IP(DC) Podcast: Patent Battles – New Patent Initiatives on the Hill & Notable CAFC/SCOTUS Decisions
Podcast: Patentable Subject Matter in 2019
The Federal Circuit determined that if a company misleads consumers about the nature of a product by making false patent marking claims, it can be held liable under the Lanham Act. False marking claims under the Lanham Act...more
Section 112 of the Patent Act contains multiple requirements that relate to the adequacy of an inventor’s disclosure within a patent application. The Supreme Court has offered some clarity to inventors seeking to patent...more
On Friday, August 25, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit affirmed dismissal of an antitrust action brought by the Federal Trade Commission regarding Endo Pharmaceuticals’s grant of an...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
On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Federal Circuit's decision, Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi, 987 F.3d 1080 (Fed. Cir. 2021), that the claims of two of Amgen's patents were invalid for lack enablement. The...more
On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC) decision on enablement in Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi, 987 F.3d 1080 (CA Fed. 2021). The Court thus left in place a significant decision making it more...more
Einstein's aphorism that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is a hallmark of madness (or at least an inability to learn from the past) inevitably comes to mind when perusing the recent...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
On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a unanimous decision in the case of Amgen Inc. et al. v. Sanofi, et al., No. 21-757. After a nine-year saga, beginning when Amgen sued Sanofi for allegedly...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 April 23, 2023, the US Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed by Stephen Thaler, following the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s finding that Thaler’s artificial intelligence system — Device for...more
The Supreme Court dealt the latest blow in Dr. Stephen Thaler’s continuing quest for recognition of AI inventorship of patents, by denying certiorari in Thaler v. Vidal (No. 22-919). Despite support of Dr. Thaler from...more
The Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear a case brought by a computer scientist whose “invention” was in fact created by artificial intelligence. Stephen Thaler was appealing a Federal Circuit decision that interpreted...more
Dr. Stephen Thaler, Ph.D., a computer scientist and inventor, has petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to consider the question of whether the Patent Act restricts the definition of an "inventor" to human...more
The Supreme Court has granted Amgen’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, agreeing to address what it means to provide an enabling disclosure. In particular, Amgen asked the Court to address...more
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in three cases: Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi, No. 21-757: This case concerns the Patent Act’s requirement that a patent’s “specification shall contain a written...more
In patent litigation, the adequacy of proof of apportionment in reasonable royalty damage claims is often a challenging issue that is hotly contested by the parties. The Federal Circuit has recently focused on the use of...more
Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Minerva Surgical v. Hologic, thereby agreeing to resolve a long-running debate on patent law’s doctrine of assignor estoppel. Minerva Surgical has asked the Court to...more
Last spring in Hologic, Inc. v. Minerva Surgical, Inc., the Federal Circuit ruled that the doctrine of assignor estoppel does not prevent an assignor from lodging a validity challenge of either patent in an IPR proceeding. In...more
The impact on human health of the global pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the resulting disease termed COVID-19 cannot be overstated. Not since the influenza pandemic of 1918 have so many regions of the world been so...more
On December 11, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the long-standing presumption that parties are responsible for their own attorney’s fees—holding that the “[a]ll expenses of the proceedings” provision of...more
In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is not entitled to recover its attorney’s fees in an appeal to a district court...more
In Peter v. NantKwest, Inc., the Supreme Court held that the Patent and Trademark Office cannot recover attorneys’ fees against an applicant in a civil action under 35 U.S.C. § 145. An unsuccessful applicant for a patent has...more
In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court in Peter v. NantKwest, case number 18-801, struck down the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) recent and often-criticized effort to recoup its legal fees – even in cases...more