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Additional Information on Lawrence B. Lockwood

On: Under Attack by PanIP's Patent Lawyers?

Okay, you guys need to start using the internet's many spectacularly powerful databases and stop going to google for the solutions to all of life's problems. I've done some quick searches in Lexis/Nexis, and have found a few things: (1) There are no mentions of "PanIP" in any business publications indexed in Lexis/Nexis. (2) However, that should not lead us to believe that this is a troll or a scam, as Mr. Lawrence B. Lockwood certainly exists, and has been very involved in intellectual property litigation in the last decade. One case in which he was involved (In re Lockwood) eventually went to the United States Supreme Court. (3) The "CHI" Research group, mentioned on the PanIP website as a firm's technology consultant, has produced at least one article telling intellectual property lawyers to use "citations" of their patent as evidence of its validity -- which explains that whole weird thing on the PanIP website where they boast at how often their patents have been cited. (4) Intellectual Property lawyers have been using In re Lockwood as a hallmark case where an appellant demanded a jury trial.

I'll post clips of some of the relevant articles here, and in follow-up posts, since some of them are long and /.'s gonna truncate this message:

Copyright 1995 Prentice Hall Law & Business The Computer Lawyer March, 1995 SECTION: CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS; Litigation; Vol. 12, No. 3; Pg. 27 LENGTH: 484 words HEADLINE: Federal Circuit Grants Jury Trial Right For Patent Validity BODY: The designer of a patented airline ticketing machine had a right to a jury trial on the issue of patent validity, the Federal Circuit ruled on January 11. The court reasoned that the patentee's declaratory judgment action was essentially an inverted patent infringement claim, and that it was therefore legal rather than equitable in nature. In re Lockwood, 1995 WL 11271 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 11, 1995). Lawrence B. Lockwood filed a complaint against American Airlines alleging that American's computerized reservation system infringed Lockwood's two patents relating to self-service terminals and automatic ticket dispensing systems. Lockwood sought both damages and injunctive relief, and demanded a jury trial. American raised a number of defenses, including the alleged invalidity of the two patents at issue; in addition, American counterclaimed for a declaration that its activities were noninfringing and, alternatively, that Lockwood's patents were invalid or unenforceable. American moved for summary judgment that its computerized reservation system did not infringe the claims at issue in either of Lockwood's patents. The district court granted American's motion for summary judgment of noninfringement, after which it dismissed the infringement complaint. Finally, on American's motion, the district court struck Lockwood's demand that the issue of validity be tried to a jury, reasoning that the remaining claims were equitable in nature. Following the district court's decision to strike, Lockwood petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to reinstate his jury demand. The court issued the writ, reasoning that because Lockwood's underlying claim for infringement and damages was the basis of the action at the district court and the claim for infringement damages and any asserted defenses still existed in the case, Lockwood remained entitled to a jury trial on the factual questions relating to validity. American Airlines filed a petition for rehearing, making two arguments. First, it argued that, because the district court dismissed Lockwood's claim for patent infringement damages, the only claim remaining was American's claim for a declaration of patent invalidity. Second, American argued that its declaratory judgment action was entirely equitable in nature, and Lockwood therefore enjoyed no Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. Judge Paul Michel wrote the opinion for a panel including Judges Marion T. Bennett and Alan D. Lourie. The court agreed with American's first argument, but disagreed with its second. The court concluded that a declaratory judgment action is simply an inverted patent infringement action, and is more comparable to a lawsuit for patent infringement than to an equitable action. Therefore, the court ruled that Lockwood was entitled under the Seventh Amendment to trial by jury. LOAD-DATE: April 03, 1995

Here Lockwood loses his Federal Court of Appeals Case.

