In The Press
CHIPS+ a giant step for semiconductor manufacturing, action still needed to protect R&D, patent transparency
Cleveland Daily Leader, August 12, 2022
“The problem is not what CHIPS+ provides as much as what it (or any other law) fails to require: Transparency about what happens to patents once the government pays for them—critically, whether they are transferred to foreign companies, including the very ones CHIPS+ is supposed to help domestic companies compete against.”
— Alex Moss
Does Our Patent System Need to Be Reformed?
The New York Times, April 24, 2022
“It shouldn’t be controversial to expect patents to be new and useful, but it is. That’s because a handful of big companies use the Patent Office like an A.T.M.: a reliable source of cash for the cost of a small fee. . . . What about members of the public who depend on patented technology to earn a living, get an education, or access medical care? We get ignored.”
— Alex Moss
Trump’s Patent Director Pressured Judges to Rule in His Law Firm’s Favor
The American Prospect, September 2, 2022
“Alas, the Patent Office has often neglected to serve the public’s interest—and seldom has it performed worse than under Donald Trump’s choice of director, the corporate lawyer Andrei Iancu. With Iancu at the helm, USPTO prioritized the interests of fee-paying companies—or “customers,” as it called them—weakening enforcement of patent laws, and shrouding the USPTO’s operations in secrecy that precludes public accountability.”
— Alex Moss & Timi Iwayemi
Webroot sues CrowdStrike, Sophos, others over alleged patent infringement
The Stack, March 15, 2022
Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, told The Stack: “This seems more like a ‘patent bullying’ lawsuit—where one entity uses its patents to block competitors instead of competing in the market on the basis of consumer appeal.”
— Eliot Beer
Campaigning Lawyers Launch Counter-Offensive Against Software Patent Trolls
The Daily Swig, November 9, 2021
PIPLI’s goal is to ensure the patent system “promotes access to innovation of all kinds for the benefit of everyone”, Moss explained. The institute is planning to focus on helping individual developers, users, and small companies that are targeted by patent trolls (entities that make money off patents rather than developing products or services) and gathering information about troll demands. It also wants to help create more software-related ‘prior art’ (which can be used to invalidate patents and patent applications) available to the public and Patent Office, along with making the patent system itself more transparent and accountable to the public.
The Daily Swig first came across PIPLI’s work as we investigated allegations that UK firm Datawing was caught threatening small firms who had enabled the Content Security Policy (CSP) nonces web security feature. The institute offered support to organizations that had received letters from Datawing, which controversially claimed CSP nonces is covered by US and UK patents it holds. In the face of this opposition and criticism from web security experts such as Scott Helme, Datawing abandoned its licensing campaign and apologized for its “ill advised” letters.
“Helping people like the developers who got demands from Datawing is exactly the kind of thing (in category one) that PIPLI was created to do,” Moss said. She added: “This is a troubling example of something that happens all too often: a patent of questionable validity gets asserted against small companies and independent developers who don’t have the resources to hire or retain big firm lawyers and fear the negative publicity associated with infringement accusations.”
— John Leyden
In defence of the America Invents Act and its impact on startups
IAM, October 26, 2022
Increasing the quality of granted patents is good for everyone (except those who depend on invalid ones). A system that reliably grants valid patents gives everyone – patent owners, licensees, investors, and customers – greater confidence in the value of granted patents. One that routinely grants invalid patents erodes that confidence, creates uncertainty, and spurs investment in litigation instead of innovation.
— Abby Rives & Alex Moss
Protect the Supply Chain From Patent Trolls Before It’s Too Late
Bloomberg Law, November 29, 2022
Avanci was open about its intention to offer licenses exclusively to car manufacturers—and refuse all other industry participants, including manufacturers of the components that enable wireless connectivity. This scheme overtly violates pool members’ obligations to license SEPs on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms, also known as FRAND.
— Michael Carrier & Alex Moss
US Inventor Arguments for Opposing the Pride in Patent Ownership Act Fall Short on the Merits
IP Watchdog, November 29, 2022
Non-practicing entities like ParkerVision that make meritless litigation their business demonstrate why we need greater transparency in our patent system, not why transparency efforts should be opposed. Transparency will shine light on the networks of investors—including foreign government-backed funds—hiding behind patent troll shell companies.
— Alex Moss
Group’s Launch Raises Questions About Ex- USPTO Directors
Inside Sources, December 22, 2022
If you’re concerned about the effect patents have on access to medicine, economic opportunities or healthy food, the newly launched Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) tells you to ignore the man behind the curtain. According to C4IP, low-quality, overly broad patents deserve protection — not people with diabetes, small businesses or farmers.
— Alex Moss
DOJ Told Avanci Is A 'Patent Troll' Facilitator
Law 360, October 17, 2022
The blistering criticism of Avanci's business model mostly came in the form of a 10-page letter addressed to Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division since late last year. Co-authored by Alex Moss, director of the nonprofit Public Interest Patent Law Institute, the letter carried the support of some 28 lawyers, professors and former regulators, including former Federal Trade Commission policy director David Balto and Harry First, a former antitrust bureau chief at the New York Attorney General's Office who now teaches at the New York University School of Law.
In an interview, Moss told Law360 she is hopeful that Kanter will have a different view of how Avanci operates compared to his predecessor under the last administration, Makan Delrahim. "[Delrahim] was a lobbyist for Qualcomm for a decade or so, and Qualcomm is one of Avanci's founding members — any change from that [at the DOJ] short of another Qualcomm lobbyist is going to be a remarkable change," Moss said.
