Intellectual Property

Although superlatives are commonplace in the marketing of an invention or service, there are few loftier accolades than “the real McCoy.”

It’s a haunting, agonizing refrain in violent crimes that went unsolved for decades or were never solved at all: There were no fingerprints. Then, Sir Alec John Jeffreys changed crime-solving forever.

As mentioned in previous articles, these legal proceedings include ex parte appeals (in which an appellant seeks review of a prior rejection of claims in a patent application by a USPTO examiner), and America Invents Act (AIA) trials (in which a petitioner asserts that a patent controlled by a patent owner should not have issued in the first place). In both of these proceedings, parties may request a hearing at the PTAB.

“Inclusive” is the key word in the newly branded Council for Inclusive Innovation (CI2). The council—consisting of a who’s who from sectors including the federal government, academia, industry, intellectual property associations and nonprofits—will be chaired by United States Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The USPTO is an agency of the Department of Commerce.

The two soft drink behemoths exemplify the early years of what historians call the “mass consumer culture,” displayed via a beautiful collection of commercial labels and advertisements at the Library of Congress that came from the then-United States Patent Office.

As the world celebrates Computer Science Education Week December 6-12, it can also celebrate von Ahn’s prominent role in improving the security of internet sites, digitizing books through crowdsourcing, and more.

Given what is at stake for many independent inventors, the notion of going to trial may be daunting. At uspto.gov/patents/ptab/trials, the USPTO breaks down the trials process into categories to make the subject more understandable.

Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria, in 1914, Hedy Lamarr left school when she was 15 to become an actress. But she had a passion for inventing.

Kwolek led polymer research at DuPont until her retirement in 1986. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994 and received the National Medal of Technology in 1999, among many other honors.

In an ex parte appeal, an applicant seeks to demonstrate to a three-judge panel that the examiner erred in rejecting the claimed invention and that the rejection should be reversed. In this way, the PTAB functions as a quality control check on examination to ensure that examiners make correct patentability decisions.

The landmark America Invents Act produced a tribunal within the USPTO that was also unprecedented—the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Formed on Sept. 16, 2012, the PTAB is designed to streamline the process for determining issues of patentability. Its predecessor tribunal was called the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI).

These were all hallmarks of the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), which celebrates its 10th anniversary on September 16. The legislation, signed into law by then-President Obama, included some of the most significant reforms to U.S. patent law since 1836.