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
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
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 U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in KSR International v. Teleflex altered the obviousness inquiry under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in determining whether a claimed invention passes muster under the Patent Act. The KSR Court...more
In This Issue - Inventorship, Patenting and AI: The Public Comments on Patenting Artificial Intelligence Inventions - Interest in artificial intelligence has become so keen that questions previously found only in works...more
Two interwoven challenges come to mind when considering how to successfully patent AI technologies. The first of these challenges is drafting claims whose infringement is detectable despite the black box nature of AI...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently issued a Final Written Decision in favor of Comcast Cable Communications, LLC (“Comcast”) and against Promptu Systems Corporation (“Promptu”) in a covered business method...more
The decision whether to issue a Restriction Requirement during patent prosecution lies with the patent examiner, not the patent applicant. A Restriction Requirement can nevertheless trigger prosecution history estoppel that...more
In 2014, the United States Supreme Court in a landmark decision in the field of Patent Law (Alice Corp. v. CLS Int’l) invalidated software patents related to mitigating settlement risk. Relying on the now-infamous Section...more
During examination of claims in a patent application, claim rejections from the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) under 35 USC §102 and/or 35 USC §103 usually assert that one or more cited references show all...more
Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided MPHJ Technology Investments, LLC v. Ricoh Americas Corporation, et al., No. 2016-1243 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 13, 2017). This case highlights the importance of a...more