Kilpatrick partner Mitch Stockwell recently presented to clients at the Kilpatrick Intellectual Property Seminar on the topic of “Patent Disputes: Bringing, Financing, and Fighting Big Cases.” Mr. Stockwell explored both the...more
Patent assertion entities make up a significant portion of patent litigation practice today. Many of these entities form just days or weeks before acquiring a patent and filing a complaint. Just as often, these entities’...more
On August 17, 2022, Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly of the District of Delaware issued an order in which he questioned the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s disclosure of financially interested parties in Longbeam Technologies LLC....more
The US government promotes policies that protect IP rights. Patents and copyrights, for example, are so core to US policy that they are expressly discussed in article I of the US Constitution. And the US judiciary has long...more
This article is the next piece of my series discussing patent demand letters. Part one, reviewed the initial considerations and steps one should make upon receiving a patent demand letter. Part two explored the subject or...more
Colleges and universities may be leaving money on the table with under-utilized patent portfolios. The time is right, as the law has shifted in favor of patent owners, both in inter partes review litigation before the Patent...more
The COVID-19 pandemic and widespread shelter-in-place orders have hit every corner of the country’s economy, including tech companies of all sizes. Many tech companies have traditionally maintained large patent portfolios to...more
We previously reported on how popular open source has been under attack from patent assertion entities. The attacks continue. The GNOME Foundation recently acknowledged that it was sued for patent infringement by Rothschild...more
There is an ongoing struggle over § 101: the Federal Circuit struggles over the appropriate scope; the lower courts struggle to apply the Federal Circuit's decisions; litigants struggle due to the aforementioned. This has...more
A recent Initial Determination (“ID”) by ALJ Cheney illustrates how the government shutdown earlier this year effectively made this ITC investigation “toothless” since relief was not practicable before the patents would...more
Earlier this year, the Competition Bureau released its updated Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines. The Guidelines explain how the Bureau approaches the interface between competition policy and intellectual property...more
REGENTS OF THE UNIV. OF MINN. v. LSI CORPORATION - Before Dyk, Wallach, and Hughes. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: State sovereign immunity does not apply to IPR proceedings asserted against...more
In a recently issued order, Chief ALJ Bullock granted Respondent’s motion to amend its Response to the Complaint almost nine months after the investigation had been instituted to include the defense of inequitable conduct in...more
In a proceeding that included Patent Office Director Andrei Iancu on the panel, the PTAB issued an order this past week denying institution of 3 IPRs filed by Valve. The decision demonstrates that the PTAB continues to...more
A recent order from the District of Delaware in Evolved Wireless, LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 15-00542 (“Evolved Wireless”) provides interesting guidance regarding the use of future sales in calculating lump-sum damages. This...more
On Wednesday, January 16, 2019, Massachusetts State Senator Eric Lesser introduced Bill S.D. 1007 (S.D. 1007) which provides for legal actions and recovery from entities that allege infringement in bad faith against...more
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) recently issued a precedential opinion finding that a lower court had improperly incorporated an embodiment from the specification of the asserted patents into the claims....more
Earlier this month we published an exhaustive review of the life sciences and regulatory cases in the Canadian courts, and decisions on the merits for the year are summarized in our in our Rx IP Update 2018 Highlights in...more
A recent opinion from the Northern District of Texas is a reminder to all patent practitioners to heed pleading standards when drafting a complaint for patent infringement. In Lexington Luminance LLC v. Service Lighting and...more
The ITC permits a domestic industry to be based on any claim of an asserted patent even if the claim defines an article that is different from the investigated article of commerce. In a recent order, ALJ Cheney reiterated...more
On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court granted WilmerHale client PNC Bank National Association's (PNC Bank) petition for writ of certiorari and vacated a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit restricting the...more
The U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) terminated Investigation No. 337-TA-1094 based on actual expiration of the asserted patent at issue. Upon a review of the Initial Determination (“ID”), the Commission determined...more
An expert asserting that a patent claim reciting different features than the prior art is nonetheless “equivalent” to the prior art must address and account for the recited limitations head-on, or otherwise lose persuasive...more
In a recently issued claim construction order, Chief Administrative Law Judge Bullock held that terms included in all asserted claims are indefinite. He accordingly found the asserted claims invalid, stayed the Investigation,...more
Companies that hold patents so that they can sue companies in an effort to generate revenue rather than create their own goods and services—also known as “patent trolls,” nonpracticing entities (NPEs), or patent assertion...more