Patent Law

The following is excerpted from a May 28, 2008 PatentCafe press release:

The new Patent Factor Index (PFi) Reports, available for public downloading without cost, statistically score more than 2 dozen indicators of patent quality, many of the indices correlating directly to how the CAFC has decided on cases involving these patents.

The reports correlate with the decisions of the court, projecting strengths and weaknesses of patents in suit onto the verdicts. To name a few:

• in Microprocessor Enhancement v. Texas Instruments, the Court found patent US 5,471,593 not to be infringed, and the respective Patent Factor report shows this patent to have negative scores on relevancy strength, novelty and claim scope breadth;
• in Energizer Holdings v. Int'l Trade Commission, the Court found several claims of US patent 5,464,709 to be invalid, and therefore found patent not to be infringed by a group of Chinese manufacturers. This patent scored low on relevancy strength, novelty and validity confidence in the Patent Factor Report;
• in Mangosoft v. Oracle, patent # 6,148,377 showed low scores on novelty and sustainability in opposition, and the patent in suit has been indeed found not infringed by the Court.

The time frame covered by the reports includes CAFC decisions starting May 2007, and is updated the day following new CAFC decisions.