IP News Alerts
New Rule Change May Save Your Patent Application Filing Date or Priority Claim
November 13, 2013
On October 21, 2013, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) published a final rule which conforms aspects of U.S. patent practice to the U.S.'s obligations under the Patent...
USPTO Reexamination Trumps Federal Court Opinions of Patent Validity
August 21, 2013
By: David E. Brook
A party accused of infringing a patent can fail to invalidate the patent in the courts but still win based on a decision of invalidity in a reexamination proceeding at the United...
Third-Party Clinical Trials Not Considered Public Use
June 18, 2013
The Federal Circuit recently held that use of a pharmaceutical by patients during a clinical trial did not rise to an impermissible “public use” for purposes of a challenge...
Isolated Human Genes Are Not Patentable; cDNA Is Patent Eligible Subject Matter
June 13, 2013
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled today in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics that genes (naturally occurring DNA segments) isolated from the human body are not...
Bowman v. Monsanto Co. Raises Concerns for Buyers of Patented Self-Replicating Products
June 13, 2013
On May 13, 2013, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Bowman v. Monsanto Co. that the doctrine of patent exhaustion will not protect farmers who buy and reproduce patented seeds...
Failure to Challenge Examiner's Characterization Can Bind You to a Limited Claim Scope
May 20, 2013
By: Deirdre E. Sanders and Brian T. Moriarty
Recently, in Biogen Idec, Inc. v GlaxoSmithKline LLC (Biogen), a panel of the Federal Circuit limited the scope of a patentee's claims through a generous application of the doctrine...
Think You Won? You May Still Need to Appeal.
May 8, 2013
By: Brian T. Moriarty and Christopher K. Albert
In Lazare Kaplan Int’l, Inc. v. Photoscribe Techs., Inc., the Federal Circuit recently held that a district court may not re-open a final judgment as to patent validity that...
Patent Marking is not Conclusive Proof of Patent Infringement
April 11, 2013
On March 15, 2013, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the impact of patent marking in a dispute about an alleged breach of a patent license agreement and rejected...
Federal Circuit to Reconsider 15-Year Claim Construction Position: Patent Holders and Their Counsel on Watch
April 8, 2013
Claim construction (i.e., the determination of the meaning and scope of claims) is a major part of patent infringement litigation proceedings and can make or break a party’s...
U.S. Supreme Court Copyright Non-Infringement Ruling Results in Global Expansion of the First-Sale Defense
April 3, 2013
The first-sale doctrine has no geographical boundaries and is a defense to copyright infringement when copyrighted goods lawfully made abroad are imported into the U.S. and re-sold...
Interactions with Your Customer Can Be the Basis for Liability for Patent Infringement
March 21, 2013
The relationship between a company and its customer is usually not enough to establish liability for direct patent infringement, but it can create liability for induced patent infringement...
New Micro Entity Patent Applicants will Benefit from a Seventy-Five Percent Discount on Fees
March 13, 2013
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) grants fee-setting authority to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and effective March 19, 2013, the USPTO will adjust...