In this month’s episode, we’re talking about patent marking – and its massive implications on your ability to collect on infringement damages.  

We’ve all seen patent numbers on physical products. Much like their copyright and trademark cousins, these designations are far from cosmetic. And instead serve a statutory requirement to provide public notice about your protected intellectual property. In the case of patent marking, not only does it reduce the risk of infringement because you are informing potential infringers of the patent's existence, but the notice also marks the point in time from which you can go back to for collecting on awarded damages. As the panel will discuss today, American patent law operates on a simple principle: mark your products with patent numbers, or watch your damages disappear.  

** Episode Overview **

Kristen Hansen, Patent Strategy Specialist at Aurora, leads today's discussion with our all-star patent panel, delving deeply into the Do’s and Don’ts for patent marking – both physical and virtual, for US and abroad. Along the way, Kristen and the panel discuss:

⦿ Patent Marking basics
⦿ Legal requirements for patent marking
⦿ Benefits and best practices for marking
⦿ A real-life case cautionary tale 
⦿ Implications for worldwide marking

** Mossoff Minute: Coke Morgan Stewart's Patent Reforms **

In this month’s minute, Professor Adam Mossoff celebrates the accomplishments of Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart. Her tireless efforts over the past months are helping to light the path back toward reliable and effective patent rights for innovators across the country and in the global economy.

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Whether you’re a founder looking to take the next fundraising steps beyond bootstrapping, an aspiring angel investor looking to understand the risks of seed investing, or even a practitioner hoping to get a better grasp of how this all works hand-in-hand with patent strategy, today’s topic provides an incredible springboard into the high risk, high reward world of strategic fundraising for early-stage startups. 

** Guest Host: Charlie Pascal **

To help us with the specifics, we’ve enlisted the assistance of Charlie Pascal. Charlie is the founder and principal attorney at Pascal Advisory LLC, where he’s spent the last decade focused primarily on working with early-stage tech and life science companies to navigate the legal complexities of everything from the pre-incorporation cocktail napkin stage to helping founders pick teams and build a board, on through our focus today, which is advising on all of the funding rounds from friends and family on through venture capital. Much like Aurora does with many of our early-stage clients, Charlie functions as what you can essentially think of as fractional general counsel for companies that aren't yet ready or able to engage full-time in-house legal counsel.

** Episode Overview **

Charlie and the panel discuss:

⦿ The various routes and rounds of fundraising available to early-stage companies.
⦿ How patents can play into each and how differences in business models can significantly impact patent strategy. 
⦿ As a founder, what goes initially into projecting a budget for fundraising needs, and later, how to think about valuation.
⦿ How to get the most out of your patents when it comes to valuation and approaching investors.
⦿ And great pro tips on some surprising sharp corners related to things like preferred stock, down rounds, the investor payout waterfall, and the very commonly used and freely downloadable SAFE equity agreement created by Y-Combinator.

 ** Related Content **

⦿ What Investors Want in Patents: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/what-investors-want-in-patents-with-sridhar-iyengar
⦿ Government Grants and Patent Rights: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/government-grants-and-patent-rights
⦿ Key Considerations for IP Diligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeeAmgAMtQA

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In today’s global economy, the importance of international patent protection cannot be overstated. Your invention could be conceived of with a workforce distributed across several continents. Your manufacturing could happen in Asia or India, while your products are shipped into and distributed from ports in the target markets of the largest economies across the globe. Would be competitors and infringers could be next door neighbors or perhaps across the pond. But as you’ll learn today, there is no such thing as an International Patent – no one global patent that protects you everywhere. Instead, patents are jurisdictional property rights. For example, a U.S. patent only grants the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing the claimed invention within the United States. It has no bearing on activities performed in Canada, Mexico, China, or anywhere else in the world. To restrict activities there, you will need a patent granted in each of those countries.

So, how do you choose where to file? How long do you have to decide? What pathways exist for filing internationally? How do you pursue international protection in an intentional, strategic, cost-effective manner that won’t break the bank? And what should you be thinking about now, while drafting your patent to set yourself up for the greatest odds of success once on the international stage?

** Episode Overview **

Dr. Ashley Sloat, Aurora’s very own international patenting tour guide, leads today's discussion with our all-star patent panel, traveling from the U.S. to Europe, Africa, India, East Asia, Australia, and everywhere in between, exploring the intricacies and nuances of ensuring your patent rights are protected everywhere it matters. Along the way, Ashley and the panel discuss:

⦿ Reasons for pursuing international protection.
⦿ How to choose locations with a cost-effective international strategy.
⦿ Foreign filing deadline and strategy pointers.
⦿ The most common pathways for foreign protection including, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Paris Convention, the European Patent Convention, Unitary Patents, and the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization.
⦿ Things you need to be thinking about well in advance, in terms of drafting your patent and the international dangers of public disclosure.
⦿ And even some considerations for how political happenings like tariffs, trade wars, and Brexit can impact your patent strategy.

