PayPal withdraws support for Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency
PayPal has decided to withdraw from the Libra Association, the 28-member nonprofit organization formed in June 2019 to oversee the cryptocurrency’s creation and eventual consumer rollout.
The company doesn’t cite a specific reason, saying only in a statement to The Verge that it decided “to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved populations.” PayPal Unfriends Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency
On Friday, after a tumultuous start for Libra involving incensed regulators, testy congressional hearings, and reports of cold feet from Libra Association members, PayPal said it is leaving that vision behind.
In a sense, PayPal is declining to join that vision at all.Its departure from the Libra Association comes before the association formally exists.As WIRED reported when Libra was announced, the 28 founding members were provisional, having yet to devise a charter for the group or fork over the required $10 million investment.The association is scheduled to have its first meeting, in Geneva, on October 14.
Senators Frustrated by Amazon’s “Evasive” Response to Questions on Driver Safety
Amazon has refused a request from three U.S.senators to disclose the names of the companies that deliver millions of packages to homes across the country, providing what one lawmaker called “evasive” responses to questions about the e-commerce giant’s network of delivery contractors.
Last month, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown demanded information from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos after the company’s delivery network was the subject of investigations by BuzzFeed News and ProPublica.Those reports found that Amazon uses contractors to carry out an increasingly large share of its deliveries and that the system has led to worker abuses and jeopardized public safety.When problems arise, Amazon denies responsibility, saying it can’t be held to account for the actions of independent contractors, though the company keeps a tight grip on how the drivers do their jobs.
At least 10 people have died in crashes involving Amazon delivery providers, ProPublica found.Lets Move Ahead With IP-Watch 2.0: We Need Your Input!
What’s new in the international policymaking on intellectual property, innovation and information?
What’s at stake at this year’s @WIPO Assemblies? This is first year since 2004 that @IP-Watch has not been at the #WIPOGA to bring you the latest news on critical policy deliberations and outcomes, new initiatives and emerging issues.Patents and Software Patents Continental tries again to add Sharp to Avanci FRAND/antitrust case in California — Munich court affirms original anti-antisuit decision
Continental may refile its U.S.antisuit motion.It had withdrawn it in part further to the Munich AAIIs.What played a role in Judge Lucy H.Koh’s decision to deny the motion without prejudice was confusion about whether Continental meant to enjoin Sharp, another contributor to the Avanci patent pool.While Sharp also sued Daimler a while ago (the first complaint was filed in mid-April), Continental brought its amended complaint adding Sharp only in late July–and Sharp argued in the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss that Sharp’s Japanese group parent hadn’t been properly served.
Yesterday Continental’s lawyers filed two declarations of service on Sharp Japan, which constitute another set of attempts to serve Sharp Japan through U.S.
entities (as opposed to cross-border service of process under the Hague Convention).In one of those cases, Sharp’s lawyers served a Sharp entity in New Jersey, and in the other case, they served on a Sharp Electronic Corporation office in Los Angeles.We’ll see whether Sharp is now satisfied or still complaints about improper service.The motion-to-dismiss hearing will be held on November 21 (though Judge Koh might just take the matter under advisement, as she frequently does in such situations).
For Drug Treatment Patents: Prior Art Must Show Efficacy
Apotex petitioned the USPTO to cancel several claims, including Claim 44 so that it could begin marketing a generic version.The PTAB agreed to hear the case and eventually cancelled the claims — finding them obvious when laid next to a prior patent (Schnur) in view either of an academic review article on anticancer drug targets (Gibbs) or OSI’s own 10-K (OSI SEC filing).
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On appeal, however, the Federal Circuit has reversed — holding that the references did not create a “reasonable expectation of success.” As such, the Board’s factual conclusion was not supported by substantial evidence.
Over the past several years, the Federal Circuit has been rebuilding its obviousness doctrine post-KSR.The court now asks two key questions of fact: would a person of ordinary skill in the art (1) have been motivated to combine/modify the prior art teachings in order to make the invention; and (2) have had a reasonable expectation of success in doing so.
The combination of references state rather plainly that erlotinib is believed to has anti-cancer activity against non-small cell lung cancer and that the drug is safe (enough).On appeal, however, the Federal Circuit rejected the obviousness claim because the prior art did not provide any evidence that the drug would work in humans.
