IP News Alerts
Colombia and Mexico Enter the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks
February 13, 2013
By: John L. DuPré and Christopher K. Albert
Colombia and Mexico have recently signed on to an international trademark treaty that makes filing for trademark protection in those countries easier and less expensive. Since April...
International Design Patent Applications Available Soon
January 24, 2013
By: Darrell L. Wong
On December 18, 2012, President Obama signed into law the Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012, which implements the Hague Agreement Concerning International Registration...
Failure to Raise Patent Invalidity Defenses in Contract Dispute Bars Claims in Subsequent Lawsuit
January 18, 2013
By: Brian T. Moriarty and Christopher K. Albert
In Cummins, Inc. v. TAS Distrib. Co., Inc., the Federal Circuit held that declaratory judgment claims alleging patent invalidity and unenforceability were barred under the doctrine...
Federal Circuit in PerkinElmer Finds Diagnostic Method Claims Patent-Ineligible
December 14, 2012
Continuing with a recent line of cases directed to fundamental patent eligibility issues, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has recently held in PerkinElmer, Inc. v. Intema...
Patent Term Adjustment...Adjusted Again - Lower Court Decisions on Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) Favor Certain RCE Filings
November 29, 2012
On November 1, 2012, the district court in Exelixis, Inc. v. Kappos, No.12-cv-00096 (E.D. Va. Nov. 1, 2012) ruled that the United States Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) improperly...
Federal Circuit Sets New Standard for Inducement of Patent Infringement
September 5, 2012
The Federal Circuit, in a six to five en banc decision, Akamai v. Limelight, held that an alleged infringer may be liable for inducing infringement of a method claim if it (i) performs...
PTO Issues Final Rules to Implement Declaration Provisions of AIA
August 21, 2012
By: James M. Smith
In rules effective for applications filed on or after September 16, 2012, the Patent Office is separating the requirements for initiating examination of an application by an applicant...
The Supreme Court Rewrites Patentable Subject Matter... Again
March 23, 2012
The Supreme Court has finally issued its anxiously-awaited opinion in Mayo v. Prometheus concerning the fundamental question of whether certain methods relating to medical treatments...
It's Time For a Reliable System to Determine Who Owns a U.S. Patent
March 2012
Patents are far more valuable than they ever have been. Yet, unlike real property, it can be difficult to determine patent ownership or accurately identify encumbrances even though...
After Cybersource - Software Inventions Still Patentable - Precise Claim Wording Ever More Crucial
August 2011
Patent claims that recite a “computer readable medium … containing program instructions for a computer to perform” a sequence of steps have become a popular way...
New Challenges and New Opportunities in Enforcing Method of Treatment Claims
July 2011
By: Brian T. Moriarty, Deirdre E. Sanders, and Lawrence P. Cogswell III,, Ph.D.
The U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit have made and are continuing to make significant changes in the law of multi-party patent infringement – namely, induced infringement...
How the New Multi-Party Patent Infringement Rulings Will Affect Pharmaceutical Treatment Claims
By: Brian T. Moriarty, Deirdre E. Sanders, and Lawrence P. Cogswell III,, Ph.D.
The very recent and continuing focus by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit sitting en banc on multi-party infringement issues – namely, induced infringement and divided...