** Mossoff Minute: A Friend to Inventors **

In this month’s minute, Professor Adam Mossoff discusses Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick's remarks at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, and what this positively signals for the near future of innovation policy.

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In this month’s episode, we’re getting high on innovation with a deep dive into cannabis patents! 

As more and more states relax restrictions on both medical and recreational uses of marijuana and hemp, the U.S. cannabis industry is projected to reach $50 billion in sales this year and over $74.6 billion by 2032! This rapid growth is happening despite immense challenges brought on by a complex and conflicting web of legal disparities between federal and state laws. These legal challenges include limited access to financial institutions and the inability to transport products across state lines, but what about patents? THC – the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis – was deemed a Schedule One drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This is the most restrictive category for drugs in the eyes of the federal government. And unlike most other property rights, patents fall squarely within federal jurisdiction. So what does this mean for inventors in the space hoping to protect their cannabis-related innovations?

** Guest Host: James Gourley **

For the answer, we turned to *the* expert in this space. There have only been five or so cannabis patent infringement cases ever filed in the United States, and our guest host today has worked on two of them. James Gourley is a partner at Carstens, Allen & Gourley, LLP, and a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. James served on the Dallas Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section Board before moving to Denver. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and Colorado and is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas, the District of Colorado, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. James has been a pioneer cannabis IP law and brings incredible depth of expertise, based on first-hand experience, to our conversation.

** Episode Overview **

⦿ Cannabis at the molecular level, specifically THC and CBD, and how the subtle differences underscore the complexity of cannabis legality.
⦿ The present legal framework around cannabis and the challenges that come via a patchwork of conflicting state and federal laws.
⦿ Cannabis IP issues surrounding obtaining and asserting both patents and trademarks, including insights from the cases James has personally litigated.
⦿ Patent prosecution strategies to help ensure your rights are enforceable in a federal court.

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If a court stripped away your property rights, wouldn’t you at least want an explanation? The answer is obvious, but the reality is appalling. The practice of revoking patent rights on appeal without explanation has been happening to inventors at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (CAFC) at an alarming rate. In over 43% of PTAB cases on appeal at the CAFC, inventors receive a single-word response – “AFFIRMED” – rather than an opinion. This practice is referred to as the application of Rule 36 and, in cases involving the PTAB, amounts to the seizure of property from an administrative agency without any reasoning provided by a constitutionally created Article III court. 

Based on the findings of our guests today, who are taking this very issue up with the Supreme Court, Rule 36 violates clear statutory requirements, raises Constitutional questions, and defies a rich history of court precedent. Gene Quinn has said that this Federal Circuit Court practice is “placing America’s inventors under siege,” and friend of the podcast and former Chief Justice of the Federal Circuit, Paul Michel, has called this practice a “dereliction of duty” that “warrants immediate Supreme Court scrutiny.” Our guests this month – Jeff Parker, Amit Vora, and Juliette Fassett – are fighting hard to make that happen. 

** Our Guests **

ParkerVision has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court and recently submitted a reply brief in an attempt to get the Supreme Court to take up this innovation-crippling practice. In the coming days, the justices are scheduled to discuss the petition in private conference, where they will vote on whether to take the case.

To help us unpack Rule 36 practice and what ParkerVision is hoping to do about it, Dr. Ashley Sloat and I have enlisted the assistance of the three people closest to this case and its implications:

⦿ Jeffrey Parker, CEO of ParkerVision – an absolute pioneer in wireless technology.
⦿ Amit Vora, appellate litigator at Kasowitz Benson Torres, representing ParkerVision in its petition for cert with the Supreme Court.
⦿ Juliette Fassett from the Fair Inventing Fund, advocating for inventors’ rights. Juliette is an inventor herself, with over 30 years of experience building consumer product companies.

** Referenced Links **

⦿ ParkerVision's Cert: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-518/331105/20241104163210189_No.%2024-_____%20Petition.pdf
⦿ Why Patents Exist w/ Professor Mossoff: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/why-patents-exist-with-adam-mossoff

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So, your patent application got rejected. Now what? 

In this month’s episode, we’re talking about rejection. Specifically, the type that comes from the patent office in the form of an intimidating sounding three-digit number when your application gets denied by an examiner.