— Andrew Karpan
PTAB Briefs Suggest VLSI Challenger Also Courted Intel
Law 360, August 29, 2022
The board's rejection of Intel's petitions under Fintiv has drawn scrutiny alongside VLSI's claims that OpenSky and PQA are abusing the IPR system, including from the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, or PIPLI. The nonprofit noted in an Aug. 19 amicus brief — one of more than a dozen filed in the cases — that the board denied one of Intel's petitions on May 5, 2020, the same day that the Fintiv decision was designated precedential. The board denied Intel's second petition about two weeks later.
According to PIPLI's amicus brief, the PTAB panel handling the Intel cases had mentioned the Fintiv decision to the parties during a telephone hearing that March, less than a week after the Fintiv decision was initially issued on March 20, 2020, and before it was made precedential. One judge, according to PIPLI, suggested that the parties address the Fintiv factors in supplemental briefing.
"The judge did not say why he was springing this new case on the parties or suggesting they address it. Nor is the reason for doing so apparent. Fintiv was not designated precedential or about to be; more than a month would pass before its designation," PIPLI's brief said.
— Britain Eakin
5 Amici Back Drug Cos. Fighting Denial Of Patent Review
Law 360, August 23, 2022
But some of the amici, including the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, said the board's decision risks leaving invalid patent claims standing. "The public has a strong interest in ensuring the challenged patent is cancelled if not properly enabled to protect space for innovation and access to cancer medication. Given the petition's strong merits, PGR should proceed immediately," the institute's brief said.
Alex Moss, the institute's executive director, told Law360 in an email Tuesday that the board's de- institution decision "is absurd."
"Juries defer to the Patent Office, not the other way round. The public has an especially strong interest in ensuring the PTAB reviews this patent to ensure it will not wrongfully block innovation of and access to cancer treatment, but strong review petitions should be granted, period," Moss said. "We hope the PTAB will reconsider its decision."
— Britain Eakin
Apple, patent foe urge court to keep license terms secret in smartphone case
Reuters, December 6, 2021
The dispute is at the Federal Circuit for the second time. The appeals court earlier affirmed U.S. District Judge William Alsup's decision to unseal information about Uniloc's business practices but told him to reconsider whether information about Uniloc's patent licenses with several third parties should be kept secret.
On remand, Alsup refused to order the information sealed, writing that a patent owner "is a tenant on a plot within the realm of public knowledge," and the public "has every right to account for all its tenants, all its sub-tenants, and (more broadly) anyone holding even a slice of the public grant."
Alexandra Moss of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, representing EFF, said Monday the Supreme Court has "repeatedly recognized that the public's interest in the patent system is paramount."
— Blake Brittain
PTAB Reform Bill Won’t Help Cut Drug Prices, Groups Say
Law 360, August 9, 2023
Ten think tanks and consumer groups have lined up in opposition to a Senate bill that proposes substantial changes to how patent challenges operate at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, saying the measure will ensure "Americans continue paying more than the rest of the world for prescription drugs.”
"What brings [these proposals] together is that both directly attack the rules for accessing and the implications of accessing the proceedings for challenging patents," said Alex Moss, formerly an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who now runs one of the groups endorsing the letter, the Public Interest Patent Law Institute.
She put together the letter, which was backed by think tanks like Public Citizen and the R Street Institute, as well as medical patient groups like Patients for Affordable Drugs and T1 International, and groups like the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
— Alex Moss
US PTO Invalidation Decision Raises New Questions About Old Rules
Inside Sources, July 14, 2023
"[T]he U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has determined that both patents at the heart of VLSI Technology’s litigation against Intel Corp. are invalid, wiping out the patents along with two massive damages awards. The USPTO eventually got this one right, but . . . [its] long-awaited decision is raising important questions about why it refused to review VLSI’s patents before these pointless trials."
— Alex Moss
Intel, VLSI Spar Over Schrödinger’s Patents in $2 Billion Case
Bloomberg Law, June 22, 2023
Conversely, Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, defended the intervention and Intel’s ability to challenge the patent. “Everyone who cares about US innovation and competitiveness should be thankful that invalidated patents cannot drain money from domestic businesses that make products we desperately need, like semiconductor chips,” Moss said.
— Alex Moss
US appeal in high-stakes Gilead patent case garners support from patient advocates
Fierce Pharma, May 31, 2023
Weeks after Gilead Sciences prevailed over the U.S. government in a high-stakes HIV patent case, patient advocates are backing the U.S.’ push to appeal. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, more than 30 organizations said they “commend the decision” by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to keep fighting in the case. . . In the letter, the PrEP advocates said if the U.S. were to win and score a royalty from Gilead, the funds could provide money for PrEP treatment, HIV testing and “related care.” Signing the letter were Jeremiah Johnson, executive director of the patient advocacy group PrEP4All; Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute; and Christopher Morten, Ph.D., director of the Science, Health, and Information Clinic at Columbia Law School.
— Alex Moss
Humira Rivals Are Here. So Is A New Biosimilar Litigation Wave
Bloomberg Law, June 29, 2023
Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, questions how aggressively a company such as Amgen is inclined to pursue the cancellation of patents as a biosimilars maker when similar logic could become ammunition against its own patents as a maker of a biologic reference drug.“So if Amgen argues for limits on J&J patents,” Moss said, “their arguments could be used against them in another case.”
— Alex Moss
Prolific Patent Challenge Group Rattled as Agency Mulls Changes
Bloomberg Law, May 1, 2023
Alex Moss, executive director of PIPLI, said Congress specifically gave any entity or person a right to challenge a patent at the PTAB, but it’s practically difficult for nonprofits to regularly litigate there because each case costs at least $200,000.
Lawmakers wanted “groups or people to challenge bad patents; Unified does that successfully,” she said. “That’s something Congress sought to encourage and that the PTO shouldn’t be going out of its way to discourage.”
— Michael Shapiro