The Sedona Conference's Patent Conference (Part 2): Promoting Invention, Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth, and Job Creation

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 8:30am to 5:30pm

Location:
Covington
One City Center
850 Tenth Street, NW
Washington, DC

Please join us at The Sedona Conference’s Patent Conference (Part 2): Promoting Invention, Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth, and Job Creation on Friday, June 28, 2019 in Washington, D.C. at the offices of Covington, One City Center, 850 Tenth Street, N.W.

This conference will continue the dialogue from the conference held on January 17, 2019, to consider how well the United States patent system is working to foster invention, job creation, industrial competitiveness, wealth creation, and strategic strength in the U.S.A. This will be a diverse assembly of thought leaders in patent law engaging in a constructive dialogue, not debate, to explore the present inefficiencies in the U.S. patent system in an effort to develop consensus solutions that will benefit all stakeholders.

Co-chairs Rob Sterne and Chief Judge Paul Michel (ret.) and a very distinguished group of dialogue leaders will lead all participants in a dialogue on the following topics: patent eligible subject matter, standard essential patents and the New Madison approach to antitrust enforcement, and the availability of preliminary and permanent injunctions.

The dialogue on statutory subject matter will be divided in two parts. First, we will address Bilski & Alice and abstract ideas and explore the challenges of the Supreme Court’s eligibility decisions on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. Second, we will address Mayo & Myriad and laws of nature and explore the impact on investments in research and development in the health sciences.

The dialogue on standard essential patents and antitrust will be divided in two parts. First, Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, FTC Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips, and FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter will engage in a dialogue about antitrust enforcement and the issues to be addressed at the intersection of intellectual property rights and competition laws. Second, we will address the economic forces at work at the intersection of the patent laws and competition laws in the context of standard essential patents and FRAND obligations.

Our last session will address the issues surrounding the availability of preliminary and permanent injunctive relief for patent infringement in the United States, in contrast to the availability of injunctive relief for patent infringement in Germany and China.

Finally, we will present The Sedona Conference Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Intellectual Property to a most deserving recipient.

We hope you will join us for this important conference in Washington, D.C. on June 28, 2019!

Chairs

Alexandria, VA, USA

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

Washington, DC, USA

Dialogue Leaders

ExploraMed Development, LLC

Mountain View, CA, USA

Goodwin Procter LLP

Redwood City, CA, USA

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Washington, D.C., USA

Bristol-Meyer Squibb Company

Princeton, NJ, USA

Tensegrity Law Group LLP

McLean, VA, USA

The Naples Roundtable

Washington, DC, USA

USPTO

Alexandria, VA, USA

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP

New York, NY, USA

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

Washington, D.C., USA

Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, P.C.

Washington, DC, USA

Covington & Burling LLP

Washington, DC, USA

Federal Trade Commission

Washington, D.C., USA

The Rader Group

Alexandria, VA, USA

Teva Pharmaceuticals

Parsippany, NJ, USA

Meissner Bolte

Munich, Germany

Crowell & Moring LLP

Washington, DC, USA

Federal Trade Commission

Washington, D.C., USA

Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner

Boise, ID, USA

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Washington, D.C., USA

Constantine Cannon LLP

Washington, D.C., USA

RPT Legal Strategies PC

San Francisco, CA, USA

Cisco Systems, Inc.

San Jose, CA, USA

The Sedona Conference

Phoenix, AZ, USA

Axinn

Washington, D.C., USA

[Panel 1] Section 101, Bilski & Alice and abstract ideas

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 8:50am to 10:15am
Panel Description: 

This panel will explore the challenges of the Supreme Court's eligibility decisions as applied to computer-implemented inventions. Many observers believe that the rubric of "abstract ideas," which the Court has declined to define, creates massive uncertainty and unreliability, both for pending patent applications and issued patents that may be asserted in enforcement proceedings. The risk is that investments in R & D and product commercialization will be discouraged and diminished, thereby impeding "progress in science and useful arts," the mandate for patents in the US Constitution. Possible fixes for this problem will be examined, including impending legislation. Finally, the panel will compare the scope of eligibility in the United States with the far wider scope available in Europe and Asia, especially China.

Morning Break

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 10:15am to 10:45am

[Panel 2] Section 101, Mayo & Myriad and laws of nature

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 10:45am to 12:00pm
Panel Description: 

Progress in health sciences is affected by the Supreme Court's cases on eligibility, particularly Mayo and Myriad. Investments in biopharma inventions and discoveries, which typically must be enormous, may not be made at all, and therefore prevention, detection and cures not developed as a result of the present uncertainty. Lower courts have failed to provide clarity to the high court's cases, making venture capitalists and other potential investors hesitant. The same is true for corporate executives. Consequently, the potential of major breakthroughs in genetic engineering, personalized medicine and computer-related health invention using artificial intelligence may be precluded. Possible solutions will be discussed as well as comparisons to the wider eligibility available in other nations.

Lunch

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 12:00pm to 12:45pm

[Panel 3] Standard Essential Patents and Antitrust

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Panel Description: 

For a number of years, enforcement of standard essential patents by injunctive relief, and breach of a patentee’s commitment to license standard essential patents on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms, were found to raise potential antitrust issues. The U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, wants to rebalance the relationship between competition law and intellectual property rights through its application of the “New Madison” approach. Andrei Iancu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, will engage in a dialogue about the New Madison approach and the issues to be addressed at the intersection of intellectual property rights and competition laws.

[Panel 4] Standard Essential Patents and Antitrust (Part 2)

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Panel Description: 

Patent practitioners may be less aware of the economic forces at work in the operation of the patent system than of the technical or legal aspects. Policy makers also may fail to understand such dynamics. Yet, they are crucial to efficient operation of the patent system as well as proper adherence to the rule of law. This panel will explore such economics at the interface of patent and competition law, including the proper role of the Federal Trade Commission and competition and antitrust law as limiting patent rights and their enforcement, especially in the context of standard essential patents and related FRAND obligations.

[Panel 5] Injunctions

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Panel Description: 

We will conduct a Sedona style dialogue on the issues surrounding the availability of preliminary and permanent injunctive relief for patent infringement in the United States, in contrast to the availability of injunctive relief for patent infringement in Germany and China. Among other subtopics, we will discuss the difficulty of proving that the infringing feature of an accused instrumentality is a driver of lost sales to establish the causation element of irreparable injury for injunctive relief in the United States.

Reception

Date: 
Friday, June 28, 2019 - 5:15pm to 7:30pm