IP(DC) Podcast: Patent Battles – New Patent Initiatives on the Hill & Notable CAFC/SCOTUS Decisions
Podcast: Patentable Subject Matter in 2019
While courts have often warned that hindsight bias should be avoided when assessing whether a patented invention would have been obvious to the skilled person, the application of this principle can be challenging in practice....more
As companies—and more recently, courts—have struggled to address the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in innovation, legislators are embroiled in a struggle of their own. Over the past two years, the Senate and House have...more
As we move into the second half of the year, we are alerting you to 11 patent cases that you should look out for during the second half of 2024. This judicial mix touches on a range of industries and interests, such as...more
In 2022, the Federal Circuit definitively ruled that artificial intelligence (AI) systems cannot be named inventors or co-inventors on patent applications, reinforcing the longstanding principle that only natural persons are...more
The Court’s reasoning in Amgen v. Sanofi upholds the Federal Circuit’s long-standing requirement to enable the full scope of a claimed invention. Since the Patent Act of 1790, patent law has required describing inventions...more
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) addressed the enablement requirement under Section 112 of the Patent Act, placing this into sharper focus with the Amgen v. Sanofi case. This landmark...more
In a unanimous opinion in Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi, the Supreme Court held that two functional genus patent claims were not enabled under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a).1 In doing so, it affirmed both the Federal Circuit’s previous decision...more
In a much-anticipated ruling issued on May 18, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s reading of the longstanding enablement requirement of U.S. patent law in the...more
On 2 March, the UK Supreme Court heard the arguments in Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, the latest in a growing line of international jurisprudence grappling with issues raised by the use of...more
Steven Thaler filed two patent applications naming “Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Science” (DABUS) as the sole inventor. DABUS is an artificial intelligence software system. The U.S. Patent and Trademark...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
Courts have long struggled with determining what makes an invention eligible for a patent by applying broad and ill-defined “I know it when I see it” tests that sometimes prevent breakthrough technologies from receiving...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - Thaler v. Vidal, Appeal No. 2021-2347 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 5, 2022) - In its only precedential patent decision this week, the Federal Circuit answered a question that had long occupied the musings...more
In three previous blog posts, we have discussed recent inventorship issues surrounding Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and its implications for life sciences innovations – focusing specifically on scientist Stephen Thaler’s...more
Our previous blog posts, Artificial Intelligence as the Inventor of Life Sciences Patents? and Update on Artificial Intelligence: Court Rules that AI Cannot Qualify As “Inventor,” discuss recent inventorship issues...more
I do not usually write about non-precedential Federal Circuit decisions, but I could not let the discussion of “simultaneous invention” in Columbia University v. Illumina, Inc., go without comment. As if protecting patents...more