Who is David Kappos and what does this mean for patent law ?
Kappos is the current Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of Intellectual Property for IBM Corporation. Kappos has been working at IBM since his college graduation from the University of California at Davis in 1983. IBM has taken several positions under Kappos with respect to patent reform and court decisions, and these positions, listed below, may foreshadow initiatives Kappos will take at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. • USPTO’s Proposed Changes: Representative Claims IBM has publicly announced its support for the examination of “representative claims” to limit the number of claims that are initially examined. IBM recommends allowing the applicant to segregate the claims as representative claims or corresponding claims, which would not be examined until their related representative claims are allowed. Kappos may likely be in support of a rule providing for applicants’ bifurcation of claims. • USPTO’s Proposed Changes: Claims Continuation Practice The PTO has proposed