“These references thus contain no data or other promising information regarding erlotinib’s efficacy in treating NSCLC.” In its explanation, the court notes that this area is “highly unpredictable” — 99.5% failure rate of NSCLC treatments entering Phase II.Hey Mechanical Engineers: Your Patents are Also Ineligible
This case focuses on Neapco’s U.S.Patent 7,774,911 that D.Del.Judge Stark found to lack eligibility.
On appeal a divided panel has affirmed — with Judges Dyk and Taranto supporting invalidity and Judge Moore writing in dissent.
The ‘911 patent covers a method of manufacturing a drive-shaft assembly with an internal-liner that is designed to reduce vibration problems.Yes – the method of manufacture is not patent eligible because it is directed to a law of nature.
One way to see this case is as a battle between Parker v.
Flook and Diamond v.Diehr.The majority follows Flook and finds the patent is invalid.As suggested below, the issue here also looks like Halliburton — where the patent “conveniently” uses functional language at the point of novelty.The majority also suggests – but does not decide – that the claims lack enablement and written description.
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Since drive shafts and internal liners were already known in the art, the majority found nothing-new there — no inventive step sufficient to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible invention.American Axle & Mfg.
v.Neapco Holdings LLC (Fed.Cir.2019)
Recently, Seth Waxman and his team filed a wonderful certiorari petition in the Athena Diagnostics v.
Mayo Collaborative Serv.case, which we will discuss in a forthcoming post.
Using quotations from the various combinations of Federal Circuit judges in the eight (!) opinions concurring and dissenting from refusal to grant rehearing en banc, the petition paints an accurate picture of a Court struggling to properly apply Supreme Court and its own precedent with regard to claims to reagents and methods for medical diagnostics, and failing (i.e., none of the diagnostic claims brought before the Court have passed eligibility muster).
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Judge Moore also believes there is sufficient disclosure of an “inventive concept” for the claims to pass Section 101 muster even if they are directed to a not completely defined (by the court) natural law.In her view there are many inventive concepts disclosed in the ’911 specification, and there exists at least sufficient questions of fact regarding this aspect as to preclude summary judgment.
(It should be remembered that Judge O’Malley recently called into question the propriety of another opinion by Judge Dyk, In re BRCA1– and BRCA2– Based Hereditary Cancer Test Patent Litig., where the question was whether the district court properly denied Myriad Genetics’ motion for preliminary injunction and instead invalidated all claims at issue; see “Roche Molecular Systems v.Cepheid”).Here, Judge Moore enumerates a half dozen such novel uses for liners that constitute in her view an “inventive concept” (and a finding of unconventionality) sufficient to overcome Neapco Holdings’ patent eligibility challenge under Section 101.When addressing the citations to the ’911 specification used by the majority to support its conclusion that the claims did not satisfy the “inventive concept” (and unconventionality) prong of the Alice/Mayo test Judge Moore is blunt: “These statements are false.” The Judge’s reading of the very same specification identifies ample instances where the patentee distinguished the invention from what was known in the art (“More than a dozen times in the briefs and during oral argument the patentee argued that the use of liners to attenuate bending mode vibration was one of its inventive concepts.”).
The Judge even cites to an instance during oral argument when American Axle’s counsel corrected a member of the majority when he asserted the conventionality of using liners for the claimed purpose, and that “[e]ven Neapco acknowledged that the patent states that liners had not been used to attenuate bending mode vibrations.” Judge Moore characterizes these conclusions by the majority as de novo “fact-finding,” including application of the disclosure of a patent (U.S.Patent No.3,075,406) “never introduced as evidence in this case or cited by either party” to support its (erroneous, in Judge Moore’s view) conclusions.“Moreover,” Judge Moore states, “a disclosure in a single patent does not establish that the use of liners to attenuate bending mode vibration was “well-understood, routine, conventional activity” as required by the Supreme Court,” and the majority’s statement that “the inventive concept ‘makes no difference to the section 101 analysis’” is “an outright rejection of the second step of the Alice/Mayo test.” Judge Moore asserts that the majority’s explanation that “Section 101 is concerned with whether the claims at issue recite a natural law, not whether the specification has adequately described how to make and use the concretely claimed structures and steps” is “just plain wrong” as a statement of the law.
