Patinformatics Managing Director, Anthony Trippe Contributes to Ask the Expert Feature on Patent Quality

Pharmaceutical Patent Analyst has invited a selection of patent attorneys and IP specialists to discuss the issue of patent quality in their latest Ask the Experts feature discussing its relevance and potential implications on the pharmaceutical industry. The article can be accessed at:

http://www.future science.com/doi/pdf/10.4155/ppa.13.74

Anthony Trippe, Managing Director at Patinformatics, LLC was among the collection of experts selected to provide their thoughts on this critical question. Mr. Trippe was joined in this feature by the following collection of esteemed IP experts:

Jeremy Philips – One of the IPKat Crew
Warren Woessner – Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner
Mike Lloyd – Griffith Hack
Amanda Odell-West – The University of Manchester
Jonathan Atkinson – Harrison Goddard Foote LLP
Tahir Amin – I-MAK
Kirsteen Gordon – Marks & Clerk LLP

The panel of experts were given up to ten questions to address the concept of patent quality including the following:

• How would you define the concept of patent quality?
• Is the term “patent quality” too subjective as to be meaningful?
• Does a patent’s quality define its economic value?

For subscribers to Pharmaceutical Patent Analysis the full article, with responses from all of the panelists can be found in the January 2014 issue of the journal. The article is also available for $30 for interested readers who do not subscribe to the journal. As a teaser for the article, one of the questions answered by Mr. Trippe can be found below:

How important is the patent scope in defining its quality? Are family size, number of claims and citations equally important? If so, how?

Number of citations is likely more a measure of popularity than it is quality. Just like the idea that the most popular student on campus might not be the highest quality individual. In a similar fashion, number of claims, and family size are indicators of investment, and interest, but don’t necessarily reflect a high quality patent. At the end of the day, quality should probably be based on the likelihood of standing up in litigation, and that is about claim scope, based on prior-art, and how well the claims are supported by the specification.

Patent quality has been one of the most controversial concepts within the world of Intellectual Property throughout the end of 2012 and all of 2013, especially in regards to software patents in the United States, and the debate over the proposed Innovation Act. The opinions provided in this feature help focus the discussion on this topic, and provides valuable perspective on the importance of this general idea.