On November 4, 2025, Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, John Squires, designated the Ex Parte Desjardins decision of September 26, 2025 as “precedential.”...more
On November 4, 2025, the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) designated as precedential an appeals review panel (ARP) decision vacating the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s § 101 rejection of claims...more
Our Patent Case Summaries provide a weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial...more
In a rare procedural move, the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) director-convened Appeals Review Panel (ARP) recently vacated a § 101 rejection that had been introduced by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board...more
Last week, the USPTO published a rare Appeals Review Panel (ARP) decision in Ex parte Desjardins, Appeal 2024-000567, September 26, 2025 (“ARP Decision”), that reversed a finding of ineligible subject matter in a patent...more
Faster office actions, improved prior art searches, and a more consistent application of the law — these will be hallmarks of the future of patent examination at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) due to increased...more
The Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in an inter partes review prompted by an infringement allegation in DexCom, Inc. v....more
Tocilizumab Challenged Claim Types in IPRs: Claims are counted in each IPR, so claims from the same patent challenged in multiple IPRs are counted more than once. Within each IPR, claims are counted only once, whether they...more
Adalimumab Challenged Claim Types in IPR and Litigation: Claims include those challenged in litigations and IPRs. Claims are counted in each litigation and IPR, so claims from the same patent challenged in multiple...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
In 2024, design patent law encountered a couple of major changes: the implementation of a new design patent bar, and the upending of decades of obviousness law under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in view of the en banc United States Court...more
The concept of the "person of ordinary skill in the art" (POSITA) remains pivotal in patent law, particularly in evaluating obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 and compliance with enablement and written description requirements...more
“Because Congress intended inter partes reviews to serve as a faster and more cost-effective alternative to litigating validity in district courts, discovery in inter partes reviews is limited.” See Garmin Int’l, Inc. v....more
Determining whether a claimed invention is obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 often depends on whether the prior art provides a clear motivation for modifying existing knowledge. Central to this analysis is the concept of a...more
In September of last year, and in light of a corresponding Japanese patent infringement suit, I published an article detailing how The Pokémon Company had filed two patent applications at the United States Patent and...more
This case addresses obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in relation to a method of increasing prostacyclin release to reduce hypertension in a patient. In particular, this case discusses issues relating to motivation to...more
Two proposed bills recently introduced in Congress have the potential to greatly impact the current patent litigation landscape. The bills are titled the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 and the Promoting and...more
We are excited to share Sheppard Mullin’s inaugural quarterly report on key Federal Circuit decisions. The Spring 2023 Quarterly Report provides summaries of most key patent law-related decisions from January 1, 2023 to March...more
Legislation has been introduced in the United States House and Senate entitled the “No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act of 2023,” which would eliminate the tax exemption for bonds used to finance professional sports stadiums....more
With further apologies to David Letterman - Almost two years ago we published Stupid § 101 Tricks, an article discussing some of the annoying, improper, and yet disappointingly common patterns seen in rejection and...more
In California Institute of Technology v. Broadcom Limited (“Cal Tech”), the Federal Circuit clarified the scope of inter partes review (IPR) estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), finding that it precludes petitioners from...more
In a recent inter partes review proceeding, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board relied on compelling evidence of secondary considerations to hold all challenged claims not unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Specifically, the...more
In 2021, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued four opinions regarding US design patents— two precedential opinions and two unprecedential opinions. Both precedential opinions, In re SurgiSil and Campbell...more
This year, we will mark the 10-year anniversary of the first jury verdict in the landmark IP litigation between Apple and Samsung, which resulted in the jury awarding more than $1B to Apple. More than $500M of that award was...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published a final rule in the November 12th Federal Register making a technical amendment related to Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability...more