On February 28, 2025, the USPTO announced that it was rescinding former Director Vidal’s 2022 memorandum on discretionary denials by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The 2022 memorandum effectively narrowed the application...more
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) aims to provide expeditious decisions for its litigants. That means that there is a higher bar for obtaining extensions of time. As exemplified in BMW v. ITCiCo, the UPC’s reluctance to grant...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that a reference could be used as prior art because patent owner failed to provide sufficient evidence that the prior art’s disclosure was invented by all four named inventors, and...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected a patent owner’s assertion that petitioner should have named a third party, which was a defendant in a related district court patent infringement litigation and a party to a joint...more
The PTAB denied a petitioner’s motion to compel routine discovery that sought information from a parallel ITC investigation for alleged inconsistent positions taken by patent owner in the IPR. The board found that patent...more
10/30/2024
/ Discovery ,
Evidence ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Motion to Compel ,
Parallel Proceedings ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Semiconductors
Our newsletter reflects the focus of Akin’s cross-practice autonomous systems and advanced mobility team on developments in the regulatory, policy, trade, intellectual property, and cybersecurity and privacy spaces....more
8/16/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Climate Change ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Driverless Cars ,
Drones ,
FCC ,
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
SCOTUS ,
Technology Sector ,
Unmanned Aircraft Systems ,
Waivers
The Eastern District of Texas recently addressed two significant issues related to fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) negotiations under French law; namely, whether: (1) an implementer is entitled to damages...more
2/1/2024
/ Bad Faith ,
ETSI ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Federal Rules of Evidence ,
France ,
FRAND ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Negotiations ,
Patent Litigation ,
Standard Essential Patents ,
Standard Setting Organizations
Summary -
Last year the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), under a threat of a vote, accelerated negotiations on an international legal instrument related to intellectual property (IP) and genetic resources...more
10/31/2023
/ Biotechnology ,
Comment Period ,
Deadlines ,
Genetic Materials ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
International Harmonization ,
Life Sciences ,
Patent Law Treaty ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
USPTO ,
WIPO
In a decision denying summary judgment, the District of Massachusetts weighed in on an unsettled issue: whether after receiving a final written decision in an inter partes review, a patent challenger is permitted to raise...more
In an appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, the Federal Circuit confirmed that on the issue of inter partes review (IPR) estoppel, the burden of proof rests on the patentee to...more
The Federal Circuit has reversed the District of Delaware’s ruling that added an inventor to a patent. The Federal Circuit found that the contribution by the added inventor was not significant when measured against the...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently instituted an inter partes review where the patent owner argued that the petitioner failed to establish its expert as a person of skill in the art, which would have rendered the...more
The Autonomous Systems & Advanced Mobility (ASAM) space is headed for more change in 2023, generating new opportunities and challenges for a growing list of industry players. The adoption of new, complex and connected...more
5/9/2023
/ Aerospace ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Automation Systems ,
Aviation Industry ,
Cybersecurity ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Emerging Technologies ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
FCC ,
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ,
Innovative Technology ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Transportation Industry
Key Points -
The EU aims to harmonize patent protection rules and flexibilities with a layer on top of national rules. This is in line with long-term efforts by the EU institutions to harmonize patent rules and motivated,...more
In an IPR institution decision issued shortly after the USPTO issued interim guidance on discretionary denials, the PTAB held that the petition presented “compelling evidence of unpatentability,” foreclosing a Fintiv...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
Petitioners moved for an order requiring Patent Owner to produce discovery comprising Final Infringement Contentions from related district court litigations between the parties. Petitioners set forth two independent bases...more
Applying recent Federal Circuit precedent requiring language evincing a present conveyance of patent rights, a district court in the Western District of Pennsylvania found that the contractual language “shall become the...more
A judge in the Northern District of Georgia has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss a patent infringement case for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The court found that the complaint failed to meet the...more
Disputes as to the licensing of standard-essential patents (SEP) and determination of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms are typically resolved through either negotiation or litigation in national courts....more
Optis Wireless Technology, LLC filed a declaratory judgment action in the Eastern District of Texas seeking judgment that it complied with its fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) obligations when it offered a...more
Chief Judge Saris of the District of Massachusetts has granted-in-part a product manufacturer’s motion seeking summary judgment of claim preclusion based on patentee’s prior assertion of the same patent against a component...more
12/27/2019
/ Claim Preclusion ,
Defense Strategies ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Manufacturers ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Noninfringement ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Suppliers
In Amerigen Pharmaceuticals Limited v. UCB Pharma GmbH, generic drug manufacturer Amerigen appealed a decision of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board finding UCB’s patent to certain chemical derivatives of diphenylpropylamines...more
1/28/2019
/ Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) ,
Appeals ,
Article III ,
Generic Drugs ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Standing
In Worlds Inc. v. Bungie, Inc., the Federal Circuit remanded an appeal from an inter partes review (“IPR”) instructing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) to reweigh the evidence in a manner that placed the ultimate...more
9/24/2018
/ Appeals ,
Burden of Persuasion ,
Burden of Proof ,
Collateral Estoppel ,
Final Written Decisions ,
Intellectual Property Agreements ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Real Party in Interest ,
Remand ,
Time-Barred Claims ,
Video Games
On March 23, 2018, a district court judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring the defendants to withdraw their petitions for inter partes review (IPR) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The court granted...more
4/9/2018
/ Breach of Contract ,
Forum Selection ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
IP License ,
License Agreements ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Royalties ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Preliminary Injunctions