Copyright 1997 Andrews Publications, Inc. Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter March 26, 1997 SECTION: Pg. 5 LENGTH: 631 words CASE: Lockwood v. American Airlines HEADLINE: FED. CIR.: AA RESERVATION SYSTEM DOES NOT INFRINGE LOCKWOOD'S PATENTS BODY: American Airlines' SABREvision reservations system does not infringe three patents held by inventor Lawrence B. Lockwood, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed. In addition, two of Lockwood's three patents are invalid for obviousness and anticipation, the court said. Lockwood v. American Airlines Inc., No. 96-1168 (Fed. Cir., March 4, 1997). (See P. 38 for the opinion.) The Federal Circuit panel unanimously affirmed the final judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California which granted summary judgment to American Airlines, dismissing all of Lockwood's patent infringement claims. Lockwood holds three patents for computerized, interactive, self-service sales terminals designed to present audio-visual sales presentations to customers and then to enable them to book and pay for reservations on airlines and cruises and at resort hotels. The patents are U.S. Patent Nos. Re. 32,115, 4,567,359 and 5,309,355 (the 115, 359 and 355 patents, respectively). Lockwood had filed a patent infringement suit against American Airlines in 1991 alleging that its computerized SABREvision reservations system, used by airlines and travel agents to book flights and hotel rooms, infringed his patents. In 1995, U.S. District Judge William B. Enright determined that there were no genuine issues of material fact in dispute and he granted summary judgment to American Airlines, finding that its system did not literally infringe the three patents and did not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. He held that the SABREvision system lacked the limitations of four claims of the 115 patent, that it lacked two claims of the 359 patent and that it lacked the limitation of the only independent claim of the 355 patent. Judge Enright also held that the 359 patent is invalid because it would have been obvious in light of American Airlines' original SABRE system in combination with a self-service terminal disclosed in an earlier-issued patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,359,631 (the 631 patent). In addition, the 355 patent is invalid because its claims were anticipated in Lockwood's earlier 359 patent, he ruled. Lockwood appealed, contending that Judge Enright erred in his construction of the claims of all three patents and that there were issues of material fact in dispute that should have precluded the grant of summary judgment. Ruling first on the issue of validity, the Federal Circuit said that Judge Enright found correctly that American Airlines' original SABRE system had been known or used by the public since 1962 and therefore qualified as prior art. In addition, the circuit court said that American Airlines met its burden in showing that its SABRE system, in combination with the 631 patent, would have yielded the invention disclosed in the 359 patent. The appellate panel also agreed with Judge Enright's conclusion that the 355 patent was anticipated by the 359 patent. The 359 patent was issued in 1986 while the 355 patent was the fifth in a chain of continuation applications stemming from the 359 patent application. The validity of the 355 patent turned on whether it was entitled to the filing date on the second application. Judge Enright correctly concluded that it was not because two of the three intervening applications failed to maintain the continuity of descriptive disclosure required by the Patent Act, the panel said. The circuit court rejected all of Lockwood's contentions regarding the trial court's construction of the patent claims. It found that Lockwood's own interpretations of the claims are incorrect, that he raised no issues of material fact in dispute and that he made no showing of infringement either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents. LOAD-DATE: May 2, 1997

Here's the introduction to the longer law review article by CHI Research, which includes names and corporate addresses for that consulting firm.

Copyright 1996 Omega Communications, Inc. Intellectual Property Today March, 1996 SECTION: FEATURES; "A Case for Patent Citation Analysis in Litigation"; Pg. 10 LENGTH: 2280 words BYLINE: BY ANTHONY BREITZMAN AND FRANCIS NARIN, CHI RESEARCH, INC., 10 WHITE HORSE PIKE, HADDON HEIGHTS, NJ 08035 BODY: The authors wish to acknowledge the suggestions and enthusiasm of Lawrence B. Lockwood in the development of these ideas, and the U.S. National Science Foundation for research grant support in developing these patent citation techniques. INTRODUCTION Over the last decade the use of patent citation analysis has been steadily expanding in the competitive intelligence community, where the occurrence of highly cited patents is used to identify and analyze inventions likely to be of technological importance. In this brief paper we will take these ideas further, and show why there is reason to believe that the basic concept of patent citation analysis can also be used quite effectively in a very novel application of citation analysis to patent litigation. The argument is based on the fact that most patents that have been given "Pioneer" status by the federal courts are very highly cited by later patents. We will make the argument that very highly cited patents, patents of "Pioneering Class" citation frequency, may be entitled to a broad interpretation of their claims, as are Pioneer patents. The basic idea behind patent citation analysis is that when a U.S. patent is highly cited, cited on the front pages of 20 or more subsequently issued patents, that highly cited patent is much more likely to represent an important invention than is a patent that is not cited, or cited only a few times. For example, the average citation frequency for all U.S. patents is about five cites per patent, and only 3 percent of patents are cited more than 20 times in 20 years. From a technological viewpoint, the notion of importance for a highly cited patent has been validated in a series of published studies. For example, it was shown in a paper published in the early 1980's that patents associated with IR100 awards that "honors the 100 most significant new technological products -- and the innovators responsible for them -- developed during the yearar" are more than twice as highly cited as other patents issued in the same years and in the same technologies. LOAD-DATE: September 22, 1997

And here are citations for two law review articles discussing the importance of In re Lockwood I'll snip out the relevant portions.

