A well-orchestrated intellectual property strategy requires carefully and thoughtfully leveraging copyright, trademark, and patent laws, as highlighted by a recent decision handed down by the United Sates Court of Appeals for...more
CERAMTEC GMBH v. COORSTEK BIOCERAMICS LLC - Before Lourie, Taranto, and Stark. Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. A utility patent may still be considered strong...more
Addressing for the first time whether a functional limitation must carry the same meaning in all claims, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that it need not, vacating a district court decision to the...more
Addressing a multitude of issues, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling dismissing infringement of one patent and finding a trade dress invalid but reversed the invalidation of...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that a representative claim was directed to a patent-eligible improvement to computer functionality, and therefore reversed a decision authored by Judge Leonard P....more
SIMIO, LLC V. FLEXSIM SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, INC. Before Prost, Clevenger, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Summary: A claim whose only inventive concept is the applications...more
KONINKLIJKE KPN N.V. v. GEMALTO M2M GMBH - Before Dyk, Chen, and Stoll. Appeal from the District of Delaware. Summary: Claims directed to improving the functionality of one tool that is part of a system do not...more
Addressing the issue of the functional requirements of design patents, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit refused to invalidate design patents on truck parts on the basis of aesthetic functionality. Automotive...more
• In a relatively rare opinion regarding design patents, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit weighed in recently on the requirements for design patents in its Automotive Body Parts Association v. Ford Global...more
On July 23, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit released its decision affirming summary judgment that the asserted design patents were not invalid for non-ornamentality under 35 U.S.C. § 171, and rejecting...more
The increased prominence of Section 101 in computer-related patent disputes stems from the Supreme Court case of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. Before Alice reached the Supreme Court, ten judges of the Federal Circuit considered...more
In LifeNet Health v. LifeCell Corporation, one of the many issues the Federal Circuit decided was that functional claim language did not create a divided infringement situation, even though an independent actor could impact...more
Applicants for design patents should consider claiming functional aspects of their designs in addition to the purely ornamental elements as part of their claiming strategy to achieve the broadest protection for their designs....more
In Williamson v. Citrix Online, announced on June 16, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a partially en banc opinion that claims expressed in terms of functionality can be subject to statutory requirements...more
Decision Dates: September 11, 2013 and March 26, 2014 - Courts: Federal Circuit and the Southern District of New York Patent: D598,183 - Holding: Grant of summary judgment of invalidity REVERSED and REMANDED; on...more