All posts by: Robert Yarbrough

About Robert Yarbrough

The Audacity of [Patent] Hope

April 12, 2018 Robert Yarbrough Patent

There are people who wish that the U.S. patent system would just go away. Their allies successfully lobbied for and passed the ‘America Invents Act’ back in 2011 that resulted in the USPTO patent death squads, also known as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). As we described last month, the PTAB kills patents with impunity […]

Patent Death Squads 1, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe 0

March 15, 2018 Robert Yarbrough Patent

In the America Invents Act, Congress shifted challenges to the validity of patents from the Federal courts to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), an arm of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The PTAB applies different rules and standards than the Federal courts, rules and standards that favor the patent infringer and not […]

China Embraces Patents in a Big Way

February 15, 2018 Robert Yarbrough Patent

Fifteen years ago, China did not have much of a patent program. After all, with a centrally controlled economy and no private property, what good was a patent? Much of that has changed, at least the private property part. The Chinese government identified homegrown innovation and improving the ‘made in China’ brand as crucial to […]

Shocker at the USPTO

January 18, 2018 Robert Yarbrough Patent, Trade Secrets

Many administrations regard the USPTO as a political backwater and the directorship as a holding pen for less-than-ideal candidates. Here’s the shocker: The Administration has appointed a qualified person to head the USPTO. His name is Andrei Iancu and he is currently the managing partner of a Los Angeles law firm. He’s a degreed engineer and registered […]

Another Reason that E-mail can be Dangerous

December 28, 2017 Robert Yarbrough cybersecurity

Consider, hypothetically, that you are in the process of a nasty divorce. Using your company-owned laptop, you e-mail your divorce attorney about all of the times you cheated on your spouse, complete with action photos of each of your romantic soul mates and detailed descriptions of the unique talents of each one. Now your spouse’s […]

Smart Lady

December 21, 2017 Robert Yarbrough Patent

Last week Zeitgeist Films released a biopic of Hedy Kiesler Markey, an inventor of U.S. Patent 2,292,387. This WWII patent envisioned that jumping between radio frequencies would avoid jamming of radio-guided torpedoes. The U.S. Navy rejected the frequency-hopping invention at the time and did not adopt the technology until much later. Frequency hopping is now widely […]

It’s Halloween! Time to Preserve Corpses

November 16, 2017 Robert Yarbrough Patent

It’s Halloween, which, of course, means that it’s time to preserve corpses. Consider Joseph Karwowski’s invention (U.S. patent 748,284 issued December 29, 1903*). Joe was a Russian national (‘…a subject of the Czar of Russia’) living in New York state. He was presumably impressed by the ability of waterglass (sodium silicate, or Na2SiO3) to preserve fresh […]

We’re Number 10! We’re Number 10!

October 20, 2017 Robert Yarbrough Patent

Each year for the last five years the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has published a massive report on the state of global intellectual property protection. The report is, frankly, staggering in its ambition. It provides a report card for IP protection for forty-five countries around the world, including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. The report gives us […]

Is the USPTO Manipulating Inter Partes Review?

September 15, 2017 Robert Yarbrough Patent

The answer is ‘yes.’ But why should we care? “Inter Partes Review” or “IPR” is a recent process by which a person infringing a patent can challenge the patent before a panel of USPTO employees. The USPTO employees are members of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The person challenging the patent will present […]