On Wednesday, the White House announced five new “executive actions” concerning the U.S. Patent System. The White House characterized these as “major steps to improve incentives for future innovation” and said each action is “designed to protect innovators from frivolous litigation and ensure the highest‐quality patents in our system.” Specifically, President Obama ordered:

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (”PTO”) to “begin a rulemaking process to require patent applicants and owners to regularly update ownership information when they are involved in proceedings before the PTO, specifically designating the ‘ultimate parent entity’ in control of the patent or application.” These rules will assist those facing patent litigation to determine what patents their adversaries hold and any connections between multiple parties asserting patent claims.
• The PTO to “provide new targeted training to its examiners on scrutiny of functional claims” and “over the next six months develop strategies to improve claim clarity, such as by use of glossaries in patent specifications to assist examiners in the software field.” This action is designed to address concerns “about patents with overly broad claims - particularly in the context of software.”
• The PTO to “publish new education and outreach materials, including an accessible, plain‐English web site offering answers to common questions by those facing demands from a possible patent troll.”
• The PTO to expand “the PTO Edison Scholars Program to bring distinguished academic experts to the PTO to develop - and make available to the public - more robust data and research on the issues bearing on abusive litigation.”
• The U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator to launch an interagency review of existing procedures used by the Customs and Border Protection Agency and the U.S. International Trade Commission. These agencies are responsible for determining whether imported articles fall within the scope of an exclusion order precluding the importation of infringing goods. Implementing these orders present unique challenges given the shared responsibilities and the complexity of making this determination, particularly in cases in which a technologically sophisticated product such as a smartphone has been successfully redesigned to not fall within the scope of the exclusion order.

The White House also sent seven legislative recommendations to Congress, one of which would give courts more discretion to award attorney fees to the prevailing party in patent cases.