In the Press
DOJ ‘Weaponization’ Leader Sought Info on Patent Office Program
Read Article ↗Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, took a different view. She said efforts by OPQA to improve the quality of applications before they become issued patents should be strengthened, if anything.
“It’s so preposterous to me that any of that would be illegal,” she said.
“Here was a milquetoast study that probably understated a huge problem—failure to identify rejections, which happens across the board—as well as an especially egregious problem of double patenting,” Moss said. “But any effort to apply patent law correctly incenses patent owners.”
“It’s so preposterous to me that any of that would be illegal,” she said.
“Here was a milquetoast study that probably understated a huge problem—failure to identify rejections, which happens across the board—as well as an especially egregious problem of double patenting,” Moss said. “But any effort to apply patent law correctly incenses patent owners.”
From Competition to Cronyism: How the Patent Office’s Backslide Threatens American Innovation
Read Article ↗Low-quality patents are invalidated, which might otherwise increase costs by blocking generic prescription drugs from entering the market or be used in lawsuits that stunt startup growth. And an agency that doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime (the PTO is funded exclusively by fees) efficiently self-corrects its own errors.
But, in an unprecedented and likely illegal move, the acting PTO director has inserted herself personally as a barrier between the public and what patents get the added scrutiny of a second expert review.
But, in an unprecedented and likely illegal move, the acting PTO director has inserted herself personally as a barrier between the public and what patents get the added scrutiny of a second expert review.
Patent Office is Putting Pharma Profits over Patients’ Lives
Read Article ↗The benefits that come from cancelling low-quality patents are significant. When patent monopolies end, generic alternatives, which typically cost 80 percent less than their brand-name counterparts, can then compete. Patents also block additional, related research while they are in effect. When a patent is valid, this exclusivity is justified; however, when a patent is invalid, exclusivity prevents new innovation and reduces consumer choices. Data cannot capture the economic cost or lives lost due to innovations that go undiscovered because of patents that should never have been granted. By not completing the review of an Ozempic patent that the agency itself had determined was likely invalid, the USPTO failed to fulfill its mission to “drive U.S. innovation and global competitiveness for the benefit of all Americans.” Something needs to change. The USPTO has the power and the tools to stop the proliferation of low-quality patents; instead, it has moved in the opposite direction. In fact, interim USPTO leadership recently enacted several procedures that make it more difficult for low-quality patents to be challenged and invalidated.
Trump Appointees Are Hijacking the Patent System
Read Article ↗In 2020, under Iancu’s leadership, the USPTO began chipping away at the PTAB’s authority, letting judges deny IPR petitions on vague “discretionary” grounds. Worse, the director—a political appointee—seized unilateral power to override PTAB decisions. Fast-forward to 2025: Under Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart (Iancu’s former chief of staff), the USPTO has doubled down on “discretionary” criteria that shield invalid patents—and their owners—from meritorious challenges.
Citing a “workload management” crisis the USPTO itself created by slashing PTAB judges, Stewart rescinded former Director Kathi Vidal’s 2022 guidance, which curbed abusive discretionary denials, and imposed new “Interim Processes” empowering the director to unilaterally deny IPR petitions—even if they establish a patent is likely invalid. Instead of ensuring decisions are based on merit, these processes weaponize nonsensical criteria that overwhelmingly favor patent owners.
Citing a “workload management” crisis the USPTO itself created by slashing PTAB judges, Stewart rescinded former Director Kathi Vidal’s 2022 guidance, which curbed abusive discretionary denials, and imposed new “Interim Processes” empowering the director to unilaterally deny IPR petitions—even if they establish a patent is likely invalid. Instead of ensuring decisions are based on merit, these processes weaponize nonsensical criteria that overwhelmingly favor patent owners.
Patent Judges Review Fewer Challenges as Agency Priorities Shift
Read Article ↗Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, said a “weaker PTAB” leads to lower quality patents and ones that are “demonstrably invalid.”
“That means more monopolies, less competition, higher prices, less economic dynamism,” she said.
“That means more monopolies, less competition, higher prices, less economic dynamism,” she said.
Google Gets Amicus Boost In Fed. Circ. Battle With Sonos
Read Article ↗In a separate brief, making a somewhat similar argument, was the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, a small nonprofit started a few years ago by the former Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Alex Moss. "Removing prosecution laches, however, will increase the risk of liability and litigation for everyone,"" read this brief. In a statement circulated from the group, Moss says ""we hope the Federal Circuit confirms that prosecution laches protects the public when unreasonably delayed patent claims threaten harm."
Patent Bill Would Hike Drug Prices, Cut Access, Senators Warned
Link coming soonThe proposed Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership Act, or PREVAIL Act, would prohibit patients and consumers from challenging patents’ validity and raise evidentiary standards to make it more difficult to cancel wrongly granted patents, according to the letters advocacy groups sent Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday. Signatories included Public Citizen, People’s Action, and R Street Institute.
The bill was introduced in the Senate in July with Durbin among its sponsors. It would require a petitioner at the US Patent and Trademark Office’s administrative patent tribunal to have a “business or financial reason to challenge patent validity” through its inter partes review process in an effort to reduce incentives for “privateering or extortion of nuisance settlements.”
