Williams Mullen's Trending Now - An IP Podcast - Intellectual Contracts
Protecting IP Through Employment Law
Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions - 1. BACKERTOP LICENSING LLC [OPINION] (23-2367, 23-2368, 24-1016, 24-1017 Prost, Hughes, and Stoll) - Hughes, J. The Court affirmed the District Court’s orders (1)...more
Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions - LKQ CORPORATION v. GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC [OPINION] (2021-2348, 5/21/24) Moore, Lourie, Dyk, Prost, Reyna, Taranto, Chen, Hughes, Stoll, and Stark - Stoll,...more
296-1. Federal Circuit Finds Pre-Invention Ideas Not Covered Under Employment IP Assignment Agreement - The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently affirmed a ruling by the United States...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - Schwendimann v. Arkwright Advanced Coating, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2018-2416, et al. (Fed. Cir. May 5, 2020) (unsealed May 13, 2020) - In this recently unsealed precedential opinion, the Federal...more
In Regents of the Univ. of Minn. v. LSI Corporation, Fed. Cir., No. 18-01559, the Federal Circuit extended the inability to stand behind 11th Amendment Sovereign Immunity to patents owned by individual states, such that they...more
Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., and Akron, Inc. petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of various patents owned by Allergan, Inc., which the Board instituted. One week before the scheduled IPR...more
On July 20, 2018, the Federal Circuit held that tribal sovereign immunity is not available as a defense in IPR. Allergan Pharmaceuticals owned patents that it had asserted in litigation against various generic...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has decided whether tribal sovereign immunity required termination of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). At the PTAB, Mylan...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Dyk, Moore, and Reyna. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: Tribal sovereign immunity does not shield Indian Tribe owned patents from IPR. ...more
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision finding that tribal sovereign immunity does not apply to Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings. In so holding, the...more
Last Friday, in an anticipated decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided a controversial case regarding the St. Regis Mohawk’s ability assert sovereign immunity in inter partes review proceedings. ...more
The PTAB ruled that the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe could not assert sovereign immunity in IPRs of patents that Allergan had assigned to the Tribe relating to Restasis®. See The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe is not entitled to...more
In a highly anticipated decision on the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s motion to terminate inter partes review proceedings, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected tribal sovereign immunity to IPRs. The PTAB’s decision also...more
In a case that has received significant attention over the past several months, a United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) panel recently concluded that the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s claim of tribal immunity did...more
The PTAB dismissed the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s attempt to avoid IPR of patents covering Restasis®, which Allergan transferred to the Tribe in a highly publicized patent deal. See Allergan and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe...more
Sovereign Immunity - Sovereign immunity exempts a sovereign from the jurisdiction of a court - States are entitled to sovereign immunity under the 11th amendment Seminole Tribe of Fla v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996) ...more
As we’ve reported on previously, Allergan, Inc. assigned its rights to patents covering its Restasis® dry eye treatment to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe (“Tribe”) and simultaneously licensed back those patents in exchange for...more
In In Re Cray, the panel grants Cray’s petition for a writ of mandamus, ruling that the district court’s handling of the case is not consistent with its case law regarding what is “a regular and established place of...more
The PTAB recently designated as precedential its 2013 decision that assignor estoppel is not a defense for patent owners in IPR proceedings in Athena Automation Ltd. v. Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd., IPR2013-00290,...more
The PTAB issued an order applying collateral estoppel to determine that one purported owner of U.S. Patent 7,215,752 and U.S. Patent 7,844,041 (the “challenged patents”) had no authority to act as the patent owner in...more
Ruckus Wireless, Inc. v. Innovative Wireless Solutions (No. 2015-1425, 1438, 5/31/16) (Prost, Reyna, Stark) - May 31, 2016 3:11 PM - Reyna, J. Affirming summary judgment of non-infringement of patents based on...more
Properly prepared patent assignments and IP assignment clauses in employment agreements can play a critical role in an IPR proceeding — for example, by preventing your own patent applications from becoming invalidating prior...more