Litigation Quality Patent PatentCast

In this episode of "Ask The Patent Attorney," Martin Schweiger interviews Craige Thompson, JD, EE, PE. Craige explains the golden key to avoiding multiple office actions

Summary:   ​In this episode of "Ask The Patent Attorney," Martin Schweiger interviews Craige Thompson, JD, EE, PE explains how to  secure IP rights for a series of inventive concepts.

Summary: In this episode of "Ask The Patent Attorney," Martin Schweiger interviews Craige Thompson, JD, EE, PE explains his thoughts on the America Invents Act. 

Summary: What is the R&D Tax Credit? Welcome to this special edition of the Litigation Quality Patent PatentCast. I’m Your Host Craige Thompson of Thomson Patent Law. This is a very special podcast because we're joined by Jeff Holmberg who's a manager a CPA with Froehling Anderson, out of the Minneapolis Minnesota office. He's going to teach us something very important for in the inventors and innovators who are seeking patents and are doing R&D.

The patent, that was drafted pro se by a doctor who wanted to improve the patient charting process without having to click on a pointer, was not invalid on the grounds that it should be interpreted in means plus function form (if it were so interpreted, it would likely have stayed dead).   Had Apple been successful, many more software patents would have been put on life support. If you have questions about your software patents contact us at: https://thompsonpatentlaw.com/tpl-contact-us/

What would happen if your top engineers walked out the door with a patentable idea? As the CEO of a technologies company, have you thought about what would happen if your top engineers walked out the door with a patentable idea and started a very profitable business? Every employment agreement these days should have a clause obligating employees to assign their rights and invention to your company. However, this doesn’t always happen...

Is Your Patent Attorney Getting You the Right Claims? The first episode was about Litigation Quality Patent Claim Criteria. Today, we’re going to ask the other half of that question: what about claim scope? Am I getting Litigation Quality Patent Claim Scope when I’m filing my patent application? check out episode 1 here: https://thompsonpatentlaw.com/atpa-all-shows/right-claims/

Litigation Quality Patent: Claim Criteria "Is my patent attorney getting me the right claims?" To answer that question, we’re going to break this up into two parts. The first part is the Litigation Quality Patent Claim Criteria, and the second part is the Litigation Quality Patent Claim Scope. Get your Patent Claim Criteria guide by visiting https://thompsonpatentlaw.com/atpa-all-shows/right-claims/

This is an important case from 2014. It is part of our post-Alice software series of Litigation Quality PatentCasts because it’s about an important decision that’s often cited in prosecution literature, in IPRs, and in litigation in favor of patent eligibility for software claims in certain circumstances. Alice is the Supreme Court decision, and it has set the bar and the two-step Alice test for analyzing whether claims are patent-eligible subject matter, or whether they’re too abstract, to be ...

The Federal Circuit burns off some of the fog surrounding software claims at Step 2 of the Alice inquiry.  This case appears to directly answer, for the first time, whether a claim can lack the “inventive concept” needed to survive Alice, even though the claims are “groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant” as well as non-obvious.  Now we know that an “inventive concept” cannot be found in the non-abstract realm, e.g., the claimed improvement can’t be an improvement to merely abstract

In this enlightening review of Microsoft's successful non-infringement defense against Mastermine's software patent relating to pivot tables, Craige exposes the 4 layers that must be considered to properly interpret a patent claim. Craige provides crucial insights into the subtleties of each layer that make the difference between successful patent enforcement and just getting close but falling short, as Mastermine did with their claims. Visit us at: https://thompsonpatentlaw.com/

When is software that automates a human task patentable? When is it too abstract to be patentable? In this special edition of the post-Alice software PatentCast series, Craige explains how the automation software claims were indeed patentable. Craige extracts key themes that pop up in many software litigations, and explains how to apply the lessons learned to create and enforce Litigation Quality Patents® Visit us at ThompsonPatentLaw.com

Can a claim be obvious using “common sense” or “ordinary creativity?" No! Common sense or ordinary creativity cannot substitute for reasoned analysis and evidence! This puts a bar, albeit a low bar, on the PTO’s ability to waive their hands and find patent claims obvious. Listen to Craige explain how Apple and the PTO could not get over this bar to invalidate an early “IOT” claim. Visit us at: https://thompsonpatentlaw.com/

This episode is a case study about how NOT to try to use patents. Disaster befalls a patent owner whom they decided not to tell the Patent Office about 61 sales using the claimed intervention before the patent’s critical date. Craige explains how they hurt themselves in the patent office, which led to them losing their patent, getting sued for tortious interference, and paying the competitors legal fees on top of damages!

Don’t Fear the [Patent Declaratory Judgment] Reaper Did you know... fear from being sued and future business losses does not give you the right to sue a patent owner to get their patent declared invalid/ not infringed? Craige explains how manufacturers can defend themselves by a “DJ” (declaratory judgment) attack under some facts, but not others