The bill was introduced in the Senate in July with Durbin among its sponsors. It would require a petitioner at the US Patent and Trademark Office’s administrative patent tribunal to have a “business or financial reason to challenge patent validity” through its inter partes review process in an effort to reduce incentives for “privateering or extortion of nuisance settlements.”
Sonos-Google patent dispute explained: A raw deal for consumers
Read Article ↗As for why the case was pursued with both the ITC and the federal court system, I asked Alex Moss, a noted patent attorney and executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute. She explains: "The ITC is an administrative tribunal ... It has become a very attractive venue for patent litigation because, in 2006, the Supreme Court said that you don't automatically get a preliminary injunction, like a ban on sales or imports, in intellectual property cases." Moss continued, "And so the ITC actually can't award damages. It can only issue import bans, but it becomes very useful as leverage because, if you're importing, it's basically a nationwide sales ban. It gives you a ton of leverage for settlement." She concluded, "When you've got a real competitor fight, you're going to go to the ITC. The proceedings are very fast."
Medicare Drug Negotiation Uncertainties Lead To Differing Savings Predictions
Read Article ↗Alexandra Moss, executive director at the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, said that Medicare will make sure that the pharmaceuticals will make substantial profit, which is why the agency has gathered comprehensive data from the companies to make price analysis. “Medicare is getting all this information from them because they don’t want to prevent the companies from making profits,” Moss said. “The big reason [the drug companies] are upset is because they don’t want to give out the information about what [the drugs] cost.” A report by the prescription drug pricing analysts at SSR Health suggests the cost savings predictions are misleading.
FTC Pressed To Focus More On PBMs, Patents In Merger Oversight
Read Article ↗Alexandra Moss, executive director at the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, said that while PBMs play a role in high drug prices, they are not the root cause but rather an "upstream cause.” “Patent ownership is the main driver for high drug prices, and that’s really missing in the guideline,” she says. The FTC can address mergers when the effect may be "substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly.” According to Moss, the FTC can also address situations where anticompetitive outcomes or monopolies arise from the assertion of patents or threats related to patents that a merger would enable or facilitate. Moss cites the example of the Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Momenta as a case where a merger involving patents could yield anticompetitive consequences.
FTC Warns Pharmaceutical Companies May Face Criminal Action On Improper Patent Listings
Read Article ↗Alexandra Moss, executive director at the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, told Inside Health Policy that “the policy statement is a huge step in the right direction -- stronger and better than expected.” “It also meaningful that the statement says submitting a false certification may constitute a criminal violation, and that FTC may refer such conduct to the Department of Justice,” she adds. “We hope the FTC follows up this strong statement with equally strong action. If it does, this will be a watershed moment for generic drug competition, innovation, and access,” said Moss.
Powerful interests, not small inventors, will benefit from Patent Office proposals
Read Article ↗As the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) weighs new proposals that critics warn would further flood courts with meritless lawsuits, it’s important to remember who benefits from tilting the rules of legal engagement in favor of patent infringement plaintiffs. Advocates for the USPTO’s proposed rules, and similar measures in the recently introduced PREVAIL Act, frame their position as standing up for small inventors. But claims about small inventors hide the ball. These changes would make USPTO processes for reviewing invalid patents harder to access as an alternative to litigation. Who really benefits when litigation is the only way to resolve patent validity disputes? Not small inventors who could knock down bad patents (or flawed challenges) at the USPTO more cheaply and quickly than they could in court. The real beneficiaries are powerful interests — including some of the nation’s biggest law firms — that profit from lawsuits, no matter how meritless.
PTAB Reform Bill Won’t Help Cut Drug Prices, Groups Say
Read Article ↗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
Sanctions Report for 96-Year-Old Judge Sparks Shock, Sadness
Read Article ↗Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, said the report “is heartbreaking to read” but convinced her that “the Federal Circuit has done the right thing in suspending Judge Newman’s bench assignments.”
USPTO Invalidation Decision Raises New Questions About Old Rules
Read Article ↗"[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
Humira Rivals Are Here. So Is A New Biosimilar Litigation Wave
Read Article ↗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
Intel, VLSI Spar Over Schrödinger’s Patents in $2 Billion Case
Read Article ↗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
Read Article ↗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
Prolific Patent Challenge Group Rattled as Agency Mulls Changes
Read Article ↗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
Group’s Launch Raises Questions About Ex- USPTO Directors
Read Article ↗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
US Inventor Arguments for Opposing the Pride in Patent Ownership Act Fall Short on the Merits
Read Article ↗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
Protect the Supply Chain From Patent Trolls Before It’s Too Late
Read Article ↗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
In defence of the America Invents Act and its impact on startups
Read Article ↗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
DOJ Told Avanci Is A 'Patent Troll' Facilitator
Read Article ↗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
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
Trump’s Patent Director Pressured Judges to Rule in His Law Firm’s Favor
Read Article ↗“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
PTAB Briefs Suggest VLSI Challenger Also Courted Intel
Read Article ↗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
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