The doctrine of equivalents (DOE), a creation of the Supreme Court in Graver Tank & Mfg. v. Linde Air Products (1950), is balanced by the concept of prosecution history estoppel (PHE), the contours of which were delineated...more
Top Brand LLC v. Cozy Comfort Company LLC, Appeal No. 2024-2191 (Fed. Cir. July 17, 2025) In this week’s Case of the Week, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that prosecution history disclaimer applies to...more
In Maquet Cardiovascular LLC v. Abiomed Inc., 131 F.4th 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2025), the Federal Circuit addressed whether the prosecution history of one patent in a patent family can limit the scope of claims in a different patent...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that a district court misconstrued claim terms based on a misapplication of the clear and unequivocal disavowal standard and vacated its noninfringement decision. Maquet...more
The Federal Circuit has affirmed infringement under the doctrine of equivalents in a number of cases over the last few years. Briefly, the judicially created doctrine of equivalents is intended to expose those who adopt the...more
Recently, the Federal Circuit has taken up issues relating to infringement under the doctrine of equivalents (DOE) and a related doctrine, prosecution history estoppel (PHE), that limits the scope of equivalents that can be...more
Amgen, Inc. v. Amneal Pharmas. LLC et al - Before Newman, Lourie, and Taranto. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: An examiner amendment may give rise to prosecution history...more
PHARMA TECH SOLUTIONS, INC. v. LIFESCAN, INC. Before Moore, Reyna, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. Summary: Claims for infringement under the doctrine of equivalents...more
Claim construction for a design patent is mainly focused on the drawings, which show the ornamental design that is protected by the patent. But the Federal Circuit recently identified one situation where the drawings weren’t...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a dismissal based on the defendant’s failure to state a claim motion, concluding that under principles of prosecution history estoppel, the patent owner could not...more
On August 9, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Eli Lilly & Co. v. Hospira, Inc., Nos. 2018-2126, 2127, 2128, reversed in-part and affirmed in-part a district court’s determination of...more
On July 23, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit released its decision affirming summary judgment that the asserted design patents were not invalid for non-ornamentality under 35 U.S.C. § 171, and rejecting...more
One-year Clock for Filing IPR Petition Applies to Litigants and Parties that Become Privies of the Litigant Prior to Institution. In Power Integrations, Inc v. Semiconductor Components, Appeal No. 2018-1607, the Federal...more
Ericsson Inc. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC (No. 2017-1521, 8/27/18) (Reyna, Taranto, Chen) Reyna, J. - Vacating and remanding the PTAB’s IPR decision because the PTAB erred in not considering portions of the petitioner’s...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - JTEKT Corporation v. GKN Automotive Ltd., Appeal No. 2017-1828 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 3, 2018) The Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal from an inter partes review, holding that, although JTEKT...more
Federal Circuit Summary - Before Newman, Clevenger and Chen. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Summary: Prosecution history estoppel does not bar enforcement of a...more
Federal Circuit Summaries - Before Newman, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Summary: General disclosures in the specification and statements that describe the...more
Federal Circuit Summaries - Before PROST, WALLACH, and TARANTO. Appeal from the District of Delaware Summary: (1) A party may not avoid inducement based on “substantial non-infringing uses,” and (2) prosecution history...more