in human history.<\/p>\n

Recent legal developments domestically, as well as growing focus upon Chinese IP malfeasance internationally, provide new emphasis on the importance of strong U.S. patent protections for American inventors, and highlight some increasingly obvious concerns regarding patent infringers exploiting the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) for nefarious and selfish purposes.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, patent holder plaintiff TQ Delta won on all eight counts<\/a> in its first case in a series against 2Wire, Inc. over digital communication technology patents.\u00a0 The win thereby sets a strong precedent of IP enforcement in what will be the first trial over its DSL patent porfolio.<\/p>\n

In another recent example<\/a> that will instantly resonate with parents as their children splash amid water balloons in their backyards this summer, a federal judge in Texas went to the rare extreme of actually doubling<\/em> a multimillion-dollar jury award in favor of toy company Tinnus Enterprises, maker of \u201cBunch O Balloons\u201d water balloon devices, in its patent infringement case against Telebrands.\u00a0 More often, judges reduce jury awards that they consider excessive.\u00a0 In this case, however, U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III held that the \u201cserial infringement\u201d of Tinnus\u2019s patents and \u201cflagrant\u201d litigation misconduct merited more than doubling the original damages assessment.<\/p>\n

The ongoing case of EagleView v. Verisk<\/a> offers another salient example, a proverbial David innovator versus a Goliath infringer.\u00a0 It also presents a perfect opportunity to correct a patent infringement injustice and offer a deterrent lesson to other potential patent violators of the consequences they will face.\u00a0 In a nutshell, the plaintiff EagleView develops products that create 3-D models from aerial images of rooftops, from which insurers and construction companies can more accurately reach repair cost estimates.\u00a0 After defendant Verisk unsuccessfully attempted to purchase EagleView in 2014, it allegedly shifted to using its subsidiary Xactware Solutions to infringing EagleView\u2019s patented technology, triggering EagleView\u2019s lawsuit for willful patent infringement.<\/p>\n

Since that date, Verisk has employed an array of tactics to prevent EagleView\u2019s lawsuit from reaching a jury, such as filing multiple petitions at the PTAB to invalidate EagleView\u2019s underlying patents, which a federal Court of Appeals found \u201cunpersuasive.\u201d\u00a0 Verisk has also petitioned the District Court multiple times to invalidate EagleView\u2019s underlying patents, which the Court rejected similarly.\u00a0 Now, Verisk has even resorted to joining the LOT Network, an openly anti-IP group that includes Google and other titans.\u00a0 Hopefully, those tactics will be put to an end at long last.<\/p>\n

All of this serves to highlight once again the need to protect IP, and patent rights specifically, at the legislative, executive and judicial levels.\u00a0 At the Congressional and executive levels, legislation to address patent eligibility and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) reform are critical, as CFIF has previously emphasized<\/a>.\u00a0 Additionally, abuse at the PTAB level must not be tolerated.\u00a0 And at the judicial level, courts must hold patent infringers accountable, and grant injunctive relief to patent holders to halt violations.\u00a0 By holding violators accountable, we can not only deter other potential violators, but also provide the incentive to innovators by creating greater assurance that their work will be rewarded and protected.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s tradition of leading the world in innovation and IP protection is ultimately at stake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At CFIF, we\u2019ve consistently and unapologetically celebrated the central role of intellectual property (IP) rights \u2013 patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets – in making America the most innovative, prosperous and powerful nation in human history. Recent legal developments domestically, as well as growing focus upon Chinese IP malfeasance internationally, provide new emphasis on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2871,2872,1442],"class_list":["post-25331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-intellectual-property","tag-ip","tag-patent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25331"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25337,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331\/revisions\/25337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}