Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) lost a ruling that competitor NOVA Chemical Corporation and NOVA Chemicals Inc. (collectively “NOVA”) infringed claims of two Dow patents when the Federal Circuit applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s...more
9/1/2015
/ Best Practices ,
Definiteness ,
Dow Chemical ,
Indefiniteness ,
Issue Preclusion ,
Nautilus Inc. v. Biosig Instruments ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
SCOTUS ,
Stare Decisis ,
Teva v Sandoz
In Akamai Techs. Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., (August 13, 2015 Fed. Cir.) an en banc Federal Circuit unanimously held that direct infringement under Section 271(a) can occur...more
8/25/2015
/ Akamai Technologies ,
CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Diagnostic Tests ,
Direct Infringement ,
En Banc Review ,
Induced Infringement ,
Limelight v Akamai ,
Mayo v. Prometheus ,
Myriad ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Personalized Medicine ,
SCOTUS ,
USPTO
On July 22, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed a long standing patent infringement suit brought by StemCells, Inc. against Neuralstem, Inc., on the ground that all those with an ownership...more
8/3/2015
/ Joint Inventors ,
Memorandum of Agreement ,
Oral Contracts ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patent-in-Suit ,
Patents ,
Real Party in Interest ,
Standing ,
Stem cells ,
USPTO
In Amgen v. Sandoz, Fed. Cir., No. 15-1499 (July 21, 2015), a divided panel of the Federal Circuit issued its first decision interpreting the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), and did so in a manner that...more
7/23/2015
/ Amgen ,
Biosimilars ,
BPCIA ,
Generic Drugs ,
Marketing Exclusivity Periods ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Sandoz ,
Sandoz v Amgen
In Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., Slip Op. 2014-1139, 2014-114 (Fed. Cir. June 12, 2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that Sequenom’s U.S. Patent No. 6,258,540 (the ‘540 Patent) was...more
Late last year, the USPTO issued its modified and revised 2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility (Interim Guidance) to assist patent examiners and the public in determining if a claim presented for...more
Just last week, the USPTO released its revised subject matter eligibility guidance (2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility “Interim Guidance” reviewed in my prior post of December 16th, 2014). The Interim...more
Post grant inter partes review proceedings have lowered the hurdle to invalidate U.S. patents. The “broadest reasonable construction” of the claims and the lower burden to prove invalidity (by a preponderance of the evidence)...more
On December 15th, 2014, the USPTO released its much anticipated revised subject matter eligibility examination guidance to assist patent examiners evaluate inventions that may be related to any one of the three judicial...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent trilogy of patent-eligibility decisions (Prometheus, Myriad and Alice) have called into question the validity of many U.S. patents on diagnostic medical methods. Nevertheless, legal battles...more
Canada has joined the gene patenting debate. Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (“Children’s”) sued the University of Utah Research Foundation, Genzyme Genetics, and Yale University (“Defendants”) in Canada’s Federal...more
The Federal Circuit in Ultramercial, Inc. v. WildTangent, Inc., held that an “entrepreneurial” multi-step process for distributing copyrighted media products over the Internet to consumers is not patent-eligible under 35...more
The Public Patent Foundation and Consumer Watchdog (collectively “CW”) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on October 31, 2014, seeking reversal of the Federal Circuit’s dismissal of its appeal from a decision of the USPTO that...more
On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit entertained oral argument in the interlocutory appeal of the district court’s denial of Myriad’s motion for preliminary injunction against Ambry Genetics....more
On Monday October 6th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will entertain oral argument in another case involving Myriad’s BRCA1/BRCA2 diagnostic tests. In re BRCA1- and BRCA2- Based Hereditary Cancer Test...more
Personalized medicine relies on diagnostics to analyze a patient for individualized therapy and for monitoring a patient’s health status. Some diagnostic tests use natural products, for example gene sequences, either as the...more
Periodically, the USPTO holds open meetings with the public to discuss its thinking on current topics relating to the patent procurement process. Late last week, the Biotechnology, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Customer...more
Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Dr. John B. Gurdon for their respective discoveries that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed to become immature...more
As discussed on Foley’s Health Care Law Today blog, personalized medicine treatment trends and innovations are leading diagnostic and therapeutic companies to form complex arrangements and partnerships with the ultimate goal...more
Yesterday at BIO’s session entitled “Patent-Eligibility from the Trenches: Practical Implications of the Supreme Court’s Prometheus (Mayo) and Myriad Decisions” a panel of experts and an engaged audience discussed the...more
Recently in Consumer Watchdog v. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, No. 2013-1377 (Fed. Cir. 2014), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) dismissed Appellant Consumer Watchdog’s appeal on the...more
6/16/2014
/ Appeals ,
Article III ,
Consumer Watchdog ,
DNA ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Myriad ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 101 ,
Stem cells ,
USPTO ,
WARF
In March, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) implemented new procedures to address whether inventions that relate in whole or in part to laws of nature and naturally occurring products are patent-eligibility in...more
On March 4th, 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued “2014 Procedures For Subject Matter Eligibility Analysis Of Claims Reciting Or Involving Laws of Nature/Natural Principles, Natural Phenomena, And/Or...more
On January 31, 2014, Phigenix, Inc. (“Phigenix”) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Georgia alleging that the sale and use of the drug Kadcyla by Genentech, Inc. (“Genentech”) infringed U.S. Patent No. 8,080,534B2,...more
In SmartGene, Inc. v. Advanced Biological Labs., S.A., No. 2013-1186 (Fed. Cir., Jan. 24, 2014), the Federal Circuit held that a patent claiming the use of a computer to implement routine mental information-comparison and...more