The New Cold War: Risk, Sanctions, Compliance Episode 25: “Can the U.S. Seize the Russian Central Bank’s Assets?”
Common Missteps When Suing the State of New Jersey and How to Prevent Them
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision that there was insufficient written description in the asserted priority applications to support a genus claim because of...more
Regents of the University of Minnesota v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., Appeal No. 21-2168 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 6, 2023) The Federal Circuit’s only precedential patent opinion this week focuses on the written description requirement...more
A little more than three years ago, the Federal Circuit rejected the University of Minnesota's contention that LSI was barred from bringing (and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board barred from hearing) an inter partes review of...more
On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced approval to Mylan Pharmaceuticals for a generic form of Allergan's RESTASIS® (Cyclosporine Ophthalmic Emulsion 0.05%) product for treatment of chronic dry eye. ...more
I have to give it to creative, resilient lawyers (and in fact, I have lauded them in the past). When the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Allen v. Cooper, 140 S.Ct. 994 (2020), a decision holding that the...more
Whether you are pursuing patents on your new technology, thinking about bringing patent infringement litigation or defending patent infringement claims in court, knowing the important developments in patent law will help you...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reiterated that “[s]overeign immunity does not apply to IPR proceedings when the patent owner is a state.” Board of Regents of the University of Texas System v. Baylor College...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 14th annual list of top patent stories. For 2020, we identified eight stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe...more
Any patent litigant unwilling to acquiesce to an adverse judgment from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) can appeal to the Federal Circuit. 28 U.S. Code § 141. But the right to appeal is not the same as the wisdom of...more
In a non-precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit recently reaffirmed that state universities cannot use sovereign immunity to avoid patent challenges at the PTAB stating that, “sovereign immunity does not apply to IPR...more
Companies seeking to license patents from state universities face a special risk--sovereign immunity. The 11th Amendment to the US Constitution deprives federal courts of jurisdiction to hear complaints brought by a citizen...more
Although a seemingly infrequent issue, the ability to sue domestic and foreign sovereign entities in intellectual property disputes has been the subject of recent seminal U.S. Supreme Court and Appellate Court decisions. In...more
On July 24, 2020, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued splintered precedential opinions surrounding the interplay of state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment and required joinder of...more
273-1 Federal Circuit Holds University of Texas is Immune from Involuntary Joiner, Holds Case against Potential Infringer may Proceed in School’s Absence - The Federal Circuit recently affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part,...more
Entities with patent-related relationships with state universities scored a victory under the rarely implicated (at least for patent practitioners) doctrine of sovereign immunity. For patent holders, sovereign immunity comes...more
In a conundrum worthy of a law school civil procedure examination, plaintiff Gensetix found itself apparently with no remedy for infringement by Baylor College of Medicine, Diakonos Research Ltd., and William Decker of...more
Gensetix, Inc. v. Baylor College of Medicine - Before Newman, O’Malley, and Taranto. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Summary: A state can invoke sovereign immunity under the...more
Introducing the IP Litigation Quarterly Update, a quarterly newsletter summarizing noteworthy and interesting opinions related to intellectual property law. In this first edition covering the first quarter of 2020, the...more
LSI and Ericsson petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of several patents owned by the University of Minnesota (UMN). UMN moved to dismiss each IPR based on state sovereign immunity. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board...more
In another noteworthy year for patent law, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit issued several decisions that altered the patent landscape, including three Supreme Court decisions. The topics of the key cases...more
A trade secret is any information used in one's business that derives independent economic value from being kept secret. Unlike patents, trade secrets are protected indefinitely for as long as they remain a secret. Due in...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected the arguments of a state university in support of sovereign immunity and affirmed the district court’s decision to transfer the case to the District of Delaware. Board...more
State Sovereignty Principles Do Not Allow a State to Bring a Patent Infringement Suit in an Improper Venue - In Board of Regents v. Boston Scientific Corp., Appeal No. 2018-1700, the Federal Circuit ruled that the patent...more
A question of sovereign immunity, which has come before the Federal Circuit in many guises of late (Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Regents of the University of Minnesota v. LSI Corp.), arose again in...more
Not unexpectedly, the State of Minnesota, as sovereign of the Regents of the University of Minnesota, filed on Thursday its petition to Supreme Court for certiorari. The State contends that the Federal Circuit erred in...more