PODCAST: Williams Mullen GovCon Perspectives - Why Was My SWaM Certification Denied, and What Can I Do?
Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions - MALVERN PANALYTICAL INC. v. TA INSTRUMENTS-WATERS LLC [OPINION] (2022-1439, 11/1/2023) (Prost, Hughes, and Cunningham) - Prost, J. The Court vacated the district court’s...more
USPTO News - ..On October 19, 2022 the USPTO issued a report titled “Where are U.S. women patentees? Assessing three decades of growth” examining trends in women’s patenting in the U.S. from 1990-2019. ..Director...more
On June 1, in Hyatt vs Hirshfeld, the Federal Circuit upheld the USPTO’s decision to reject a patent application for prosecution laches, based on delay by the applicant. The decision details behaviors that, while likely...more
This article discusses aspects of ex parte appeals of patent applications before the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). A patent applicant may appeal (submit a re-examination request) an examiner’s...more
On December 20, 2019, the Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued its decision in IPR2018-01039, addressing “What is required for a petitioner to establish that an asserted...more
In a recent precedential decision, Hulu, LLC v. Sound View Innovations, LLC, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) clarified the standard for establishing a reference as a “printed publication”...more
The Appointments Clause: Ensuring That PTAB Decisions Are Subject to Constitutional Checks and Balances In Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., Appeal No. 18-2251, the Federal Circuit ruled that, under the then-existing...more
The phrase “at least one of” is used in claims to indicate selection from a group of elements that follows the phrase. When used, practitioners may grapple with whether “at least one of A and B” or “at least one of A or B” is...more
As follow up to last month’s article on lack of motivation to combine, another just released Board decision in IPR2016-00972 (Paper 18) again found for patent owner because the petition failed to provide a proper motivation...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) quietly increased the examiners’ arsenal by slipping a new rejection into the latest revision of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) released last month. One of the...more
In Southwire Co. v. Cerro Wire LLC, the Federal Circuit upheld the USPTO decision rendered in an inter partes reexamination proceeding that found Southwire’s patent invalid as obvious. Although the court found that the USPTO...more
In Ex Parte Hafner, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) reversed the Examiner’s rejection that claims directed to an energy transaction plan were subject-matter ineligible. Ex...more
On March 3, 2017, in a final written decision in IPR2015-01838, the PTAB rejected an obviousness challenge brought by DuPont against a patent owned by Furanix Technologies B. V. directed to methods for preparing the known...more
While the Supreme Court decisions in Myriad and Mayo have been applied to diagnostic-type claims, method of treatment patents were thought to be safe from the recent judicial expansion of the patent-(in)eligibility doctrine....more
The Supreme Court on Friday granted certiorari to review the Federal Circuit's decision that the U.S. Patent and Trademark's Patent Trial and Appeal Board was entitled to perform claim construction in inter partes review...more
In Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. v. Covidien LP, a 2-1 panel split of the Federal Circuit held that neither the American Invents Act (“AIA”) nor the Constitution precludes the same panel of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board...more
Apotex Inc. v. UCB, Inc. - After finding that a patent owner had made several misrepresentations to the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) during prosecution, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded...more