In Virtek Visions international ULC v. Assembly Guidance Systems, Inc., DBA Aligned Vision Nos. 2022-1998, 2022-2022 (Fed Cir. Mar. 27, 2024), the Federal Circuit reviewed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s findings...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness decision, finding that disclosure in the prior art of all recited claim elements across multiple references, without more,...more
Volvo Penta appealed from a Board decision finding all of its claims unpatentable as obvious. The claims at issue covered a tractor-type stern drive for a boat. Volvo Penta raised three main issues on appeal, arguing (1) that...more
In Elekta Limited v. Zap Surgical Systems, Inc., No. 21-1985 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 21, 2023), the case addresses the interplay between findings related to motivation to combine and reasonable expectation of success in determining...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board unpatentability decision, finding that a combination of prior art references only requires an implicit indication of a reasonable...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board non-obviousness decision, finding that the context of the proposed combination of prior art in the Board’s obviousness inquiry...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board ruling that method claims reciting a mechanism of action triggered by the co-administration of two known antihypertensive agents were...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court decision finding that two patents covering enantiomerically pure compositions of the psoriasis drug Otezla® (apremilast) were valid and one patent...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, addressing the issue of whether certain factual and legal conclusions relating to obviousness were supported by substantial evidence, held that the Patent Trial & Appeal Board...more
Affirming an obviousness decision by the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit explained that the expectation of success need only be reasonable and not absolute. Transtex Inc....more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (Board) finding that proposed amendments made during an inter partes review (IPR) are valid and proper despite the inclusion of...more
In a recent opinion by the Federal Circuit, Auris Health, Inc. v Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc., Case 2021-1732, the panel split on the weight of general industry skepticism in an obviousness analysis and split on...more
The PTAB Strategies and Insights newsletter provides timely updates and insights into how best to handle proceedings at the USPTO. It is designed to increase return on investment for all stakeholders looking at the entire...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision finding the challenged claims patentable because the Board impermissibly rested its motivation-to-combine...more
Sunoco Partners Marketing & Terminals L.P. v. U.S. Venture, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2020-1640, -1641 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 29, 2022) - Our case of the week has a little bit for everyone, including lost profits, reasonable royalties,...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Last year, the continued global COVID-19 pandemic forced American courts to largely continue the procedures set in place in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was no...more
Addressing the sufficiency of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (PTAB) justification of its inter partes review (IPR) determination, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s obviousness...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) decisions, finding that the Board erred in its construction of certain claim terms relating to an...more
Addressing whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in finding that a dependent claim was valid despite the patent owner’s lack of validity arguments beyond those...more
The America Invents Act (“AIA”), signed into law in 2011, introduced inter partes review (“IPR”), which allows parties to challenge the validity of patent claims in proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board...more
PERSION PHARMACEUTICALS LLC v. ALVOGEN MALTA OPERATIONS LTD. Before O’Malley, Reyna, and Chen. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: The FDA’s acceptance of safety data for a...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a finding of obviousness by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), concluding that the finding was based on a reference that was included only in a non-instituted...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding regarding motivation to combine based only on conclusory expert testimony was not supported by substantial...more
FOX FACTORY, INC. v. SRAM, LLC - Before Prost, Wallach, and Hughes. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Summary: When a commercial product contains unclaimed features, a presumption of nexus between...more
In a recent precedential decision, TQ Delta, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed a pair of USPTO inter partes review proceedings that invalidated all claims of two related U.S. patents because “the...more