The Federal Circuit recently clarified its interpretation of a major Supreme Court case involving the standard of definiteness and when a patent may be determined indefinite. Previously the Federal Circuit has held that a claim is indefinite “only when it is ‘not amenable to construction’ or ‘insolubly ambiguous.’” In Biosig Instruments, Inc. v. Nautilus, Inc. […]
The Federal Circuit recently clarified its interpretation of a major Supreme Court case involving direct infringement. In Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks the Federal Circuit issued a new opinion that said direct infringement of a method claim “exists when all of the steps of the claim are performed by or attributed to a single […]
In Intellectual Ventures v. JPMorgan, the Federal Circuit held that the mere filing of a petition for covered business method (CBM) patent review or post-grant review (PGR) under the AIA did not give it the jurisdiction to hear an appeal of a decision on a motion to stay trial court proceedings. In this case, Intellectual […]
In B&B Hardware v. Hargis Industries, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a decision from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) can prevent a district court from re-judging issues that have already been decided by the TTAB’s decision, if the “ordinary elements” of issue preclusion are met. This is despite the fact that the […]
The Federal Circuit has issued its first opinion from an appeal on the merits of an inter partes review, In re Cuozzo Speed Techs. In In re Cuozzo, the court held that the decisions of the USPTO to institute an IPR are final and cannot be appealed to the Federal Circuit, and that the USPTO’s […]
Novartis International has won FDA approval for a biosimilar of an existing drug. The drug, a copy of Amgen’s Neupogen, is designed to boost white blood cell counts in certain patients. An abbreviated FDA approval pathway for biologic medical products that share most of their properties with an existing, approved biologic product was created by […]
In Helferich Patent Licensing v. NYTimes and JCPenney, the Federal Circuit restricted the scope of the patent exhaustion doctrine by holding that the doctrine only protects “authorized acquirers” of a device against patent infringement claims instead of putting the device itself outside the scope of patent protection. In Helferich, the Helferich company owned patents on […]
In Pacing Tech v. Garmin, the Federal Circuit construed the claim preamble of an independent claim of a patent to be limiting for the dependent claims as well. The preamble of the claim, which referred to “a repetitive motion pacing system,” was found to be limiting because it “served as an antecedent basis” for limitations […]
In Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Sandoz, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted standards for claim construction that are more deferential to the claim constructions formulated by trial courts. Previously, the constructions of patent claims made by lower courts would be reviewed de novo in their entirety by the Federal Circuit and other appellate courts, which created a […]
In Bard Peripheral Vascular, Inc. v. W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. 14-1114 – 2015-01-13, the Federal Circuit upheld a district court decision finding willful infringement. To find willful infringement, “a patentee must show by clear and convincing evidence that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent.” In […]