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America Invents Act Patent Applications Prior Art

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act is a United States federal statute enacted in 2011 aimed at simplifying the U.S. patent system and allowing inventions to be brough to market sooner. The AIA makes significant... more +
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act is a United States federal statute enacted in 2011 aimed at simplifying the U.S. patent system and allowing inventions to be brough to market sooner. The AIA makes significant changes to the patent system, including changing from a first-to-invent scheme to a first-to-file scheme, eliminating interference proceedings and developing post-grant opposition.  less -
Morrison & Foerster LLP

Discretionary Denials—Act II

On March 26, 2025, the Acting Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office fundamentally changed how the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) initially considers petitions in post grant proceedings under the...more

Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP

Federal Circuit Limits Reliance on Provisional Priority Date Under Section 102(e)(1)

On March 24, the Federal Circuit held in In re Riggs that for a published non-provisional patent application to be prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(e)(1) based on an earlier provisional filing date, all citations to...more

Goodwin

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s In Re Riggs Decision: 35 USC 102(e) Prior Art Requires Written Description Support...

Goodwin on

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

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC

Latest Federal Court Cases: In re: Riggs

In re: Riggs, Appeal No. 2022-1945 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 24, 2025) Our Case of the Week explores the power of an examiner to request a rehearing after the Board has entered a decision on an application. The case also relates to...more

Kilpatrick

PTAB: A Provisional Application Must Provide Written Description Support for Relied Upon

Kilpatrick on

In a decision issued today, the Federal Circuit addressed the issue of whether an Examiner can rely on the filing date of a provisional application under pre-AIA 102(e) to support a rejection based on a later-filed and...more

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

Antedating Prior Art in Reissue and Reexamination: Part 1

Takeaways - - Pre-AIA patents may be able to “swear behind” prior art applied in reissue and reexamination. - “Swearing behind” has limits and obtaining sufficient evidence to establish prior invention may be difficult to...more

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

When Is a Published Patent Application Prior Art?

Dorsey & Whitney LLP on

In a precedential opinion entered on January 14, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) invalidating claims of a patent on...more

Morgan Lewis

Federal Circuit Clarifies Secret Prior Art May Be Used in IPR Challenges

Morgan Lewis on

On January 14, 2025, the Federal Circuit in Lynk Labs Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. clarified that inter partes review challenges may be “based upon published patent applications, and such published patent applications...more

WilmerHale

Federal Circuit’s Decision Confirms That Published Patent Applications Are Prior Art In IPRs As Of Their Filing Date

WilmerHale on

On January 14, 2025, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Lynk Labs, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 2023-2346 (Fed. Cir.), affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s ruling that “a published patent...more

Foley & Lardner LLP

USPTO Issues Updated Guidance on Obviousness

Foley & Lardner LLP on

For the first time in nearly 15 years, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued “Updated Guidance for Making a Proper Determination of Obviousness” under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in KSR Int’l Co. v....more

Morgan Lewis

Breaking Down the USPTO’s Not-So-Obvious Obviousness Guidelines

Morgan Lewis on

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently updated its guidance for patent examiners and applicants in determining obviousness under 35 USC § 103, based on the US Supreme Court’s ruling in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex...more

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC

Latest Federal Court Cases - December 2023

Penumbra, Inc. v. Rapidpulse, Inc., IPR2021-01466, Paper 34 (P.T.A.B. March 10, 2023) In a PTAB decision that was recently designated precedential, the Board made two important decisions concerning provisional patent...more

Fenwick & West LLP

USPTO Doubles Down on Inapplicability of Dynamic Drinkware to AIA Cases in Precedential PTAB Decision

Fenwick & West LLP on

What You Need to Know The USPTO has reiterated its position that Dynamic Drinkware, LLC v. National Graphics, Inc. does not apply to patents and patent applications that fall under the America Invents Act (AIA) by designating...more

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

USPTO Confirms Different Frameworks for Pre-AIA and Post-AIA Prior-Art Determinations

On November 15, 2023, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Kathi Vidal designated as precedential the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) final written decision in Penumbra, Inc. v. RapidPulse,...more

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

Federal Circuit Appeals from the PTAB and ITC: Summaries of Key 2022 Decisions

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

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

2021 PTAB Year in Review: Analysis & Trends: Discretionary Denial under § 325(d): Strategic Implications of the PTAB’s Advanced...

The USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has increasingly used its discretionary denial authority in recent years. Although the PTAB’s discretion under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a) and Fintiv grabbed many headlines in 2021, the...more

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

2021 PTAB Year in Review: Analysis & Trends: Fintiv Continues To Take Center Stage: The Effect of Parallel Litigation at the PTAB...

In 2021, Fintiv continued to be one of the hottest and most controversial issues facing the patent bar. The USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) precedential Fintiv decision enumerated factors that the PTAB applies...more

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

2021 PTAB Year in Review: Analysis & Trends

[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

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

Federal Circuit Appeals from the PTAB and ITC: Summaries of Key 2021 Decisions

[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Last year, the continued global COVID-19 pandemic forced American courts to largely continue the procedures set in place in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was no...more

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

Horizon Medicines LLC v. Alkem Laboratories Ltd. (Fed. Cir. 2021)

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

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

Trustees of Columbia University v. Illumina, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2021)

While much has been written about the effect of the post-grant review provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (2012) in invalidating U.S. patents, the change in the law most responsible for how easy it has become to...more

Goodwin

The PTAB Trial Tracker

Goodwin on

The availability of post-grant proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has changed the face of patent litigation. This monthly digest is designed to keep you up-to-date by highlighting interesting PTAB,...more

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC

Latest Federal Court Cases - November 2019 #2

PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson v. TCL Corporation, Appeal Nos. 2017-2381, -2385 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 7, 2019) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit reviewed two inter partes...more

McDermott Will & Emery

AIA Survives Constitutional Challenge to Applicability to Pre-AIA Filings

McDermott Will & Emery on

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision finding that the America Invents Act (AIA) is constitutionally sound as applied to patents issuing on applications filed...more

Goodwin

An Interview with Prof. Arti Rai about the Role of “Patent Thickets” in U.S. Biosimilar Market Entry

Goodwin on

Last week, Big Molecule Watch sat down with Professor Arti Rai to discuss an article she recently co-authored, “How logically impossible patents block biosimilars.” The article, published earlier this month in the...more

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