On August 26, in Best Medical International, Inc. v. Elekta Inc., the Federal Circuit held that a patent owner lacked standing to appeal an inter partes review (IPR) decision as to a claim the patent owner had previously...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Last year, the continued global COVID-19 pandemic forced American courts to largely continue the procedures set in place in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was no...more
On July 30, 2019, the Federal Circuit held that retroactive application of IPR (inter partes review) proceedings to pre-AIA (America Invents Act) patents is not an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment (Celgene...more
In Return Mail, Inc. v. U.S. Postal Serv., 17-1594, Justice SOTOMAYOR wrote for the majority to overturn a Federal Circuit decision that the U.S. Postal Service had standing to petition for covered business method review. The...more
The Supreme Court ruled in Return Mail that a federal agency is not a "person" who may challenge an issued patent in inter partes review, post-grant review, or CBM review under the AIA. In its 6–3 decision in Return Mail,...more
In a 6-3 opinion authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) to institute patent review proceedings...more
On June 10, 2019 the United States Supreme Court held in Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 587 U.S. ____ (2019) that agencies of the federal government cannot challenge the validity of a patent via USPTO...more
Earlier this week, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s finding that the government is a “person” eligible to petition for post-issuance AIA review proceedings. This 6-3 decision, Return Mail, Inc....more
Houston-based oilfield services company Oil States International, Inc. challenged the legality of inter partes review (IPR), a patent review process that allows the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to hold hearings with...more
The Supreme Court is taking another patent case, granting certiorari in WesternGeco v. Ion. A divided panel of the Circuit had ruled that the plaintiff was not entitled to lost profits as a result of the sale of components of...more
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the constitutionality of PTAB post-grant trials in Oil States Energy Servs., LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, No. 16-712 (U.S.). The question posed to the Court is...more
Inter Partes Reexamination Estoppel Attaches On Claim-by-Claim Basis for New Requests and Pending Proceedings - In In re Affinity Labs Of Texas, LLC, Appeal Nos. 2016-1092, 2016-1172, the Federal Circuit held that the...more
In a 7-1 decision issued on March 21, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court held in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC that laches cannot be invoked as a defense against a claim for damages in a patent...more
While the Supreme Court decisions in Myriad and Mayo have been applied to diagnostic-type claims, method of treatment patents were thought to be safe from the recent judicial expansion of the patent-(in)eligibility doctrine....more
In a divided en banc decision in SCA Hygiene Products v. First Quality Baby Products, the Federal Circuit preserved the defense of laches for patent cases even though the Supreme Court eliminated that defense in copyright...more
Laches is an equitable defense based on a plaintiff’s unreasonable delay in pursuing a claim. In 2014, the Supreme Court effectively eliminated the laches defense in copyright cases, ruling that the copyright statute allows...more
Patenting - Patenting generally offers a superior means for legally protecting most inventions, particularly since: • copyright, when available, does not provide a broad scope of protection; and • the...more
Last month, in an opposition brief filed by attorneys for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Department of Justice, the Office asked the Supreme Court to deny petitioner's writ of certiorari in Finjan, Inc. v. United...more