Patent Baristas

What: American Conference Institute’s Biotech Patents Conference:  Practical Strategies for Prosecuting and Litigating Biotech Patents in a Rapidly Shifting Legal Environment. The biotech industry faces massive, imminent, change with patent reform nearing passage, impending promulgation of biosimilar pathway regulations from the FDA, the continued evolution of case law from the Federal Circuit and an unusually […]

On September 16, 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.   This Act is touted as the most comprehensive overhaul to our patent system since 1836. The new law is intended to afford more certainty for patent applicants and owners, and provide the USPTO the resources needed to operate efficiently and […]

“The pharmaceutical industry is trashed nightly as being second only to the tobacco industry in the corporations-we-hate-most department.”    ~ Martin Voet In Martin Voet’s book, The Generic Challenge: Understanding Patents, FDA and Pharmaceutical Life-Cycle Management (third edition), he provides a concise guide to the necessary information so that pharmaceutical executives, managers, regulatory, legal and […]

This morning, President Obama signed the America Invents Act at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia—a school named for the first official to issue U.S. patents.  On stage with President Obama was a bipartisan group of legislators:  Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX); Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA); Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA); and Rep. […]

Author and inventor John D. Smith doesn’t want you to file a patent application.  Smith, author of the book “Don’t File a Patent!” book (232 pp.) writes: “The patent process is an illusion of protection that takes inventors’ hard earned money and gives them nothing in return.” So, why would I write about NOT filing […]

This is the third of a series of articles on IP and Antitrust issues. This article deals with some specific types of licensing restrictions. This is not an exhaustive list of practices that attract antitrust scrutiny. The licensing restrictions dealt with here are tying arrangements, tie-outs, royalty arrangements, exclusive dealings, cross-licensing, pooling and grant backs. This […]

On 9/6/11, US Business & Industry Council (USBIC) arranged a briefing for Senate staff about the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (H.R.1249)(formerly known as the Patent Reform Act of 2011). This briefing’s purpose was to make the Senate aware of many of the problems with this horrific legislation. The panelists were (from right to left (facing […]

Well, it looks like it’s all over but for the crying.  The Senate voted 89 to 9 to pass the Patent Reform Act bill yesterday. The Senate rejected proposed amendments to the house bill H.R. 1249, approved by the House last June, including: An amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, to go back to the […]