Copyright (c) 1997 Duquesne University Duquesne University Law Review Winter, 1997 35 Duq. L. Rev. 699 LENGTH: 16873 words COMMENT: Defining The Role Of The Jury In Patent Litigation: The Court Takes Inventory Deborah M. Altman (snip) In the In re Lockwood decision, n71 Lawrence B. Lockwood ("Lockwood") brought a patent infringement action against American Airlines, Inc.("American") and moved for a jury trial. n72 American raised several defenses to the complaint, including the alleged invalidity of the patents at issue, and counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement or a judgment that the patents at issue were invalid. n73 American moved for and the court granted summary judgment on the infringement claim, and the court then proceeded to consider American's prayer for declaratory judgment of invalidity. n74 American moved to strike Lockwood's motion for a jury trial, arguing that because the court had dispensed with the infringement claim, its prayer for declaratory relief was the only claim remaining. n75 The trial court granted American's motion to strike on the issue of validity, concluding that since the remaining claims were equitable in nature, Lockwood was not entitled to a trial by jury. n76 Lockwood petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to reinstate [*709] his jury demand. n77 The Federal Circuit granted Lockwood's petition, reasoning that since Lockwood's underlying infringement claim was the basis of his action, his claim for infringement damages still existed and thus Lockwood was entitled to a jury trial on the factual issues relating to patent validity. n78 American subsequently petitioned the Federal Circuit for rehearing, which the court granted. n79 On rehearing, the Federal Circuit held that the infringement claim no longer existed and that the statements in its previous order were erroneous. n80 The court continued to disagree, however, with the trial court's reasoning that since American's claim for declaratory judgment was equitable in nature, Lockwood was not entitled to a trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment. n81 The court concluded that given the grave importance of Lockwood's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, "the right to grant mandamus to require a jury trial where it has been improperly denied is [well] settled." n82 The court then evaluated Lockwood's right to a jury trial on the factual questions relating to patent validity as they arose in a paradigmatic patent infringement suit. n83 [*710] In reviewing Seventh Amendment jurisprudence, the court recognized that the Seventh Amendment embraces adjudication of legal rights created by statute even where those rights have no precursor at common law. n84 The court found that the statutory test n85 requires a two-pronged analysis: (1) the court must compare the statutory action to 18th century actions brought in the courts of England prior to the merger of law and equity; and (2) the court must then examine whether the nature of the remedy sought is legal or equitable. n86 If a claim involves an adjudication of legal rights or requires the invocation of legal remedies, the court "must honor a jury demand to the extent that disputed issues of fact concerning those rights and remedies require a trial." n87 The court noted that the only claim remaining in Lockwood's case was American's prayer for a declaratory judgment of patent invalidity. n88 The Supreme Court has established that for purposes of the Seventh Amendment, declaratory judgment actions are only as equitable or legal in nature as the controversies upon which they are founded. n89 The Federal Circuit concluded that the underlying controversy for American's declaratory judgment action of patent invalidity was no more than a suit for patent infringement brought by Lockwood, in which the affirmative defense of invalidity had been pled by American. n90 Such an inversion, the court noted, "cannot operate to frustrate Lockwood's Seventh Amendment [*711] rights." n91 The court then reasoned that since this inverted patent infringement suit could have been raised either at law or at equity in 18th century England, Lockwood was entitled to have the factual questions relating to the validity of his patents tried before a jury. n92 Accordingly, the court granted Lockwood's petition for writ of mandamus directing the district court to reinstate his jury demand. n93 Notably, the dissenting judges offered some compelling arguments against the court's grant of mandamus. They argued against the Lockwood order respecting the right to trial by jury on the issue of patent invalidity, or the underlying facts, for three reasons. n94 First, the judges reasoned, the validity of a patent involves public, not private, rights and Seventh Amendment jury trials are not available for a determination of public rights. n95 Second, the declaratory judgment of patent invalidity sought by American in this case could not be the inverse of an infringement action for damages for several reasons. n96 Initially, since the infringement action had been dismissed, it no longer existed. The court erroneously granted a jury trial based on the presence of a "legal right" issue without a claim for damages. n97 Moreover, [*712] the declaratory judgment of invalidity sought by American is not the "flipside" of an infringement action nor necessarily an affirmative defense, because an affirmative defense is limited to particular patent claims asserted in a complaint while a counterclaim may challenge all claims of the patent(s) at issue. n98 Even further, the "case or controversy" required for a declaratory judgment action is the threat of a suit for infringement by the patentee against the declaratory plaintiff and thus infringement in such a case is not an issue. n99 The third reason proffered by the dissent against the court's grant of mandamus was that they considered the issue of patent validity to be a question of law necessitating resolution of underlying facts by the judge to ensure correct legal determination and uniformity of decisions. n100 According to Judge Nies, the author of the Lockwood dissent, a judge is more appropriate than a jury to make the determination of patent validity. n101 Judge Nies also noted that current jury cases are tried in accordance with confusing precedent such that evidence respecting patent validity "is thrown into the black box of the jury room." n102 Although on June 5, 1995 the United States Supreme Court granted American's petition for certiorari, n103 on September 1, 1995, after the patentee, Lockwood, withdrew his jury demand, [*713] the Court vacated the Federal Circuit's decision and remanded the case to the district court with instructions to proceed. n104

