At a meeting sponsored by Intellectual Asset Management (IPBC/Global), “Meeting the NPE Challenge,” former Director of the USPTO, David Kappos on March 13th (a Friday even) gave a speech that cogently summarized the state of the IP landscape both from the law and policy perspectives. If you have felt overwhelmed and even put off by (im)perfect storm of legislative proposals, judicial holdings, and simplistic editorials that is buffeting the patent system, you must take the time to read the text of his speech, which occupies only 14 pages, but covers almost every “incoming” that the patent system has had to duck, or endure, in recent years (Ed.: “Time flies when you are having fun”). (A copy can be found at the end of this post.) I am not going to attempt a summary here –the talk is not that long—except to say that it summarizes both “Legislative Reform” (“The AIA is working”) and more recent proposals, such as fee shifting and covered customer stays. Section 101 is covered –“the courts seems to have lost their way”—including the recent attacks on software patents—(“Software patents are not statistically prone to being ‘bad’ patents”).

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