According to the ’862 patent, air or space vehicles can benefit from having thermally protective structures to handle the high temperatures caused by friction between the vehicle’s outer surfaces and the surrounding atmosphere.  For example, NASA’s space shuttles were equipped with heat resistant and thermally insulating protective tiles or panels.  However, the adhesive attachment system used by the space shuttles were “plagued by recurring problems of reliability and excessive cost.”  Alternative thermal protection structures have used mechanical fasteners and standoffs that attach the thermally protective tiles or panels to the outside of the vehicle, but vehicles using such systems are vulnerable to the extreme heat if any of the tiles or panels are dislodged or displaced.  The ’862 patent discloses a system of latches and fusable plugs “which provides the economy and efficiency of metal fastener or standoff fabrication with the ease of repair and replacement of protective tiles and panels while safely maintaining a smooth substantially continuous thermal protection surface.”

The ’862 patent was issued only about 17 months after being filed with the USPTO.  This relatively rapid turnaround by the USPTO to issuance is likely due to the application receiving expedited examination by virtue of one of the inventors being at least 65 years of age.  Under a USPTO program, a patent application can be filed with a “Petition to Make Special” if the application satisfies one of a series of criteria, one of which is based on an inventor’s age or health.  Once the petition is granted, the application is given special treatment with regard to the speed at which it is examined, though the same standards of patentability still apply.  As the ’862 patent exemplifies, such petitions can be a useful way to get a U.S. patent in hand sooner rather than later.

According to its website, Arrowhead Products was founded in 1937 and has a long history in developing and marketing ducting systems, particularly in the fields of commercial, military, and space vehicles.  The company’s website does not describe any products that are related to the claimed invention of the ’862 patent, so the thermally protective system may still be in development, or perhaps was developed for a particular customer under its engineering services.  According to the USPTO database, the ’862 patent is Arrowhead’s fourth U.S. patent. 

According to its website, the raised nub surface texture of Duncan’s kitchen gloves provide various advantages, such as “more insulation between the hand and the heat source” and ”a better, safer, non-slip grip.”  In addition, its material is water-repellent, flexible, stain resistant, and non-porous (so it is resistant to bacteria buildup).

As a design patent, the ’252 patent only covers the decorative, non-functional aspects of the design shown in the figures of the patent.  Therefore, it doesn’t cover the raised nub surface texture itself, which is a functional feature of the glove, but it does cover the particular design or pattern of nubs that are shown in the figures.  Also, the protected design does not include the zig-zag stitching along the outside edge of the glove, or the “KG” insignias all over the glove, since these features are shown with dashed lines in the figures of the ’252 patent.

In early 2009, Duncan Kitchen Grips was acquired by Browne & Co. of Ontario, Canada.  According to the USPTO database, Duncan owns five U.S. design patents, all issued in 2011, for various designs of kitchen mitts, gloves, and trivets. 

According to the ’757 patent, existing mounting system are prone to over-torquing of the mounting screws and shearing of the mounting holes in the flat panel video screen being mounted to the wall.  In addition, there is no standardization of the mounting holes across the various models, so general mounting systems use slots in the mounting brackets, but these slots can allow slippage if not correctly tightened.  Dedicated mounting systems designed for particular brands of screens are available, but these dedicated systems do not generally provide the desired level of flexibility in how to adjust or align the screen on the wall.  The ’757 patent discloses a mounting system that “does not suffer from the drawbacks” of over-torquing or shearing, and can be used to adjustably mount and align various models of flat panel video screens.  

According to its website, Premier Mounts was founded in 1977 “as an audiovisual manufacturer’s representative and within three years, began to fill a gap in the A/V marketplace by creating its own durable, high-quality mounts and carts.”  The company “developed one of the first after-market plasma-display mounts …, and holds many patents for ground breaking features that have become the standard for mounting products.”  The company has announced that the ’757 patent is directed to its Griplate™ mounting system.  According to the USPTO database, Premier Mounts owns eight U.S. patents, three of which were issued in 2011.

Premier Mounts was able to use the “first to invent” aspect of U.S. patent law to get the USPTO to issue the ’757 patent.  The USPTO had initially rejected Premier’s application (under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e)) based on a published U.S. patent application that was (i) filed before Premier’s application was filed, but was (ii) published after Premier’s application was filed.  Premier was successful in explaining to the USPTO, using an affidavit by the inventor, that the company had actually invented its mounting system before the U.S. filing date of the cited publication.  Thus, while Premier was not the “first to file” its patent application at the USPTO, it was the “first to invent,” so the cited publication could not be used in the rejection.   