Some time after submitting your application, it goes into a process with the patent office called examination. This is the part of your patent’s prosecution journey where an examiner reviews your application for conformance to technical and legal requirements. If – and usually when – the examiner finds a problem, they will issue an office action that contains specific reasons for the rejection. You then have the opportunity to respond to and overcome the rejection, using various strategies we’ll explore today.    

Reasons for rejection fall under four sections of U.S. Statute, Title 35. Sections 101, 102, 103, and 112 dictate that patents must be eligible, useful, novel, nonobvious, and enabled (or properly described). Patents can be rejected or later invalidated if one or more of the claims are determined to be otherwise. 

Rejection on the basis of these four statutes is fortunately just the beginning of the delicate process of negotiating this important exchange that has promoted and enabled our innovation economy since the dawn of our country. Patent application rejection is common, expected, and can be used very strategically – but perhaps counterintuitively – to end up with the broadest possible protection, while also making sure there’s something in it for the public!

** Episode Overview **

In today’s episode, Patent Office Relationship Guru Daniel Wright leads a discussion with our all-star patent panel, delving deeply into defining, coping with, and then dealing with patent application rejection. Along the way, Dan and the panel discuss:

⦿ Why patent applications are rejected.
⦿ The specific types of rejection.
⦿ Strategies for how to overcome each, including some wonderful insider insights specifically on how to work with examiners on the human level to overcome rejection.

** Mossoff Minute: Patents Aren't Monopolies **

In this month’s minute, Professor Adam Mossoff debunks the myth that patents in the United States are monopolies that impede innovation and block economic growth.  

** Referenced Links **

⦿ Apply to work at Aurora: https://www.aurorapatents.com/careers-patent-agent.html
⦿ Patent Anatomy: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/patent-anatomy-whats-in-a-patent

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An invention cannot be patented if the differences between your claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was conceived. Determining obviousness – and the validity of your patent – is more than simply establishing that the invention doesn’t already exist and that it isn’t documented elsewhere. Its conception must also not have otherwise been obvious to those in the field at the time.

If you’re thinking that sounds awfully subjective in the present and highly susceptible to hindsight bias in the future, you’d be right. Beyond being one of the four main drivers for patent application rejection at examination time, obviousness is also one of the primary vectors used by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for invalidating patents via Inter Partes Review, so it’s essential to get this right so as to limit your patent’s potential invalidation surface area.

** Episode Overview **

Kristen Hansen, Patent Strategy Specialist at Aurora, and Dr. David Jackrel, President of Jackrel Consulting, lead today’s two-part discussion with our all-star panel, dissecting recent court decisions impacting the core patenting issue of obviousness. In breaking this all down in terms of how obviousness has been playing out in the courts, Dave, Kristen, and the panel discuss:

⦿ Inter Partes Review and how some PTAB strategy deviates from conventional patenting wisdom when it comes to obviousness.
⦿ Recent obviousness case law decisions.
⦿ Practice tips related to obviousness including analysis of how previously invalidated claims impact future claims, the dangers of being your own lexicographer, and the strategic importance of drafting backup positions in your specification.

** Mossoff Minute: PREVAIL Advances **

In this month's Mossoff Minute, Professor Adam Mossoff discusses some incredibly exciting news about the PREVAIL Act, which is designed to bring much overdue reform to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

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Patent examiners can make mistakes. Patent office clerks can misfile paperwork and cause procedural errors. The software tools, document formats like DOCX, and the IT systems your application passes through can have bugs. What recourse do you have when quality issues creep in at this stage? This is where petition practice, fortunately, comes to the rescue.

** Quality Patents Part 5 **

This is our final episode in a multi-part series focused on quality patents. The prior four episodes have all been about managing quality for everything in your immediate control. Steps you and your practitioner should be taking before and after your patent is granted. But what about the last mile, where you’re turning your carefully crafted patent application over to the patent office for examination and prosecution?

Patent petition practice is the process of filing formal requests, referred to as “petitions,” with the USPTO or other relevant patent offices to address procedural and administrative issues that can arise during the patent application process. Filing petitions can be an essential step to correct course when rules are misapplied, procedural errors occur, administrative actions need to be reversed, or deadlines are missed.

** Guest Hosts: Julie Burke and Michael Spector **

Julie Burke is a registered patent agent and former USPTO employee with 20 years of experience at the patent office. Julie rose up at the PTO to become a Quality Assurance Specialist – the type of manager you’d call when your case got off track. During this time, she handled more than 900 petitions at the patent office! After leaving the PTO, she founded her own consulting company, IP Quality Pro LLC, where she helps patent attorneys navigate complex situations in the patent system to protect their inventor’s ideas. This experience from both sides of the petition practice table has given Julie a level of access, experience, and insights shared by few in the industry. Julie is also presently an advisor for Petition.ai, the first searchable database of US patent prosecution petitions and associated documents. Julie is joined by the co-founder of Petition.ai, Michael Spector.

