Newsletter presents concise summaries of important developments in U.S. patent law occurring during the month of October, 2008.

Developments include:

1) En banc Federal Circuit limits patent eligible subject matter for processes patents;

2) Reasonable non-infringement claim construction position defeats charge of willful infringement;

3) District Court rules that Seagate precludes enhanced damages for post-filing conduct;

4) Doctrine of equivalents may not be available for limitations using the term ?about?;

5) District court rejects PTO?s methodology of calculating term extensions for PTO delays for short changing patentees;

6) Collection of technical specifications having same publisher but different publication dates was not a ?single? prior art reference for purposes of anticipation;

7) Anticipation not shown where it is necessary to combine separate disclosures within the same reference to arrive at the claimed invention;

8) Patentee need not actually know of suspected infringement to give ?actual notice? of its patent rights for purposes of § 287(a);

9) Nexus to show commercial success must be tied to differences between prior art and claimed invention;

10) Patentee bears a production burden to prove entitlement to § 120 priority, but does not bear a burden of persuasion;

11) Absence of working examples supported finding that prior art patent did not enable later-claimed invention for purposes of anticipation;

12) No antitrust violation from reverse payment by patentee to accused infringer to not enter market or challenge validity of patent; and

13) USPTO commences a Pilot Patent Prosecution Highway Program with Danish Patent Office