5 Key Takeaways | Rolling with the Legal Punches: Resetting Patent Strategy to Address Changes in the Law
Verdict in T-Cell Immunotherapy IP Case Tests 'Reasonable Royalty' Concept for Large Damage Awards
The Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in In re: Xencor, Inc.concerning written support for Jepson claims. The decision affirms the decision of the Appeals Review Panel (ARP) of the USPTO, which held that the...more
On April 22, 2025, the Federal Circuit issued a decision In re: Bonnie Iris McDonald Floyd that underscores a critical and often overlooked risk in design patent prosecution: relying on a utility patent application for...more
In its recent In re Floyd opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to reject a design applicant’s priority claim to an earlier utility filing for...more
On March 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the case of In Re: Xencor, Inc. In this Appeal from the Appeals Review Panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (ARP), with regard to...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a decision that highlights a risk in design patent prosecution—specifically, attempting to claim priority to a utility application. In re Floyd, the Federal...more
On March 24, 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) issued a decision titled In Re: Riggs (the Riggs decision) that vacated a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the US...more
Last week a remarkably interesting Federal Circuit case was decided concerning whether an asserted reference was properly shown to qualify as prior art in the rejection of a pending patent application. The pending application...more
On March 24, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) issued an opinion vacating and remanding a decision of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) that a published patent application...more
Since serving as a Federal Circuit clerk, Michael Hawes has monitored that court's precedential opinions and prepares a deeply outlined index by subject matter (invalidity, infringement, claim construction, etc.) of relevant...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s holding that the asserted method of treatment patent was valid and infringed because safety and efficacy are not patent concerns. The Federal Circuit...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed two Patent Trial & Appeal Board decisions holding the challenged claims unpatentable as obvious, even though the Board declined to consider evidence of antedating and...more
In a recent appeal from the PTAB, the Federal Circuit held that claims of a patent were inherently anticipated where the patent and prior art incorporated the same reference to describe a process for making the claimed...more
Last month the Federal Circuit affirmed a PTAB inter partes review (IPR) decision finding that the University of Minnesota’s patent claim directed to the anti-cancer drug sofosbuvir was not adequately supported by the written...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
In Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Accord Healthcare, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) held patent claims invalid for lack of written description where a negative limitation was...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a patent owner’s request for en banc rehearing of a panel decision that invalidated a patent for lack of written description on the basis that a person of skill in the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision that claims to a ballistic parachute were obvious over the prior art based on knowledge attributable to artisans and...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Love it or hate it, ignore the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at your peril. The introduction of the PTAB as part of the America Invents Act over ten years ago has forever changed...more
In a precedential opinion this week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court judgment in favor of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, in an appeal brought by HEC Pharm challenging the written description in Novartis’s 9,187,405...more
When does the absence of evidence turn into evidence of absence, and when does such absence amount to an adequate written description of the absence of a step of a method claim? This is a question that comes readily to mind...more
Biogen International GMBH, Biogen MA, Inc., v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. marks the Federal Circuit’s most recent interpretation of the 35 U.S.C. § 112 written description requirement in the Hatch-Waxman context. No....more
AstraZeneca AB v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal No. 2021-1729 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 8, 2021) - Our Case of the Week again focuses on numerical values in claims. Last week we addressed a case involving whether there was...more
In a recent decision issued in Indivior UK Limited v. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision from the PTAB that a limitation to range of polymer weight percentages lacked written description support...more
Genus claims have long been an important component of patent strategy, extending coverage around a lead compound to stop would-be competitors. Recent decisions from the Federal Circuit, however, highlight a tightening...more
The PTAB Strategies and Insights newsletter provides timely updates and insights into how best to handle proceedings at the USPTO. It is designed to increase return on investment for all stakeholders looking at the entire...more