Modifications that are part of the “America Invents Act” recently enacted into law will be changing the U.S. patent laws from a “first to invent” regime to a “first inventor to file” regime.  Under the new laws, scheduled to be effective March 16, 2013, Premier’s earlier invention date would not overcome the fact that the company was second to file its patent application.  In other words, after the March 2013 effective date, the fact that the applicant was not the first to file its patent application can prevent the application from issuing as a U.S. patent.  The ’757 patent is therefore a good example of the heightened importance of filing your patent application as early as possible. 

Orange County entities were awarded 2709 U.S. patents in 2011, an increase of about 14% over the total for 2010.  For comparison, this success occurred in a year in which the total number of U.S. patents granted by the USPTO only increased by about 1.35%.  Orange County’s patents represent about 1.1% of the total number of U.S. patents (246,698) granted by the USPTO in 2011.

About 9% of these Orange County patents were design patents, which is nearly the same as the percentage of design patents awarded overall by the USPTO.  Historically, this percentage represents a slight decrease from Orange County’s 10-12% in the previous four years.

The eight OC companies awarded the highest numbers of U.S. patents in 2011 had the following numbers of U.S. patents and percentages (as compared to their 2010 results):

• Broadcom: 1074; +24%
• Allergan: 133; +27%
• Western Digital: 86; +28%
• AMO: 75; +83%
• Edwards Lifesciences: 40; +33%
• Newport Media: 38; +90%
• Masimo: 36; +125%
• QLogic: 34; -11%

Other OC companies that had a prolific 2011 in patents were Beckman Coulter (29), GP Medical (27), Conexant (26), Oakley (24), BSH Home Appliance (23), Applied Medical (22), and Emulex (22).  These 15 companies represent about 62% of the U.S. patents granted to Orange County in 2011.

My firm, Knobbe Martens, had a successful year for our Orange County clients, obtaining 276 U.S. patents for our more than 80 Orange County clients, across a wide range of technical areas.   This number of OC patents represents an increase of about +37% over 2010.

According to the ’427 patent, previously-existing web-based shopping comparison services, in response to a user’s typing a product’s model number, would provide a list of online retailers that offer the product for sale, along with information regarding their prices.  Other web-based services would allow users to locate local “brick and mortar” retailers that sell certain types of goods (e.g., electronics), but would not provide pricing or availability information of the local retailers for the specific product being sought.  However, the ’427 patent describes a web-based method and system for allowing users to find a desired product at a “brick and mortar” store in the user’s geographic area along with ”pricing information, information on how far each retailer is from the search origin, product images and other product information, and promotional information.”  In a press release, Local.com explains that the ’427 patent was acquired by the company via its purchase of Krillion, Inc., a location-based shopping data aggregator, in April 2011 for $3.5 million in cash.

According to its website, Local.com is “a leading online local media company [that] enables brick-and mortar businesses to connect with online customers using a variety of digital marketing products.”  A recent corporate presentation states that Local.com’s customers include “about 30 million consumers per month looking for products and services locally,” “over 31,000 local merchants wanting to advertise to those consumers,” and “over 100 channel partners that help [Local.com] to reach merchants and consumers.”  The presentation also explains that “over half of [Local.com's] traffic is the ‘Soccer Mom’ demographic,” that is “aged between 25-45 with one child or more at home,” “controls significant portion of the household purse strings,” and “typically spends 80% of that money within 20 miles of home.” 

According to the company’s 2010 Annual Report, as of March 2011, Local.com owned seven U.S. patents.  The ’427 patent brings the company’s total to date to eight U.S. patents.

According to the ’073 patent, satellite communication networks can provide two-way communication (e.g., data, voice, and/or video) between a primary location and a variety of remote locations (e.g., businesses, homes, remote villages or towns), and can be particularly useful where the infrastructure for other types of telecommunication does not exist.  However, existing network systems only allow communication between a single ”master” station and the many “slave” stations of the network.  The ’073 patent describes a system and method for allowing multiple master stations to communicate with the slave stations of the network via a geosynchronous satellite using time-division multiplexing (TDM) or time-division multiple access (TDMA) communication schemes, thereby providing flexibility under various circumstances. 

According to its website, STM Networks is “one of the largest privately held satellite product and communication engineering companies today” with a presence in over 50 countries.  A company video describes the company’s main lines of business: turnkey satellite network systems, rural cellular GSM solutions, and managed services and system integration.   

