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Patent Quality Initiative formed to file amicus briefs, petition for IPRs, educate
Banking association and payments company The Clearing House has announced the formation of the Patent Quality Initiative (PQI), an advocacy organisation that will seek to promote strong patents and discourage the assertion of patents it believes are invalid
The organisation will undertake a number of strategic programmes including making pertinent prior art more easily accessible, providing educational research and briefings on the patent system and evolution of technology in financial services, and filing amicus briefs that highlight issues critical to patent quality.
PQI recently filed two amicus briefs urging courts to streamline the assessment of whether a patent is valid. The first amicus brief was in Ultramercial v Hulu and Wildtangent, while the second was in Intellectual Ventures v JPMC.
Additionally, PQI will petition the USPTO to conduct inter partes reviews (IPRs) on patents it believes are invalid. This ties in with a trend of organisations that are not directly involved in litigation filing petitions with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The Electronic Frontier Foundation last year filed an IPR to have a patent owned by Personal Audio invalidated, which was initiated in April this year. The Printing Industries of America also unsuccessfully filed IPRs against two patents owned by CTP Innovations.
Some firms that use membership fees to protect their members against non-practising entities also filed IPRs such as RPX and Unified Patents.
PQI is directed by Askeladden, a subsidiary of The Clearing House.
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