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Anyone having read the Court’s decision not to grant rehearing en banc in Athena Diagnostics v.
Mayo Collaborative Serv.should be well aware of the fractious nature of the Section 101 inquiry among the Federal Circuit judges, and the desperate need for the Supreme Court to clarify the patent eligibility standard it recited (murkily) in its Mayo and Alice decisions.Even if in agreement with Judge Moore, it is not difficult to see how the majority arrived at its conclusions, and how easy it is to apply Section 101 in a “sweeping and manipulatable” way.When a specialized appellate court, created by Congress to harmonize and clarify U.S.
patent law, can find a method of manufacturing a propshaft for an automobile to be ineligible under Section 101 as a natural law, it is clear that the Court, and as a consequence the rest of us, has clearly lost its way.Tale of a Patent: Seeking Permission to File a Motion to Petition for Correction
To be clear about PTAB procedure — before filing a motion , you first have to get permission (leave) to file the motion.Here, Honeywell asked PTAB for permission to file a motion for leave from the PTAB to file a petition for correction.The Board did not give permission — rejecting Honeywell’s request for leave.
In the process, the Board agreed with Arkena’s “not-minor” arguments and that the correction could prejudice the petitioner.The Board subsequently cancelled the claims – finding that without the priority chain, the late-filed claims are anticipated by intervening prior art.Copyrights Twitter Removes Nickelback Meme Trump Tweets, But Leaves All The Others Up
By now you’re likely aware that Donald Trump tweets.
Like, a lot.An unfortunate amount, actually.
And he also often takes a break from tweeting his own authored… I don’t know, let’s call them thoughts… to instead simply retweet any sycophanitic content he can find out there.Sometimes, in fact, he retweets things that may be infringing upon copyright.Trump’s Tweets a ‘Look at This Photograph’ Meme — Nickelback’s Label Warner Music Quickly Rips It Down
Trump has had at least seven DMCA takedown notices filed against his Twitter account this year.All of those have resulted in the removal of content.What’s worse is that the same video was eventually uploaded to the official White House YouTube channel.Warner Music was quick with another DMCA takedown notice to get that video offline, too.Can the Government Get Your Copyright? The Supreme Court of Canada Says “Yes”.
“When and how can the government get copyright protection? In a recent Canadian decision on Crown copyright, Keatley Surveying v Teranet, the Supreme Court has for the first time addressed that issue.
Its guidance, however, will be hard to implement in practice.Parliament should respond by reforming the century-old statutory provision.
The decision ends a class action lawsuit brought by land surveyors against a company that makes land survey plans available electronically.The company, Teranet, partnered with the provincial government of Ontario to build a database of documents about all land in Ontario, including digital surveys that mark the legal boundaries of property in the province.
When surveyors sued Teranet, one of the company’s defences was that surveyors don’t own the copyrights; the government does.Thus, an issue of Crown copyright arises.Kenya amends its Copyright Act to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty and address a myriad of other issues
The Amendment Act does not repeal the entirety of the Principal Act.
It only repeals certain sections of the Principal Act such as section 21 (appeals against the decision of the Copyright Board to now lie to the Copyright Tribunal); section 26 (nature of copyright now separated from provisions on limitations and exceptions); section 48 (jurisdiction previously held by a “competent authority appointed by the Minister” now held by the Copyright Tribunal appointed by the Chief Justice); etc.
Some highlights of the Amendment Act include: Sui-generis approach to the protection of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression: Section 2(e) deletes the definition of “folklore”.With this, it appears the protection of folklore has been removed from “main stream” IP (the copyright bit, at least).
The terms “traditional knowledge” and “cultural expressions” are broadly defined under the Act for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions and would include “folklore”.London Retailer Convicted for Selling Pirate Streaming Boxes
The City of London Magistrates’ Court has convicted a local retailer for selling streaming boxes that provided access to pirated content, including controversial BeoutQ broadcasts.The Premier League prosecuted the man, who was sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid community service for a combination of copyright and fraud offenses..
