The proper application of the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC (2017), under recent Federal Circuit precedent (see In re...more
The application of the written description requirement under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) with regard to disclosed ranges is not always entirely straightforward or intuitively obvious, and this can particularly be the case when the...more
Hiram Bentley Glass and classical geneticists of the Twentieth Century elucidated some of the ways that genetics could inform regarding human populations and their history, using observations like genetic drift (famously,...more
On April 28th, Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), issued the 2018 Special 301 Report. According to the USTR website, "[t]he ideas and creativity of American entrepreneurs fuel economic growth and...more
Well, that didn't take long. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Guidance today, just two days after the Supreme Court decision in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu came down, regarding how the Patent Trial and Appeal...more
Perhaps somewhat ironically, a group of Chinese researchers* recently published a report on the genome of the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana), entitled "The genomic and functional landscapes of developmental...more
The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Federal Circuit today in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu. In a rare close decision in patent cases, Justice Gorsuch (joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and...more
On April 12th, various news outlets ("fake" and otherwise), as well as several Senators present at the White House, announced that the Trump administration had changed its position on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)...more
There has been a great deal of angst generated by the practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of expanding panels from the customary three Administrative Patent Judges to...more
The Federal Circuit has granted the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe's motion for stay in inter partes review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in St. Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. In the Order,...more
Increased drug costs have been a political and economic target for more than the past generation, being one of the motivations for the Hatch-Waxman Act in 1984. Drug costs were a big part of Ross Perot's campaign in 1992,...more
In a development that could moot (once and for all) the controversy over tribal sovereign immunity occasioned by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe's ownership of patents relating to Allergan's Restasis formulation for treating...more
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and Allergan filed a joint motion late last week before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), arguing that its Notice of Appeal divested the Board of...more
The tortured path that the Federal Circuit has taken (a path also trodden by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the district courts) of applying the patent eligibility decisions under Mayo Collaborative Services v....more
In the wake of President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the other countries involved in negotiations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore,...more
Clearly wishing to maintain the momentum and initiative in its inter partes review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and Allergan jointly...more
Motivation is an important factor in any policy-based decision. Understanding motivation -- whether considering legislation, programs by administrative agencies, or judicial decisions -- can go a long way towards creating...more
In an extensive, 42-page per curiam opinion, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) surprised no one last Friday by denying the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe's motion to terminate several inter partes review proceedings based on...more
In a decision from an appeal before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board following rejection of claims to an isolated nucleic acid apparently (to applicants) falling within the scope of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Guidance...more
Although having built up a track record for several years and several thousand petitions and "trials," inter partes review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act are still relatively new. As a statute...more
In what everyone (including the Patent Trial and Appeal Board) considers an unprecedented administrative action, the PTAB late last year set our an order (Patent Trial and Appeal Board's Order, 2017 WL 5067421, P.T.A.B. Nov....more
The interference between the Broad Institute and the University of California/Berkeley has been in the spotlight over the past year. But there have been other skirmishes between the parties, each of which has recently been...more
One of Donald J. Trump's signature campaign promises was to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by the Obama administration, and true to his word he did just that almost immediately upon being sworn into office. ...more
One of the most important (if not the most important) inquiries in performing due diligence involving acquisition of a patent portfolio is ensuring that the entity asserting ownership of the patents actually has proper title...more
As previously reported, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe filed a request for oral hearing that included a "request for discovery into the identity and impartiality of the merits panel assigned to this case." The paper was replete...more