By Kevin E. Noonan --
The patent blogging team of John White and Eugene Quinn will be doing their part to keep the rest of us informed about the progress of the temporary restraining order/preliminary injunction hearing to be held on Wednesday in GlaxoSmithKline's lawsuit against Jon Dudas and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. As announced last week by White and Quinn, Mr. White will be in the gallery for the hearing, and will be contacting Mr. Quinn by telephone periodically. Updates will be provided on the pair's website. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10:00 am on October 31st.
For additional information on this topic, please see:
- "AIPLA Supports GSK's Lawsuit Against the Patent Office's New Rules," October 25, 2007
- "GSK Brings Out the Big Guns Opposing the New Continuation and Claims Rules," October 24, 2007
- "Hooray! - (Finally) the Big Dogs Have Joined the Hunt," October 11, 2007
Change is inevitable. Patent laws need to be changed as per the current requirement. If one honestly look at the recent patents, every one started claiming impurities, solvents, reagents, bases, anhydrous amorphous, solvate polymorph and useless peocess. These makes for all the products, time of patent expiry is getting extented. Thes makes other generic players to work with the non-infringing or novel process with the new reagents and no body know the toxicity in that process. Ultimately the patients are the sufferer, they don't get the cheaper generic medicine,if at all then with all the issues. These need to be addressed by supreme court. What is wrong to have Pre grant opposition for the patent . If there is value in the patent, definitely it will be granted. If it's something wrong, then these type of oppositon comes in their mind.
For example a patent on Anhydrous amorphous fluvastatin patent is granted with out the specification on water of hydration for hydrated molecule and anhydrous moelcule.Also as on today the experts on polymorphs says that there is no anhydrous or molarity hydrated amorphous, amorphous is always an amorphous it could be hydrated or anhydrous. How can one person oppose the grnat of patent in the present system.
Posted by: rajan | October 30, 2007 at 03:32 AM
How is he getting his BlackBerry/phone in? Doesn't this court not allow cell phones or electronic devices into the building?
Posted by: me | October 30, 2007 at 07:29 AM
Dear Me:
Some courts permit lawyers to bring them in (but not the public). Of course, he will need to be careful that it makes no noisy beeps or the court could make him leave. Alternatively, he could take notes during the hearing and upload them during any breaks.
Posted by: Kevin E. Noonan | October 30, 2007 at 07:51 AM
Couldn't someone call a friend, leave the phone turned on, and have the friend record the whole thing?
Posted by: MJC | October 30, 2007 at 08:09 AM
I was wondering, if the patent office wants to cut down on continuations then why not just charge more for them? For example the first 2 continuations and 1 RCE might be at the current price, the next 2 at double that price, the next more expensive and so on. That would discourage people lodging them to some degree and also provide more funds to examine them. Companies like GSK wouldn't care about the fees, but the small entity inventor might get them cheaper.
They could have also charged more for additional claims, to pay for extra staff.I suppose the real reason is that if they charged more then Congress would just take the extra money off them. So we get penalized because the PTO can't keep its fee increases.
However that would reduce the backload of frivolous continuations, while allowing more valuable ones to still be filed.
Posted by: MJC | October 30, 2007 at 08:16 AM
MJC,
Stop talking sense.
I find it ironic that the PTO claims that higher fees for more claims will not discourage applicants, yet filling out an ESD will....but the ESD is not a burden for the Good And True Applicant.
That's an implicit admission that the true cost of the ESD is the sum of:
(1) $$$ to prepare, plus
(2) loss of patent value (i.e., loss of scope b/c of estoppel), plus
(3) risk of inequitable conduct, plus
(4) risk of atty sanctions iaw Mr. Moatz' recent tirades.
Posted by: Anon E. Mouse | October 30, 2007 at 08:29 AM
Very interesting post on Kelley site on video provided in Tafas case as an exhibit. Appears the Deputy General Counsel of USPTO before retiring was willing to spill the beans with respect to the USPTO's true motive behind the vile rules. Short but, great watch.
http://www.kelleydrye.com/news/press/0170
Posted by: Commenter | October 30, 2007 at 08:55 AM
How about this as an alternative to an ESD? Use the PCT rules in place, so that the attorney has to commission a search report through them if over the 25/5 claim limit? The US is already doing this for PCT applicants so there would not be many changes to be made. This would be a fee of $300 and because the PTO did it themselves there would be no admissions made by the attorney about what it contains.
But the real reason is probably the same as my last post. Since Congress would take most of the extra income earned by this, the search report has to be done by someone else.
Posted by: MJC | October 31, 2007 at 12:21 AM
I have it from a reliable source at the courthouse that Judge Carchesi granted the preliminary injunction this morning.
Posted by: anonymous | October 31, 2007 at 11:20 AM
Sorry, my previous message should have said Judge "Carcheris," not "Carchesi".
Posted by: anonymous | October 31, 2007 at 11:22 AM
re: Whealan's comments.
Whealan has made this comments in other forums. What he fails to grasp is that the PTO is not entitled to make policy: Congress only granted to the PTO "tidying up" powers.
Posted by: Simon Elliott | October 31, 2007 at 02:25 PM
No phones or blackberry's allowed! I think it was John White two people behind me who almost cried when I was stopped with my cell phone.
Posted by: me | October 31, 2007 at 06:41 PM