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IP Lawyer Who Represented TiVo Is Trump's Pick As USPTO Chief (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the welcome-to-the-family dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: President Donald Trump has selected Andrei Iancu, the managing partner of a major Los Angeles law firm, to be the next head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Iancu has been a partner at Irell & Manella since 2004 and was an associate at the firm for five years earlier. His most notable work in the tech sector is likely his representation of TiVo Corp. in its long-running patent battles with companies like EchoStar, Motorola, Microsoft, Verizon, and Cisco. TiVo ultimately succeeded in compelling those defendants to pay up for its pioneering DVR patents, and payments to TiVo ultimately totaled more than $1.6 billion, according to Iancu's biography page. Iancu also had a hand in Immersion Corp.'s $82 million jury verdict against Sony Computer Entertainment, in which a jury found that Immersion's patent claims on tactile feedback technology were valid and infringed. Those big wins aside, most of Iancu's work has been on the defense side. He's represented eBay in a case against Acacia Research Corp., a large, publicly traded non-practicing entity, and he worked for Hewlett-Packard when it defended against Xerox patent claims. He's also worked in the medical device area, enforcing patents for St. Jude Medical on vascular closure devices.

2 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hot Garbage by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Who else but a patent troll would you think Trump would appoint to run the USPTO?

    This guy defended companies against patent trolls. But it appears you don't need factual info to form your opinion.

  2. Re:Hot Garbage by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 5, Informative

    Does that sound like someone who is "defending against patent trolls to you?

    Well, you conveniently snipped your quote to omit the case where he defended eBay again Acacia, for one. Here are some others:

    1. Defended LG against Imperium IP Holdings.
    2. Defended RIM against Advanced Display Technologies of Texas.
    3. Defended RIM against Negotiated Data Solutions.
    4. Defended RIM against Unified Messaging Solutions.
    5. Defended RIM against Golden Bridge Technology.