There is no federal court jurisdiction for disputes involving patents where the claimant does not actually own the patents. The possibility that one might own a patent, if a contingent future event occurs, is not enough. This...more
The latest issue in the patent world is one no one would have expected – sovereign immunity.
How did this issue arise? Allergan, the company that makes the dry-eye drug Restasis, has employed an aggressive strategy in...more
In In re Stepan Co., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 16246, decided August 25, 2017 the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals made it very clear that during patent prosecution, the burden of proving patent ability lies with the PTO examiner....more
My last column was the first of two columns discussing some of the most common misconceptions or myths about patents. Here is the second part, starting with number five on my list.
A Patent Does Not Give the Patent Owner...more
Patent law is a complicated area of law governed by a confusing set of statutes and regulations that are interpreted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the federal courts. Patents themselves are...more
Because it’s summertime, I thought we should take a break from “serious” intellectual property articles. So, instead, here are some patented inventions that you might see this summer.
A baseball with a speedometer seems...more
Patent owners can no longer restrict the use of their patented products after the products are sold. Under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, a patent owner’s rights are “exhausted” once the patent owner sells the product. ...more
*This line is the title of a song written by Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager that was performed in Bob Fosse’s movie “All that Jazz.” The song was a hit, and the phrase has a lot of relevance to everyday life, but the...more
Apple just escaped a $533 million jury verdict by invalidating the plaintiff’s patents on the grounds that the patents cover abstract ideas.
The case is Smartflash, LLC v. Apple Inc., decided by the Federal Circuit Court...more
In 2015, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals cast the net of patent infringement liability even more broadly, to cover direct infringement by “divided” (or “joint”) infringement. Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has reminded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in no uncertain terms that covered business method review has limits. In Unwired Planet, LLC v....more
The last time I checked (which was a couple of years ago), I found over 900 U.S. patents in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s database that had the word “Christmas” in the title. Every year at this time, I look at a few...more
The holidays are upon us. Given that everything seems to be protected by intellectual property rights, could someone protect Christmas?
The most likely candidate to try to patent Christmas would be Santa Claus. But...more
The United States Supreme Court is considering whether the doctrine of laches will bar a patent infringement claim filed within the Patent Act’s six-year damage limitations period set forth in 35 U.S.C. §286. The case before...more
The application of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347. (2014) has made it almost impossible to patent software. The United States Patent and Trademark Office is...more
In Warsaw Orthopedic, Inc. v. NuVasive, Inc. (June 3, 2016) 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 10092, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals broadly interpreted the Supreme Court’s test for induced infringement, finding irrelevant the...more
Up until now, it has been nearly impossible for a plaintiff to recover enhanced (up to treble) damages in patent infringement cases. The current test for enhanced damages, set forth by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in...more
Although the general rule (based on 35 USC section 101) is that anything made by humans is patentable, there are exceptions. Laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. Inventions that fall in...more
Laches, a judicially created defense based on the plaintiff’s delay and prejudice to the defendant, is a proper defense to the recovery of damages in a patent infringement suit, even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2014...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has established a new test for “divided” patent infringement. Direct infringement of a method patent exists when a single party performs all of the steps of the claimed method. 35 U.S.C....more
9/14/2015
/ Akamai Technologies ,
Appeals ,
Divided Infringement ,
En Banc Review ,
Joint Enterprise Theory ,
Limelight Networks ,
Limelight v Akamai ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS
Patents covering software for use in the financial industry are increasingly being invalidated by the courts. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014), district...more
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court upheld the longstanding case law that prohibits a patent owner from receiving royalties after a patent has expired. In Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC (June 22, 2015) 2015 U.S....more
A U.S. patent is “presumed” valid. That means a patent owner does not need to prove the patent is valid in a suit for infringement. And, as the U.S. Supreme Court just explained in Commil United States, LLC v. Cisco Systems,...more
Enablement is the requirement that a patent teach a person skilled in the art (the field of the invention) how to make and use the invention without undue experimentation. In other words, a patent must describe the invention...more
The Supreme Court recently decided a patent case involving a significant procedural issue. In Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 831 (1/20/15), the question before the Court was whether the Federal...more