IP Watchdog: A Closer, Evidence-Based Look at ‘Patent Quality’ Advocacy by James Edwards
The Patent Infringer Lobby has ramped up banging the drum about “patent quality.” They dedicated a week-long campaign to questioning “patent quality,” which its constituents regard as a huge problem.
Advocates have taken advantage of the vacuum left after U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu left the building.
Anti-patent advocates are exploiting the new dynamic of Senator Patrick Leahy, coauthor of the America Invents Act (AIA), who now chairs the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee. Leahy recently did the Infringer Lobby the favor of holding a hearing on this subject.
Key takeaway: “Patent troll” scaremongering and that narrative’s flimsy evidentiary basis is alive and well and back in use with a vengeance by those who don’t respect patents.
Claims of “weak patents,” assertions about “patent trolls,” defending the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as a “faster, cheaper” necessity—it’s deja vu all over again, circa 2011.
But the facts don’t support the “patent quality” narrative.