New Developments in Obviousness-Type Double Patenting and Original Patent Requirements — Patents: Post-Grant Podcast
Inter Partes Review: Validity Before the PTAB
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Memorandum to the Corps of Patent Examiners (the “Guidance”), attempting to provide clarity in the wake of the Federal Circuit’s highly anticipated en banc...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded a district court decision after concluding that a jury instruction on the objective indicia of nonobviousness that failed to...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s non-obviousness determination, finding that the Board erred in determining that an operating manual did not qualify as printed...more
Volvo Penta appealed from a Board decision finding all of its claims unpatentable as obvious. The claims at issue covered a tractor-type stern drive for a boat. Volvo Penta raised three main issues on appeal, arguing (1) that...more
Yita LLC petitioned for IPR of two patents owned by MacNeil IP LLC. This summary focuses on the proceedings on MacNeil’s patent relating to vehicle floor trays that “closely conform[]” to certain walls of the vehicle foot...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness-type double patenting rejection, finding that an unexpected mechanism of action does not render the known use of a known...more
Although merely exemplifying the burden imposed on an appellant by the Federal Circuit's substantial evidence standard of review over decisions by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office regarding the facts underlying legal...more
This case addresses obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in relation to a method of increasing prostacyclin release to reduce hypertension in a patient. In particular, this case discusses issues relating to motivation to...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board non-obviousness decision, finding that the context of the proposed combination of prior art in the Board’s obviousness inquiry...more
Yita LLC v. MacNeil IP LLC, Appeal Nos. 2022-1373, -1374 (Fed. Cir. June 6, 2023) In appeals from two inter partes reviews before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the Board) on related patents, the Federal Circuit...more
FS.com Inc. v. Intern. Trade Comm., Appeal No. 2022-1228 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 20, 2023) Our case of the week focuses on patent enablement. In particular, the Federal Circuit considered the enablement requirement in the...more
Recently, the Federal Circuit affirmed a finding of non-obviousness from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of a design patent owned by GM. While non-precedential, this decision is nonetheless a valuable read because...more
Precedential Federal Circuit Opinions - PROVISUR TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. WEBER, INC. [OPINION] (2021-1942, 2021-1975, 9/27/2022) (Prost, Reyna, and Stark) - Prost, J. Affirming in part and vacating in part decision of...more
In Quanergy Systems, Inc. v. Velodyne Lidar USA, Inc.1, a Panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB or Board) decisions that claims of a Velodyne patent were...more
Despite no precedential patent decisions at the Federal Circuit last week, the Court still addressed some interesting issues, including a decision in which the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected a patentee’s alleged...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
In a rare move, the interim Director of the U.S. Patent Office granted review of a final written decision in an inter partes review proceeding. In its request for Director review, the patent owner argued that the Patent Trial...more
On May 20th, Junior Party the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna; and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC") filed its Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 3 in Interference No. 106,127 (which...more
Join the conference that the “who’s who” of Hatch-Waxman litigators have designated as the forum which sets the standards for Paragraph IV practice. ACI’s Paragraph IV Litigation Conference is returning LIVE & IN-PERSON to...more
In a nonprecedential decision, the Federal Circuit gave a mixture of success and failure to the parties in four separate inter partes review decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in C.R. Bard, Inc. v. Medline...more
In academic settings, objective indicia of non-obviousness are sometimes presented as a common way of rebutting contentions that a claimed invention is obvious. These indicia, set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co. and...more
Chemours Company FC, LLC v. Daikin Industries, Ltd., Appeal Nos. 2020-1289, -1290 (Fed. Cir. July 22, 2021) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit reversed a PTAB decision in consolidated IPRs that two...more
As expected, the Senate has voted to confirm Tiffany Cunningham as the Federal Circuit’s newest judge. This makes history, giving the Federal Circuit its first ever Black judge and bringing the Court to gender parity for the...more
In a relatively unusual outcome, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision finding non-obviousness in an inter partes review (IPR). Becton, Dickinson, and Co. v....more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied a patent owner’s motion for additional discovery of documents—from petitioners, real parties-in-interest, and third parties—because patent owner failed to show that such discovery...more