Prosecution history estoppel may narrow the scope of a claim that was unamended during prosecution, if another closely related claim is amended or cancelled during prosecution....more
TECSEC, INC., v. ADOBE INC. Before Prost, Reyna, and Taranto. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Summary: Even if it would be objectively reasonable to view a defendant’s conduct as...more
The PTAB Cannot Approve or Deny Certificates of Correction - In Honeywell International, Inc. v. Arkema Inc., Arkema France, Appeal Nos. 2018-1151, -1153, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) does not have the...more
Assignor Estoppel Does Not Apply in the IPR Context - In Arista Networks, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2017-1525, 2017-1577, the Federal Circuit held that the plain language of 35 U.S.C. § 311(a) unambiguously...more
Arbitration - Waymo v. Uber Technologies, 870 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2017) - Waymo sued Uber and others for trade secret misappropriation and patent infringement. Uber contends that Waymo should be compelled to...more
In EmeraChem v Volkswagen the Circuit reverses a determination of obviousness because the ?Board did not provide the patentee with an adequate opportunity to address a prior art reference ?that formed a principal basis for...more
This paper is based on reports on precedential patent cases decided by the Federal Circuit distributed by Peter Heuser on a weekly basis. ...more
In a non-precedential decision issued in Braintree Labs., Inc. v. Breckenridge Pharmaceutical, Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Breckenridge, and...more
Update to TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, Case No. 16-341 (May 22, 2017) - In an 8-0 opinion written by Justice Thomas (Justice Gorsuch did not participate), the Supreme Court rules that a defendant...more
PTAB’s Final Written Decision in IPR Must Explain Its Basis for a Motivation to Combine References - In In Re: Nuvasive, Inc., Appeal No. 2015-1670, the Federal Circuit vacated the PTAB’s obviousness finding in an IPR,...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its ninth annual list of top patent stories. For 2015, we identified twenty stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe...more
On June 2, 2014, the Supreme Court decided two closely-watched patent cases, unanimously reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and making it easier to defend some claims of patent infringement....more