According to the USPTO database, the ’073 patent is STM Networks’ first U.S. patent. 

According to the ’560 patent, conventional analog technology for transmitting material on an in-flight entertainment (IFE) system can present analog audiovideo signals to the various speakers/screens in the aircraft that are “typically synchronized to within microseconds.”  It’s desirable to move to digital technology to take advantage of its improved resolution, but the encoding/decoding involved causes issues with synchronizing the various speakers/screens.  The ’560 patent discloses a system and method that uses decoders that correct for the different effects in digital systems that contribute to the non-synchronous displays. 

According to its website, Thales Group is a global company in 50 countries and with 68,000 employees, dealing with technologies in aerospace, defense, security, and transportation.  The Thales Avionics group in Irvine, touted as “the fastest growing IFE company in the world,” is dedicated to developing IFE systems and is described as being “built on entrepreneurial spirit, hard work and the joy of accomplishment.” 

According to the USPTO database, Thales Avionics in Irvine has received three U.S. patents in 2011, including the ’560 patent.

The claims of the ’610 patent are directed to a process for disinfecting confined areas (e.g., vehicle cabs and seats, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, and liquid circulation systems) using two or more particulate reagents that react in the presence of water to form molecular iodine.  At least one of the particulate reagents has a coating that prevents more than 5% of the reagents to react under exposure to atmospheric moisture for twelve hours.  Water is added to the reagents while in the confined area, and the iodine is allowed to “reduce microbial content within the confined area and throughout the enviroment of the confined area.” 

The specification of the ’610 patent describes many other applications and configurations for using iodine for reducing microbial activity.  For example, the sole figure of the ’610 patent (shown above) is a diaper (for which BioLargo received U.S. Pat. No. 7,867,510 earlier this year) in which particulate reagents can be combined in the presence of water to “generat[e] gaseous molecular iodine within the carrier in sufficient concentration to act as a microbicide.”  Other applications described by the ’610 patent include sterilization of surgical instruments and treatment of wastewater and contaminated soil. 

According to its website, BioLargo’s CupriDyne™ technology combines “micronutrient salts with liquid from any source to deliver free-iodine on demand, in controlled dosages, in order to balance efficacy of performance with concerns about toxicity.”  The company’s first product, “Odor-No-More” is designed for use in the animal health industry (e.g., for animal bedding, cat litter, facilities and equipment wash), and is demonstrated in a YouTube video.  The company’s 2010 Annual Report explains that BioLargo is seeking opportunities in the oil and gas industry (to treat wastewater from “fracking”) and in the food processing industry as well. 

According to the USPTO database, BioLargo owns five U.S. patents, including the ’610 patent. 

In the context of wireless communications, a radio-frequency (RF) transceiver “encodes the digital data to a baseband signal and modulates the baseband signal with an RF carrier signal,” which is then transmitted by an antenna.  When the RF carrier signal is received by another antenna connected to another RF transceiver, “the transceiver down-converts the RF signal, demodulates the baseband signal, and decodes the digital data represented by the baseband signal.”  According to the ’289 patent, a conventional RF transceiver typically includes an RF switch structure that connects the antenna either to an output of a power amplifier (when transmitting signals) or to an input of a low noise amplifier (when receiving transmitted signals).  Such RF switch structures are intended to “prevent interference during the transition between transmission and reception,” but “[i]nterrelated performance, fabrication, and cost issues have necessitated the fabrication of the RF switch on a different substrate than the substrate of the power amplifier and the low noise amplifier.” 

Because the RF switch can be a significant constraint on the design of the transceiver, the ’289 patent discloses a front-end circuit configuration which avoids using such RF switches while providing “sufficient transmitter output and receiver sensitivity for time-domain duplex applications.”  By eliminating the RF switches, the front-end circuit disclosed by the ’289 patent can “be fabricated on a single die with common transistor structures.”

According to its website, RFaxis “is a fabless semiconductor company focused on innovative, next-generation RF solutions for the wireless connectivity and celluar mobility markets,” and “is home to the world’s first RF Front-end Integrated Circuit (RFeIC).”  The website further explains that the company’s RFeIC architecture integrates the power amplifier, low noise amplifier, and other circuitry into “a true single-chip, single-die, BiCMOS device.”  Earlier this year, RFaxis’ “RFX2402 Single-Chip Single-Die Silicon RFeIC“ was named the winning innovative product of the 2011 TechAmerica Orange County High-Tech Innovation Award in the semiconductor category.     

