While Alice arguably wreaked havoc for the past decade on patent plaintiffs, its reach into patents asserted by brand pharma companies was much more limited.  A patent appeal between Sonos and Google currently pending before the Federal Circuit is likely to test the bounds of the doctrine of prosecution laches.  Sonos claims it was robbed of a $32 million jury verdict after the district court found Sonos waited too long to pursue the claims asserted at trial.  Amicus briefs have poured in highlighting a veritable policy debate over prosecution laches.  Could the doctrine of prosecution laches eventually stifle patent evergreening for pharma patents in a way that Alice never could?

On April 28, Google published a policy statement on the need for specific patent reforms. The statement was published by Google’s General Counsel, Halimah DeLaine Prado, and titled, Reforming the patent system to support American innovation. The statement is a notable read given that it issued from one of the largest Big Tech companies. The statement identifies four concrete areas where patent reform is purportedly required. Behind its prescriptions lingers its agenda—namely, that patents should have no value at all.

A recent post on this blog by Gaston Kroub discussed the ongoing patent war between Sonos and Google. The war started when Sonos accused Google of stealing its technology and infringing its patents. Since then, the war has broadened to multiple fronts. In one interesting twist, Google commenced its suit against Sonos asserting its own patents. Gaston’s commentary provides some useful insights for why Google would do this from strategic perspective. But in this post, we raise another question: is Google a patent troll?