** Discussed Links **

⦿ Quality Patents Part 1: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/quality-patents
⦿ Quality Patents Part 2: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/ptab-survival-guide
⦿ Quality Patents Part 3: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/continuation-practice
⦿ Quality Patents Part 4: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/itc-proofing-patents
⦿ After Final Practice: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/new-podcast-after-final-practice

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⦿ YouTube:

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For inventors, the promise of the patent system is the right to exclude others from making, using, importing, and selling their patented innovations for a limited period. But how do patent holders actually enforce those rights, particularly when the copycat product is being manufactured outside of domestic jurisdiction? In an otherwise challenging time for rights assertion, the ITC – or International Trade Commission – can be one of the most impactful long-range weapons an inventor has in their arsenal for stopping patent pirates.

The ITC has the authority to grant exclusion orders, which are enforced by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to block the importation of infringing products at U.S. ports of entry.

But how can you access the ITC, what are its requirements, how can you afford it, and what should you be thinking about now to help future proof your patent portfolio for the most effective use later at the ITC? We’re answering all of these questions in an episode that is part of our ongoing series on patent quality – aimed at not just getting a granted patent but in having one that will hopefully be valuable and stand the test of time.

** Guest Host: Evan Langdon **

Because experience is the best teacher, we’ve enlisted the help of Evan Langdon to guest host this month’s episode. Evan is a partner at Fabricant LLP and the Chair of its ITC practice. Evan has been focused on ITC litigation for the past 15 years, both offensively and defensively, having represented clients in more than thirty Section 337 cases at the ITC. Evan is recognized among the nation’s top ITC practitioners by Chambers USA and Chambers Global.

** Episode Overview **

⦿ What is the ITC and what are its advantages over court-based litigation to stop infringers?
⦿ Requirements for filing an ITC Action
⦿ Litigation financing options for the ITC
⦿ Offensive and defensive strategies at the ITC
⦿ Patent drafting and portfolio strategy tips for increasing your odds at the ITC
⦿ Masimo v. Apple and the ITC's import ban of the Apple Watch
⦿ The recent Lashify case and what it means for the domestic industry requirement

** Discussed Links **

⦿ Quality Patents Part 1: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/quality-patents
⦿ Quality Patents Part 2: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/ptab-survival-guide
⦿ Quality Patents Part 3: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/continuation-practice
⦿ Patent Anatomy: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/new-podcast-patent-anatomy
⦿ RESTORE Act: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/restoring-injunctive-relief

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There’s not a more important concept that’s more widely misunderstood by those newer to patenting than continuations. So we’re dedicating Part 3 of our series on quality patents to everything you need to know about this essential step for future proofing and increasing the value of your portfolio.

Void of pursuing continuations, the language of your patent is frozen in time at issuance. The specifics of the enforceable boundaries of your protection are forever fixed to the claims you chose to pursue with your initial application – but not necessarily with the full breadth of your invention as conceived. For many reasons, practitioners and inventors will often choose to limit how much of an invention is claimed in an initial application. But then the future happens. Case law changes. New competitors arise. New prior art surfaces. And challenges may come in the form of litigation or IPRs as we discussed in our last episode. With a closed family, all you can do is hope you had the right foresight to predict this future with your static document.

Continuations, on the other hand, allow patent owners to keep patent families open – in other words, not textually frozen in time at issuance. When done right and timely, the patent family becomes a series of living documents, allowing a patent owner to claim and capture the full scope and breadth of the conceived innovation, but with the benefit of hindsight, known R&D outcomes, and changing market conditions.

** Episode Overview  **

⦿ The basics of continuation practice and its strategic benefits
⦿ Types of continuation applications and how and when each applies
⦿ The close cousin concepts of terminal disclaimers and prosecution latches
⦿ The potential unfortunate consequences of the recent Sonos v. Google decision regarding a very common use of continuation practice

** Mossoff Minute  **

In this month's Mossoff Minute, Adam discusses the introduction of the RESTORE Act. This is an exciting new piece of legislation aimed at restoring patent owners’ abilities to obtain injunctions to stop infringers from continuing to steal innovations after being found guilty of doing so.

** Discussed Links **

⦿ Quality Patents Part 1: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/quality-patents
⦿ Quality Patents Part 2: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/ptab-survival-guide
⦿ Patent Anatomy: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/new-podcast-patent-anatomy

** Follow Aurora Patents **

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⦿ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuroraPatents
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Thanks for listening! 

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Note: The contents of this podcast do not constitute legal advice.

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