Survey: In-house counsel on the US patent landscape

Change to the US patent landscape has been controversial. What one lawyer thinks is a common-sense measure to cut down on bad patents, another might consider a disaster designed to kill innovation in an industry.

As IP in-house counsel consider how legislative reforms, courts conducting hearings remotely because of COVID-19, and the 2020 presidential elections will affect their IP strategies, we wanted to understand how they felt about the state of the US patent landscape.

The 54 in-house lawyers who took our survey weighed in on Andrei Iancu’s appointment to director of the USPTO, the PTAB and where the patent pendulum is swinging.

Section one: Broad concerns

In part one, more lawyers thought President Donald Trump’s views on IP were better for their business than those of the Democratic Party’s Joe Biden, but the majority of respondents said either that they ‘didn’t know’ whose IP views among the two men would be better for their businesses or that neither’s were. And while most counsel said the US is not too patent friendly, they were divided on how the pendulum is swinging. Read more here.

Section two: The courts

In part two, respondents said that they wanted to see more remote hearings in the future and that Delaware was their preferred court to litigate in. Read more here.

Section three: The USPTO

In part three, a large majority of respondents said director Iancu was doing a good job, but there was no clear consensus on the PTAB. Read more here.

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