The ’289 patent resulted from one of six patent applications that were filed nearly concurrently with one another.  RFaxis filed a first patent application on March 26, 2009, and the next day filed five continuation applications that all claimed priority to the first patent application.  Generally, applicants file such multiple concurrent applications in instances where there are a large number of claims to be pursued, and the excess claim fees that would otherwise be due are larger than the cost of filing separate applications.  Another reason can be to pursue different sets of claims that are directed to patentably distinct inventions, but are based on the same specification.  Since a patent application is supposed to only be directed to a single invention, having multiple claim sets directed to patentably distinct inventions can be the basis for the USPTO requiring that claims to all but one of these inventions be removed.  These removed claims can then be pursued in one or more separate patent applications.

The ’289 patent is the first of the set of six applications to be granted, and it was allowed in a “first action allowance.”  The other four continuations and the first patent application are all still pending at the USPTO.  According to the USPTO database, the ’289 patent is RFaxis’ first U.S. patent, and the company was recently issued two more U.S. patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,073,400 and 8,073,401) resulting from two other patent applications. 

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), encompassing chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is a common form of lung disease.  While smoking is the leading cause of COPD, it can also be caused by exposure to certain gases or fumes, exposure to heavy amounts of secondhand smoke and pollution, and frequent use of cooking fire without adequate ventilation.  There is not a cure to COPD, but according to the ’782 patent, the present standard of care is oxygen therapy, by which the patient supplements their breathing with extra oxygen (e.g., from a pressurized gas cylinder).  Such sources of oxygen can be cumbersome, and the ’782 patent discloses a method for providing oxygenated blood to the patient’s venous system by creating an end-to-side anastomosis between the a source of the patient’s oxygenated arterial blood (e.g., artery, aorta, left chamber of the heart) and the patient’s Inferior Vena Cava or Superior Vena Cava.

According to its website, Rox Medical is “an early phase medical device company” that has developed a device that “creates a passage between an artery and a vein in the pelvic region which redirects oxygen rich blood back to the lungs of severe COPD patients.”  The company’s “Anastomotic Coupler System (ACS)” is currently undergoing clinical trials, and is not currently available in the U.S.

To directly infringe a patented method (under 35 U.S.C. 271(a)), an entity must perform all the steps of the patented method, and for claim drafting strategy, it is important to consider who is actually expected to be performing these various steps.  Ideally, if a patentee plans to use its patent to protect its market, the company would prefer to do so by suing its competitors for direct infringement.  For example, a claim to a method of making a particular device would be expected to be infringed by competitors making a device similar or identical to the patentee’s device.  Also, because it is generally easier to prove direct infringement of claims directed to a device, and such claims are expected to be infringed by a company’s competitors, device claims are preferable for a robust patent portfolio, particularly for medical device companies.

However, the claims of the patent may not be written in a way that the competitor is the entity performing all the steps of the patented method.  For example, for methods of using the product, the claims might be written so that the steps are instead performed by the patentee’s customers or potential customers.  To assert such a claim, the patentee would have to sue these customers, which is generally not a palatable option.

There are other theories of infringement that can be used to sue competitors using such claims.  For inducement of infringement (under 35 U.S.C. 271(b)), a competitor must be shown to have actively induced another entity (e.g., the customer) to directly infringe a patent.  For contributory infringement (under 35 U.S.C. 271(c)), the competitor must be shown to have offered to sell, sold, or imported a component that is especially made or adapted for infringing use and that is not suitable for substantial noninfringing use.  These other versions of infringement necessarily require that some entity directly infringe the patent.  They also include other facts that must be proven beyond the requirements of direct infringement, so they are generally less desirable to assert than direct infringement.

The claims of the ’782 patent are all directed to “a method of providing oxygenated blood to the venous circulation of a patient,” and all of the steps of this method are potentially performed by hospitals and surgeons, presumably Rox Medical’s customers.  To sue its competitors for inducement of infringement or contributory infringement, Rox Medical would have to show that direct infringement of the ’782 patent occurred (e.g., by the hospital or surgeon) and that the competitors satisfied the other conditions for these forms of infringement.

According to the USPTO database, Rox Medical has three other U.S. patents, only one of which has device claims that might be directly infringed by a competitor.  The company also has other pending U.S. patent applications, hopefully for the company, for pursuing additional claims that would be directly infringed by the company’s competitors.