And one more:

Copyright (c) 2000 Whittier Law Review Whittier Law Review Spring, 2000 21 Whittier L. Rev. 645 LENGTH: 28154 words NOTE AND COMMENT: A Jury of One's (Technically Competent) Peers? Davin M. Stockwell * (snip) In In re Lockwood, n284 Lawrence B. Lockwood owned two patents that related to "interactive, audiovisual systems and apparatus useful in computerized reservation systems." n285 The first patent "discloses a fully automated, self-service terminal for dispensing voice and video information, goods and printed documents, and for accepting orders and payments directly from customers by coins or credit cards, without the need for a live salesperson." n286 The second patent involves a networked collection of the terminals that the first patent embodied. n287 Lockwood asserted that American Airlines infringed his patents with its manually operated SABREvision system, which permitted travel agents to use "a computer terminal [to] access schedule, cost and availability information stored in the central Sabre computer." n288 The SABRE system allowed the travel agents to gather information from customers in person or over the telephone. n289 To enforce his patent rights, Lockwood filed a patent infringement suit, seeking both damages and an injunction, and a demand for a [*674] jury trial. n290 In response to Lockwood's complaint, American Airlines filed a counterclaim against him for a declaratory judgment and, at the close of discovery, moved for summary judgment on the infringement claim. n291 The district court granted the motion, dismissing Lockwood's infringement complaint. n292 The court further struck Lockwood's demand for a jury trial because "the remaining claims are equitable in nature . . . ." n293 After the district court stuck his demand for a jury trial, Lockwood filed a petition with the Federal Circuit to reinstate his demand. n294 The Federal Circuit began its analysis by recognizing the importance of the right to a trial by jury and proceeded to explore the extent of the role served by a jury in patent litigation. n295 The court then applied the "historical test," n296 examining the evolution of declaratory judgment actions. n297 The Federal Circuit then found that American Airlines' counterclaim "is more comparable to a lawsuit for patent infringement than to any historical equitable action," holding that Lockwood was entitled to a jury trial. n298 Thus, the Federal Circuit not only supported, but also expanded, the right to trial by jury in patent litigation. Like the Federal Circuit's decision in Markman, n299 a dissenting opinion also accompanied this judgment. n300 Judge Nies dissented from the majority opinion because he found that patent rights are public rights, n301 and, thus, not subject to the Seventh Amendment guarantee. n302 Judge Nies also rejected the application of the "historical test" n303 by the majority, reasoning that the majority had modified the test by changing [*675] the conjunction between the two halves of the two-part test from an "and" to an "or." n304 Judge Nies also recognized the growing conflict between the circuit courts regarding the application of traditional jury practice in patent litigation and ultimately concluded that juries should not be employed in patent cases. n305 After the Federal Circuit rendered its judgment, American Airlines appealed to the Supreme Court. n306 Granting certiorari in the case, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the Federal Circuit and remanded the case. n307 The Court again reaffirmed its trend to restrict the right to trial by jury in patent litigation. n308 Currently, the case remains pending reconsideration by the Federal Circuit in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court. n309 Therefore, the Supreme Court in both Markman n310 and Lockwood n311 not only confirmed a reluctance by the judiciary to maintain the current role of the jury in patent cases, but also revealed a willingness to narrow further its scope. n312