Late last week in Natera, Inc. v. NeoGenomics Laboratories, Inc. (24-1324), the Federal Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction ruling from the lower court that mostly prohibits NeoGenomics from selling its oncology test...more
There have been only a few precedential decisions from the Federal Circuit related to obviousness since spring sprung. While these decisions have produced mixed results for the lower courts, clinical study protocols have held...more
5/2/2024
/ Apotex ,
Clinical Trials ,
Inventions ,
Janssen Pharmaceuticals ,
Motivation to Combine ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Teva Pharmaceuticals
Last week in Luv n’ Care, Ltd. v. Laurain, the Federal Circuit put the lower court in time out and probably made Eazy-PZ, LLC (EZPZ) cry just a little bit harder. In this precedential decision involving U.S. Patent No....more
4/18/2024
/ Appeals ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Inequitable Conduct ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Lanham Act ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Unfair Competition ,
USPTO ,
Vacated
Earlier this week, the Federal Circuit granted Meril Life Sciences safe passage out of the infringement storm — otherwise known as Edwards Lifesciences — continuing to chase it (at least for now). More specifically, a divided...more
In Corephotonics, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., the Federal Circuit partially signed off on Apple’s win before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) invalidating a number of patents owned by Corephotonics relating to dual-aperture...more
10/26/2023
/ Appeals ,
Apple ,
Design Patent ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Prior Art
With only two precedential IP decisions coming down from the Federal Circuit in the second half of September, pickings were a little slim for blogging. That said, the opinion in Baxalta v. Genentech (2022-1461) — drafted by...more
Last week, the Federal Circuit issued another precedential decision on inventorship. However, unlike in HIP, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corporation (22-1696) where the appellate panel found the purported inventor’s contribution to...more
6/14/2023
/ Appeals ,
Collaboration ,
Contributory Infringement ,
Corroboration ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Inventors ,
Joint Inventors ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
USPTO
The questions from the high court during oral argument at the end of March 2023 were fairly telling of the 9-0 ruling that came down yesterday in Amgen, Inc. v. Sanofi (No. 21-757). In fact, it did not come as much of a...more
5/19/2023
/ Amgen ,
Biotechnology ,
Enablement Inquiries ,
Healthcare ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Judicial Proceedings ,
Life Sciences ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Sanofi ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 112
The Federal Circuit passed on Pure Hemp’s ask for attorney fees and sanctions in United Cannabis, Corp. v. Pure Hemp Collective Inc., No. 22-1363 (Fed. Cir. May 8, 2023). Agreeing with the district court, the appellate panel...more
Efforts by HIP, Inc. to have David Howard added as an inventor to Hormel’s U.S. Patent No. 9,980,498 (Bacon Patent) were recently scorched by the Federal Circuit. More specifically, in HIP, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corporation...more
Phillip Morris can’t seem to catch its breath. As discussed in a previous post, just a few weeks ago the Federal Circuit upheld the ITC’s ban on the importation and sale of Phillip Morris’s line of heated tobacco and...more
4/20/2023
/ Appeals ,
Attorney's Fees ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Motion to Amend ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Reversal ,
Vacated
In a recent precedential decision, the Federal Circuit shot down arguments from appellants Phillip Morris Products S.A., Phillip Morris USA, Inc. and Altria Client Services LLC (Phillip Morris) that challenged the ban on its...more
As a follow up to our post last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Amgen, Inc. v. Sanofi (No. 21-757). While we obviously don’t have a crystal ball, the questions from the high court suggest that Amgen’s claims...more
Patent owners worry about what they can and cannot publicly say about infringement of their patent rights. Accused infringers may believe that certain public statements by patent owners are actionable on the basis that such...more
Last week, in Personalized Media Communications, LLC v. Apple, Inc., the Federal Circuit left intact Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s ruling of unenforceability based on prosecution laches and deprived Personalized Media...more
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Amgen, Inc. v. Sanofi (No. 21-757) on Monday, March 27, 2023. The highly contentious question before the high court focuses what an applicant must show to meet the enablement...more
3/24/2023
/ Appeals ,
Claim Construction ,
Enablement Inquiries ,
Innovation Patent ,
Oral Argument ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 112 ,
Written Descriptions
Recently, the Federal Circuit affirmed a finding of non-obviousness from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of a design patent owned by GM. While non-precedential, this decision is nonetheless a valuable read because...more
Bot M8 LLC, a patent assertion entity, was unsuccessful in its effort to have the Federal Circuit reverse the lower court’s invalidity finding related to one of six different patents asserted against Sony in Northern District...more
As the Federal Circuit made clear a few years ago in Nalco Co. v. Chem-Mod, LLC, a plaintiff “need not ‘prove its case at the pleading stage.’” The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a plaintiff to plead facts...more
Contrary to some predictions, assignor estoppel did not suffer the same fate in the hands of the Supreme Court as licensee estoppel in Lear v. Adkins. In fact, the doctrine, which essentially boils down to limiting an...more
Last spring in Hologic, Inc. v. Minerva Surgical, Inc., the Federal Circuit ruled that the doctrine of assignor estoppel does not prevent an assignor from lodging a validity challenge of either patent in an IPR proceeding. In...more
When the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the lower court’s award of attorney fees in Munchkin, Inc. v. Luv n’ Care, Ltd. last month, we were reminded that, while a district court has wide latitude to...more
Let’s face it, any litigation is expensive and a defendant that finds itself spending money battling claims against it only to have those claims later dismissed by the plaintiff is likely going to want to try to recoup the...more
The Federal Circuit has affirmed infringement under the doctrine of equivalents in a number of cases over the last few years. Briefly, the judicially created doctrine of equivalents is intended to expose those who adopt the...more
By reversing the lower court’s ruling that the asserted claims were not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Uniloc v. LG Electronics, the Federal Circuit resurrected Uniloc’s infringement suit against LG Electronics. It...more