The USPTO Director recently conducted sua sponte review of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision granting adverse judgment in four IPR proceedings where a panel found that the patent owner had abandoned the contests. In a...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a request for rehearing of a final written decision in which it had originally determined that the challenged were not unpatentable. On rehearing, the board found that petitioner’s...more
A recent board decision denying inter partes review serves as a reminder that an expert opining on obviousness must at least meet the definition of an ordinarily skilled artisan. The patent at issue related to a...more
In a recent inter partes review proceeding, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board relied on compelling evidence of secondary considerations to hold all challenged claims not unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Specifically, the...more
Evaluating whether a patent claim is sufficiently “definite” under 35 U.S.C. § 112 requires looking beyond just the claim language itself. The Federal Circuit reaffirmed this fundamental principle in a recent decision...more
In a series of related inter partes review proceedings, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently granted a petitioner’s motion to strike the sworn affidavit of a witness who was unwilling to submit to cross-examination. In...more
The United States District Court for the District of Delaware recently held that claims covering methods for evaluating organ transplant rejection are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
The patents at issue disclose methods...more
10/21/2021
/ Extrinsic Evidence ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Section 101 ,
Section 112 ,
Summary Judgment ,
USPTO
A panel at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently considered whether a petitioner was estopped from bringing an inter partes review (IPR) based on a judgment in a previous interference proceeding. ...more
The District Court for the Northern District of Ohio dismissed Cybergenetics Corp.’s infringement suit after determining that the asserted claims—which recite mathematical algorithms for analyzing data taken from a DNA...more
In a recent inter partes review (IPR), a patent owner overcame a facially persuasive obviousness challenge by relying on evidence from an earlier litigation to establish objective indicia of nonobviousness.
In RTI...more
Declaratory judgment (“DJ”) actions have fallen out of favor in patent cases in recent years. In 2011, DJ complaints made up approximately 11 percent of all patent cases filed that year. Last year, they made up less than 5...more
The Federal Circuit recently held a generic drug developer lacked Article III standing to appeal an adverse patentability determination by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) because it failed to prove that it suffered...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) recently reversed a preliminary injunction enjoining a patentee from making allegations of patent infringement and threatening litigation against...more
A panel at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) recently considered whether a dispute over a patent’s priority date justified filing two petitions for inter partes review (IPR) against the same claims.
The...more
The Federal Circuit upheld a district court’s finding of inequitable conduct on the basis that appellants and its lawyers intentionally withheld material information involving the on-sale bar from the United States Patent &...more
Judge Gilstrap in the Eastern District of Texas has denied defendants’ motion to stay the post-trial phase of a patent infringement litigation pending ex parte reexamination where the request for reexamination was filed four...more
3/6/2020
/ Administrative Remedies ,
Collateral Attack ,
Ex Partes Reexamination ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Motion To Stay ,
Patent Act ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Post Trial Motions ,
USPTO
The Federal Circuit recently addressed whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) can institute inter partes review (IPR) on a ground not advanced by the petitioner, as well as whether the general knowledge of a person...more
A panel at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) recently held that a certificate of correction fixing an error in a patent’s claim of priority did not apply retroactively in light of an already issued final written...more
Chief Judge Stark granted a patent owner’s motion for summary judgment of inter partes review (IPR) estoppel, holding that obviousness defenses based on a prior art product could not be asserted because a prior art...more
2/3/2020
/ Estoppel ,
Evidence ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Printed Publications ,
Prior Art ,
Summary Judgment
A Central District of California judge recently granted summary judgment of no obviousness based on inter partes review (IPR) estoppel because the only prior art references used to challenge patent validity could have been...more
1/31/2020
/ Estoppel ,
Final Written Decisions ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Validity ,
Patents ,
Printed Publications ,
Prior Art ,
Summary Judgment
Medical device and diagnostics companies and laboratories should anticipate significant legal, regulatory and market changes in 2020 that will have a lasting impact on the industry. From revisions to how the government...more
1/8/2020
/ Acquisitions ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Biotechnology ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
CFIUS ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Digital Health ,
EU ,
Export Controls ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Innovation ,
Life Sciences ,
Machine Learning ,
Medical Devices ,
Mergers ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Popular ,
Section 101 ,
USPTO
In inter partes review (IPR) proceedings of patents relating to printer technology, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) granted Patent Owner’s motion to compel testimony over Petitioner’s arguments that the information...more
12/27/2019
/ Attorney Communications ,
Discovery ,
FRCP 26 ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Motion to Compel ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Prior Art ,
Testimony ,
Work-Product Doctrine
Chief Judge Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas has denied a motion seeking foreign discovery from a third party pursuant to the Hague Convention, holding that the movant waited too long to seek such discovery. The...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board allowed live testimony in MPOWERED INC. v. LuminAID Lab, LLC, IPR2018-01524, on November 1, 2019, where a panel granted Patent Owner’s Motion for Live Testimony from a named inventor of the...more
A district court has denied a patent owner’s motion to strike wholesale a defendant’s affirmative defense of invalidity. The key issue in the motion to strike was the application of the estoppel provision of 35 U.S.C. §...more
11/13/2019
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Estoppel ,
Evidence ,
Final Written Decisions ,
FRCP 12(f) ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Motion To Strike ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Pleadings ,
Post-Grant Review ,
Prior Art ,
Question of Fact ,
Section 101