Acuitas Therapeutics Inc. (“Acuitas”) filed a complaint (1-24-cv-00816) on July 12 against Alnylam Pharmaceutical Inc. (“Alnylam”) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging incorrect inventorship of...more
Naming a person who is not a proper inventor on your non-provisional patent application can be a costly, time-consuming error to fix, and if not fixed ultimately results in an invalid patent. Typically, time and money are two...more
In Hip, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, held that there was no joint inventorship when the contribution of preheating meat pieces using an infrared oven was insignificant in quality...more
This CLE course will guide patent counsel in identifying and determining inventorship and offer best practices for correcting errors regarding inventorship. Our experienced panel will provide perspectives gained from working...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision to correct inventorship in a post-issuance inventorship dispute, finding that the alleged joint inventors’ contributions were significant...more
On February 12, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released guidance and a solicitation for public comments on assessing inventorship in the context of inventions aided by artificial intelligence...more
The Background: In response to the Biden administration's "Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" on October 30, 2023, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...more
This case addresses the requirements necessary to establish a prima facie case to correct inventorship under 35 U.S.C. § 256. Background - Hormel Foods appealed the District Court’s ruling that David Howard should be...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision to correct inventorship, finding that the alleged joint inventor’s contribution to a claimed invention was significant and adequately corroborated 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
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
There is the old adage in business: to go fast, go alone; and to go far, go together. When this applies to innovation and naming co-inventors in your patent application, it is important to understand the legal ramification...more
This week’s bacon-related case of the week may lack a certain recognizable savory smell, but it still manages to pack some helpful insights on the law of joint inventorship. Case of the (recent) week: HIP, Inc. v. Hormel...more
Precedential Federal Circuit Opinions - HIP, INC. v. HORMEL FOODS CORPORATION (2022-1696, 5/2/23) (Lourie, Clevenger, and Taranto) Lourie, J. The Court reversed the district court’s decision regarding joint...more
This week, the Federal Circuit reversed the United States District Court for the District of Delaware’s (“District Court”) decision to add David Howard as a joint inventor on Hormel Food Corporation’s (“Hormel”) U.S. Patent...more
Last week, in Hip, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corporation, No. 2022-1696 (Fed. Cir. May 2, 2023), the Federal Circuit reversed Delaware District Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly’s decision to add an unnamed inventor onto a patent for...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
Google petitioned for IPR of two patents owned by IPA. Each of the asserted grounds relied on the Martin reference. Martin lists as authors the two inventors of the challenged patents and a third person, Dr. Moran. During...more
As part of the recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took steps to return to normal operations. It began requiring live oral arguments in August 2022 and, by November,...more
The consequences of joint development agreements, particularly under circumstances where later development is pursued independently by the parties, can create, inter alia, allegations of improper ownership and infringement if...more
Founders of an emerging company must decide early on in its growth cycle whether to require employees to assign their inventions (including rights to patent and patent applications –collectively “patent rights”) to the...more
In IBSA Institut Biochimique v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. a valuable lesson was learned about relying on a translation of a non-English patent application. The IBSA Institut Biochimique (IBSAIB) hired an Italian patent...more
In Dana-Farber Cancer Institute v. Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the Federal Circuit held that publication of a part of a complicated invention did not automatically preclude joint inventorship of that invention. The court...more
DANA-FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE v. ONO PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD. Before Newman, Lourie, and Stoll. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts - Summary: An individual who contributes “significant...more
In a combined opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit addressed appeals from district court grants of summary judgment over two patents, and an appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that one of...more