In a year defined by landmark decisions, impactful announcements and new standards, clarity in the patent world comes as a welcome relief. It arrived via a federal circuit court decision in August 2024 that settled certain...more
We are excited to present the second edition of Sheppard Mullin’s “Year in Review” report, which provides a comprehensive summary of the key precedential Federal Circuit decisions related to patent law in 2024. Building on...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently affirmed a district court ruling that a pharmaceutical dosing claim limitation was unpatentable due to obviousness-type double patenting. The court found...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board patentability determination, finding that the Board failed to consider the entire record regarding the prior art status of a...more
2024 brought exciting developments at the Federal Circuit. The court issued its first en banc decision in a patent case in five years in LKQ, which significantly altered the standard for proving obviousness of a design...more
Addressing a preliminary injunction in patent litigation related to the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s grant of a...more
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal Nos. 2024-1965, -1966, -2082, -2083 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 29, 2025) Our Case of the Week is a 31-page decision that touches on a variety of issues, including...more
In Allergan USA, Inc. v. MSN Laboratories Private Ltd., No. 2024-1061 (Fed. Cir. August 13, 2024), the Federal Circuit reversed the District Court of Delaware’s invalidity determination of certain claims of U.S. Patent No....more
On August 13, the Federal Circuit, in Allergan USA, Inc. v. MSN Laboratories Private Ltd., held that a “first-filed, first-issued, later-expiring claim cannot be invalidated by a later-filed, later-issued, earlier-expiring...more
Since serving as a Federal Circuit clerk, Michael Hawes has monitored that court's precedential opinions and prepares a deeply outlined index by subject matter (invalidity, infringement, claim construction, etc.) of relevant...more
Addressing invalidity due to obvious-type double patenting (ODP) based on later-filed-related patents, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s application of In re Cellect (Fed. Cir. 2023)...more
In In re Cellect, 81 F.4th 1216 (Fed. Cir. 2023), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a later-expiring patent can be invalid for obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) in view of an earlier-expiring,...more
On Friday, January 19, 2024, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an Order refusing to rehear In re Cellect, LLC en banc. This likely means that the holding in In re Cellect will represent the law regarding...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness-type double patenting rejection, finding that an unexpected mechanism of action does not render the known use of a known...more
On August 28, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in In re Cellect, Appeal No. 2022-1293, evaluated for the first time how statutorily authorized patent term adjustments interact with the judge-made...more
Last week, the Federal Circuit held that obviousness-type double patenting trumps patent term adjustment, opening the door for invalidity attacks that to date had been questionable. In re Cellect was an appeal from a...more
The Federal Circuit recently affirmed a United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) decision to invalidate four related patents on obviousness-type double patenting grounds (OTDP), holding that any analysis of OTDP for...more
In a bulletin issued July 24, 2022, focused on Director Review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions in AIA trials, the USPTO also announced the creation of “a new Appeals Review Panel (ARP), which may be convened...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit endorsed for the first time the “all substantial rights” test to determine whether inventions are commonly owned for purposes of obviousness-type double patenting validity...more
The Federal Circuit held recently that the "all substantive rights" test, used heretofore to determine the identity of the "patentee" for purposes of satisfying 35 U.S.C. § 281, should be the standard for determining common...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - Immunex Corp. v. Sandoz Inc., Appeal No. 2020-1037 (Fed. Cir. July 1, 2020) - In this Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act case, the Federal Circuit affirmed the bench trial ruling of...more
Last month, in Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey finding certain claims of U.S. Patent...more
A Post-URAA Patent that Issues After but Expires Before a Related Pre-URAA Patent Is Not a Double-Patenting Reference Against the Pre-URAA Patent - In Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Breckenridge Pharmaceutical Inc.,...more
In two recent decisions, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that an asserted patent was not invalid due to obviousness-type double patenting (1) when a patent filed post-Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Moore, Chen, and Hughes. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: Obviousness-type double patenting does not invalidate an otherwise validly...more