High Court Will Tackle Proper Enablement Standard -
Constituting something of a surprise, the Supreme Court on Friday, November 3rd granted Amgen's petition for certiorari on the second of the Questions Presented in its...more
11/7/2022
/ Amgen ,
Biotechnology ,
Certiorari ,
Doctrine of Equivalents ,
Enablement Inquiries ,
Life Sciences ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Sanofi ,
SCOTUS
On Friday, August 26th, Moderna Tx, Inc. and Moderna US, Inc. filed a complaint for patent infringement in Federal district court for the District of Massachusetts against Pfizer, Inc., BioNTech SE, BioNTech Manufacturing...more
For most of the past decade, the Supreme Court has been marking out the metes and bounds of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's execution of the post-grant review provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act,...more
The consequences of expressly recited claim limitations and how patentees can be held to these limitations was illustrated in the Federal Circuit's recent decision in Par Pharmaceutical, Inc. v. Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ...more
Last year, the Supreme Court declined an invitation to abrogate the doctrine of assignor estoppel by an assignor sued for patent infringement in Minerva Surgical v. Hologic. Nevertheless, the Court followed its proclivities...more
The Federal Circuit today affirmed a decision by the District Court denying defendant Thales DIS AIS Deutschland USA's motion for preliminary injunction to prevent patentee plaintiff Koninklijke Philips N.V. from obtaining an...more
The consequences of joint development agreements, particularly under circumstances where later development is pursued independently by the parties, can create, inter alia, allegations of improper ownership and infringement if...more
Personal jurisdiction is one of those basic concepts in civil procedure that evokes strong memories in most lawyers, of their first year in law school, cases like International Shoe, Burger King, Helicopteros, and World-Wide...more
U.S. patent law grants patent owners the right to grant licenses to their patents in analogy to landlords granting rents to real property as a license to use without obtaining ownership. 35 U.S.C. §§ 261-262. But the...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
While the Federal Circuit has patent law as its principal focus, as a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, questions come before the Court on more mundane, procedural matters (which, sometimes being dispositive, does not reduce...more
Joint inventorship has been called "one of the muddiest concepts in the muddy metaphysics of patent law" because the "exact parameters of what constitutes joint inventorship are quite difficult to define." Mueller Brass Co....more
11/18/2021
/ Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) ,
America Invents Act ,
Joint Inventors ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patent-in-Suit ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Prior Art
The question of the proper court for a branded pharmaceutical maker to bring suit against an Abbreviated New Drug Application filer under the Hatch-Waxman Act is surprisingly unsettled seeing as the Act was enacted in 1984. ...more
11/10/2021
/ Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) ,
Hatch-Waxman ,
Leave to Amend ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Mylan Pharmaceuticals ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Principal Place of Business ,
Venue
The International Trade Commission can more readily provide injunctive relief against an adjudged infringer than a district court, under appropriate conditions (i.e., with regard to an infringing product or a product made by...more
10/7/2021
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Claim Construction ,
Claim Limitations ,
Doctrine of Equivalents ,
Exclusion Orders ,
Injunctive Relief ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patents ,
Section 337 ,
Substantial Evidence Standard
Dominating the entering gallery of the Impressionists exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago is Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (see below). Painted in the pointillist style, the work comprises millions of...more
Most judicial outcomes, particularly on appeal, are broadly based on varying combinations of process and outcome. The law is replete with process-based decisions (standing, jurisdiction, waiver, to name a few) and of course...more
8/13/2021
/ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Hatch-Waxman ,
Induced Infringement ,
Judgment As A Matter Of Law ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Popular
The Supreme Court, speaking through a five-justice majority, has reaffirmed the equitable principle of assignor estoppel while at the same time limiting its application in Minerva Surgical, Inc. v. Hologic, Inc. Assignor...more
Patent law is replete with arcane (and often judge-made) doctrines, such as the doctrine of equivalence and obviousness-type double patenting. In addition, long having been considered a property right (Oil States to the...more
Last week, the Federal Circuit affirmed imposition of an exclusion order under 19 U.S.C. § 1337 (Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930) by the Federal Trade Commission against 10X Genomyx (an intervenor in this appeal) over...more
6/3/2021
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Assignor Estoppel ,
Claim Construction ,
Contributory Infringement ,
Exclusion Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Induced Infringement ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-in-Suit ,
Patents ,
Section 337
Last month, the Federal Circuit affirmed an exclusion order imposed by the International Trade Commission against Bio-Rad for importing infringing microfluidic systems and components used for gene sequencing or related...more
The Supreme Court heard oral argument last week in Minerva Surgical Inc. v. Hologic, Inc. over the issue of assignor estoppel.
As a reminder, the case arose in an infringement suit over U.S. Patent Nos. 6,782,183 and...more
4/26/2021
/ America Invents Act ,
Assignor Estoppel ,
Claim Construction ,
Oral Argument ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Invalidity ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Validity ,
Patents ,
Prior Art ,
SCOTUS ,
Stare Decisis
Last week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a jury verdict against Baxalta Inc., Baxalta US Inc., and Nektar Therapeutics for infringing Bayer Healthcare's patent to human blood clotting factor conjugates in Bayer Healthcare LLC...more
After more than two decades of being the red-headed stepchild of patent infringement before the Federal Circuit, infringement under the doctrine of equivalents has made a dramatic comeback in the past few years, the Court...more
Stipulating to infringement after a contrary claim construction is a conventional stratagem for a losing party to have a final judgment that can be challenged before the Federal Circuit. The risk of course, is that if the...more
Trial courts tend to get more than the benefit of the doubt when their decisions are viewed under the "abuse of discretion" standard, and juries similarly are affirmed unless there isn't substantial evidence supporting their...more
12/7/2020
/ Abuse of Discretion ,
Appeals ,
Claim Construction ,
Damages ,
JMOL ,
Judgment As A Matter Of Law ,
Motion For New Trial ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Prosecution History ,
Patents ,
Prior Art