5 Key Takeaways | Rolling with the Legal Punches: Resetting Patent Strategy to Address Changes in the Law
Verdict in T-Cell Immunotherapy IP Case Tests 'Reasonable Royalty' Concept for Large Damage Awards
On May 12, 2025, the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Regents of the Univ. of California v. Broad Inst., Inc.1 concerning the ongoing priority dispute relating to competing inventor groups for the CRISPR-Cas9 eukaryotic...more
On April 22, 2025, the Federal Circuit issued a decision In re: Bonnie Iris McDonald Floyd that underscores a critical and often overlooked risk in design patent prosecution: relying on a utility patent application for...more
In its recent In re Floyd opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to reject a design applicant’s priority claim to an earlier utility filing for...more
Addressing the distinction between conception and reduction to practice and the requirement for written description in the unpredictable arts, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit explained that proof of conception...more
The Regents of the University of California, et al. v. The Broad Institute, Inc., et al., Nos. 2022-1594, -1653 (Fed. Cir. (PTAB) May 12, 2025). Opinion by Reyna, joined by Hughes and Cunningham....more
Only a few days after the one-year anniversary of hearing oral argument, the Federal Circuit handed down its decision in Regents of the University of California v. Broad Institute, Inc. on Monday. The opinion reviewed the...more
On March 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the case of In Re: Xencor, Inc. In this Appeal from the Appeals Review Panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (ARP), with regard to...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a decision that highlights a risk in design patent prosecution—specifically, attempting to claim priority to a utility application. In re Floyd, the Federal...more
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
On March 24, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) issued an opinion vacating and remanding a decision of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) that a published patent application...more
In re: Xencor, Inc., Appeal No. 2024-1870 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 13, 2025) Our case of the week is an appeal from a decision of the Appeals Review Panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, concerning Xencor’s patent application...more
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal Nos. 2024-1965, -1966, -2082, -2083 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 29, 2025) Our Case of the Week is a 31-page decision that touches on a variety of issues, including...more
Inter partes activity involving design patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was relatively low in 2024. The PTAB rendered just two inter partes decisions involving design patents: Next Step Group, Inc. v....more
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Torrent Pharma Inc., et al., Nos. 2023-2218, -2220, -2221 (Fed. Cir. (D. Del.) Jan. 10, 2025). Opinion by Lourie, joined by Prost and Reyna. The FDA approved a New Drug Application from...more
Since serving as a Federal Circuit clerk, Michael Hawes has monitored that court's precedential opinions and prepares a deeply outlined index by subject matter (invalidity, infringement, claim construction, etc.) of relevant...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently invalidated a University of Massachusetts (“UMass”) patent related to the treatment of the skin disease vitiligo in a post-grant review. (See Forte Biosciences Inc v....more
A US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) appeals review panel decided that a means-plus-function (M+F) claim element supported by the disclosure of only a single species is not invalid for indefiniteness or lack of written...more
The Federal Circuit recently vacated a PTAB decision that claims of an “e-cigarette” patent were unpatentable for lack of written description under 35 U.S.C. § 112. The question on appeal was whether a claimed range was...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness determination, explaining that inter partes review (IPR) statutory provisions that prohibit an otherwise time-barred party...more
On September 21, 2023, the PTAB denied United Services Automobile Association’s petition to institute inter partes review of Auto Telematics’s U.S. Patent No. 9,633,487. IPR2023-00519, Paper 10....more
This case concerns determining the prior art status of certain references in an inter partes review. The Federal Circuit considered whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) was correct in declining to consider...more
United Therapeutics Corporation v. Liquidia Technologies, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2022-2217, 2023-1021 (Fed. Cir. July 24, 2023) In the Federal Circuit’s only precedential patent case this week, the Court considered questions...more
The District Court for the District of New Jersey recently denied a defendant’s motion for summary judgment which sought to invalidate a dependent claim on preclusion grounds based on the PTAB’s invalidation of the related...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed two Patent Trial & Appeal Board decisions holding the challenged claims unpatentable as obvious, even though the Board declined to consider evidence of antedating and...more
Biologics have become the fastest-growing class of therapeutic compounds. They have provided innovative treatment alternatives for people who suffer from some of the most serious medical conditions known to man. The...more