Other Barks and Bites for Friday, April 26: World Intellectual Property Celebrated Around the Globe; China Tops List for AI Patents Granted; EPO Releases Cleantech Study on World IP Day

This week in Other Barks and Bites: Caltech drops a patent infringement lawsuit against HP; the world celebrates World Intellectual Property Day; GSK sues Pfizer accusing the company of infringing on its mRNA patents.

Bites

World Intellectual Property Day Celebrated Around the Globe

On Friday, April 26, organizations across the world celebrated the 24^th annual World Intellectual Property Day. The event was started by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) which chose IP and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the theme for 2024. WIPO announced the winner of a youth video competition, the USPTO hosted an event on Capitol Hill, and other organizations held events and released reports highlighting innovation related to the SDGs. 

New Study Finds European Single Market Hotbed for Green Innovation

On Friday, April 26, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) released a study that found clean tech innovations grew in the European single market by 33% from 2016 to 2021. Over 15 years, the study also found that 12% of all inventions were published for clean and sustainable technologies. EPO President António Campinos said, “while it’s encouraging to see inventors in the EU leading the way in patenting green technologies, it’s vital that the global IP landscape continues to deepen its collaboration.” In total, from 2017 to 2021, EPO member states accounted for 27% of all high-value cleantech inventions worldwide.

GSK Accuses Pfizer of Infringing on mRNA Patent

On Thursday, April 25, GlaxoSmithKline filed a lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTech accusing the companies of infringing on several patents related to mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines. GSK named five patents covering technology developed about a decade ago that it accused the vaccine developers of infringing on. The case adds to the number of patent infringement lawsuits involving Pfizer related to its breakthrough COVID-19 vaccine.

PTAB Rules Biotech Company Failed to Prove Two Drug Patents are Unpatentable

On Monday, April 22, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued two rulings that determined bluebird bio failed to prove claims in two patents from the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research are unpatentable. The PTAB found that the two patents related to blood disorder medication are neither obvious nor anticipated by previous patents. The owner of Sloan Kettering’s patents sued the biotech company bluebird bio in 2021 for patent infringement.

Barks

USPTO Releases 2023 Update to Patent Assignment Dataset

On Thursday, April 25, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released the 2023 update to the Patent Assignment Dataset. The dataset includes information on roughly 18.8 million patents and patent applications since 1970. 

China Leads the Pack in AI Patents Granted

On Wednesday, April 24, Visual Capitalist released a visualization of AI patents filed by country using Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index Report. Over the 12 years of data collection from 2010 to 2022, global AI patents granted have rapidly grown from 1,999 to 62,264. China is quite a distance ahead of the rest of the pack with 35,315 AI patents granted with the United States in second at just over 12,000.

Caltech Agrees to Drop Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against HP

On Tuesday, April 23, Caltech and HP entered into an agreement dropping Caltech’s patent infringement lawsuit before a Texas district court. In the original lawsuit, Caltech accused HP of infringing on its wireless patents, and the university previously won several other patent infringement cases related to the same patents.

Roku Wins Patent Infringement Dispute

On Friday, April 19, a Texas district court jury granted Roku a win in a patent infringement case in which Ioengine LLC claimed the company infringed on two of its patents. The jury submitted a verdict form that unanimously decided that Roku, a streaming service, did not directly infringe on the two patents from Ioengine. Ioengine was seeking $318 million in this trial.

This Week on Wall Street

FCC Restores Net Neutrality

On Thursday, April 25, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to restore net neutrality, a national standard of fast, fair and open internet. The FCC reclassified broadband service as a Title II telecom service which allows the commission to “protect consumers, defend national security, and advance public safety.” The FCC also added that the move will lead to better protection for U.S. consumers’ data from big companies and foreign countries.

Spotify Beats Earnings Estimates

On Tuesday, April 23, Spotify announced its 2024 first-quarter earnings that beat expectations for earnings and revenue. The music streaming platform’s operating income for the quarter was $179 million with subscribers growing 14% year-to-year. “We’ve talked about 2024 as the year of monetization and we’re delivering on that ambition,” said Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek.

Quarterly Earnings – The following firms identified among the IPO’s Top 300 Patent Recipients for 2023 are announcing quarterly earnings next week (2023 rank in parentheses):

• Monday: Koninklijke Philips N.V. (61), NXP Semiconductors (106), ON Semiconductor (255)
• Tuesday: Amazon (18), Stryker Corporation (82), Advanced Micro Devices (88), #m Company (104), Illinois Tool Works (130), PayPal (136), Eaton Corporation (185), Ecolab (293)
• Wednesday: QUALCOMM (4), Mastercard (144)
• Thursday: Apple (9), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (295)
• Friday: Berkshire Hathaway (199)