For many companies in many industries, patents are an important tool for driving innovation. At the same time, patents limit competition, so that companies must also be wary of their competitors’ patent portfolios. The result...more
Justice John Paul Stevens passed away last week at the age of 99. During his nearly 35 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens did not hesitate to make his views on intellectual property rights known – in short, they...more
About a week before the holidays, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office quietly published a trio of new subject matter eligibility examples directed to the abstract idea exception to patentability. These are the latest in a...more
Earlier this summer, in Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the District Court for the Northern District of California granting summary judgment of invalidity of the asserted...more
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking at the annual meeting of the American Society of Pharmacognosy in Colorado. Members of this scientific association are dedicated to identifying and isolating natural products from...more
In the most recent loss for Kyle Bass’ hedge fund in IPR proceedings, the Board denied institution of an IPR based on a petition filed by Coalition for Affordable Drugs V LLC (CFAD) against Biogen MA Inc. IPR2015-01136, Paper...more
In Ariosa Diagnostics Inc. v. Sequenom Inc., 788 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2015), a Federal Circuit panel held that Sequenom Inc.’s prenatal diagnosis patent claims patent ineligible subject matter under the two-step test of Mayo...more
There's an old saying that “bad facts make bad law,” acknowledging that a court's decisions regarding extreme cases can result in law poorly adapted to less extreme cases. The Supreme Court's recent trio of 35 U.S.C. § 101...more
Ever since the 2010 Supreme Court opinion in Bilski v. Kappos was handed down, the debate over the scope of patent-eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been at times stimulating, complex, comical, and frustrating. Now it...more
There's an old saying that "bad facts make bad law," acknowledging that a court's decision regarding an extreme case can result in law that poorly serves less extreme cases. The Supreme Court's recent trio of 35 U.S.C. § 101...more
There's a new job opening at the Supreme Court: Job Description: Complete test of patent eligiblity sketched out by this Court’s decisions in Bilski v. Kappos and Mayo v. Prometheus. Self starter required: must be...more
On May 10, 2013, the Federal Circuit handed down the much-anticipated en banc decision in CLS Bank Int'l v. Alice Corp. This case is perhaps the most important 35 U.S.C. § 101 jurisprudence regarding the patent eligibility of...more
In November, Walter Beineke petitioned the Supreme Court for review of a Federal Circuit decision affirming the rejection of two plant patents on tree varieties that he discovered as not patent-eligible. This month, the PTO...more
Executive Summary: Three years removed from the Federal Circuit’s decision in Wyeth v. Kappos, patentees are seeking additional extensions of patent term based on the recent decision issued in Exelixis v. Kappos, which could...more
[T]he preamble constitutes a limitation when the claim(s) depend on it for antecedent basis, or when it "is essential to understand limitations or terms in the claim body." On December 27, 2012, in C.W. Zumbiel Co. v....more
[A] third party cannot sue the PTO under the APA to challenge a PTO decision to issue a patent. On December 6, 2012, in Pregis Corp. v. Kappos, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Prost, Clevenger,...more
In an opinion issued earlier this month, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia determined that Novartis AG and Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc. had not satisfied the 180-day...more
On November 1, 2012, the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a decision in Exelixis v. Kappos (Case No. 1:12cv96), rejecting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) interpretation of the...more
On Tuesday of last week, the Federal Circuit held that a party bringing a request for inter-partes reexamination may not appeal a decision by the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that certain prior art does...more
A few years ago we had provided some cautionary advice relating to the dichotomy between a timely filed response in accordance with 35 U.S.C. § 21(b), and a delayed response pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.704(b). 35 U.S.C. §...more
That rarest of rara aves issued from the Supreme Court yesterday, an affirmance of a Federal Circuit opinion in Kappos v. Hyatt. Perhaps it is because, as in Stanford v. Roche one of the parties was the government (here,...more
Introduction Last week, the Supreme Court announced its much-anticipated and long-awaited decision in Bilski v. Kappos1, a case centered on the scope of patent-eligibility of process claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Not...more
On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision on business method patents in Bilski v. Kappos, No. 08-964. The Court unanimously agreed that Bilski’s invention, which was a process directed toward “how...more
On June 28, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Bilski v. Kappos, No. 08- 964, slip op. (U.S. June 28, 2010) rejecting the rigid “machine-or-transformation” test for patent-eligible subject matter proffered by...more