Intellectual Property

On Thursday, May 12, 2016, the Federal Circuit reversed a lower court’s finding of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101, as an unpatentable abstract idea, of a software patent concerning a “self-referential” database in Enfish v. Microsoft. In so doing, the Federal Circuit provided some helpful guidance on avoiding Alice rejections for software patents.

On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) into law. This important new legislation creates a federal private civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation in which “[a]n owner of a trade secret that is misappropriated may bring a civil action . . . if the trade secret is related to a product or service used in, or intended for use in, interstate or foreign commerce.”

The Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) is now one signature away from becoming law. On April 4, 2016, the Senate unanimously passed the DTSA and, last week, on April 27th, the House of Representatives followed suit, passing the DTSA by a vote of 410-2.

Summary: Appellant appealed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) an obviousness rejection to claims directed to a user interface that displays currency trading information.

On Tuesday, April 26, 2016, the Federal Circuit issued an order denying a petition filed by Merck & Cie for rehearing en banc of an Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) final written decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board holding several Merck patents invalid as obvious.

On April 22, 2016, a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, consisting of Judges Prost, Dyk and O’Malley, affirmed a district court’s decision to dismiss as moot a patent case involving only cancelled claims.

On March 23, 2016, the Federal Circuit in MAG Aerospace Indus., Inc. v. B/E Aerospace, Inc., Nos. 2015-1370, -1426, upheld a decision concerning U.S. patents directed to vacuum toilets found on commercial aircraft.

In almost every U.S. patent suit, the patentee’s counsel considers how the case could have been facilitated had the patent at issue been drafted and prosecuted differently. These considerations demonstrate that patents should be drafted and prosecuted with an eye toward the possibility of litigation.

On March 31, 2016, in a blow to the software and entertainment industries, the Federal Circuit denied the International Trade Commission’s (“ITC”) request for a rehearing en banc of the Federal Circuit’s November 10, 2015 decision in ClearCorrect Operating, LLC v. ITC, in which the Federal Circuit found that the ITC’s jurisdiction was limited to “material things” and did not include the ability to bar digital imports.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) allows a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) to be filed with a request to suspend processing of the RCE for up to 3 months, in accordance with 37 CFR 1.103(c).

This week, in Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., No. 15-777, the Supreme Court granted Samsung’s petition for certiorari and agreed to hear the case about Apple’s smartphone design patents in its upcoming term.

On Friday, March 18, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed two District of Delaware rulings that non-resident defendant generic ANDA filer, Mylan, is subject to personal jurisdiction in two Hatch-Waxman suits filed in the state.

The Federal Circuit rejected an attempt by accused infringers of U.S. intellectual property rights to have claims litigated in a foreign country in Halo Creative & Design Ltd. v. Comptoir Des Indes, Inc., No. 15-1375 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 14, 2016).

This week the Federal Circuit handed a positive development to Patent Owners working to keep their patent rights before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

It has become a patent litigation trope, discussed at every Silicon Valley water cooler, that patent litigation is broken because all patent cases are tried in the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District of Texas. While this reputation is arguably undeserved, the Eastern District of Texas does end up with the majority of patent cases.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) explains several patent prosecution trends, goals, and programs to justify proposed spending of its collected fees in its recently-issued Fiscal Year 2017 Congressional Justification report.

Our Biosimilar webinar series continued this month with Tom Wintner’s BPCIA Patent Litigation presentation. Tom discussed the general framework of litigation under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (“BPCIA”), including the “patent dance” information exchange under 42 U.S.C. §262(l), and three case studies that inform our current understanding of emerging judicial interpretation of BPCIA requirements.

On March 7, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recognized “a patent-agent privilege extending to communications with non-attorney patent agents when those agents are acting within the agent’s authorized practice of law before the Patent Office.” 

Following the filing of a petition with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) seeking to initiate either an Inter Partes Review (IPR) or Covered Business Method (CBM) Review, the patent owner may file a preliminary response addressing the arguments in the petition and also potentially raising arguments regarding statutory bars that may prevent the IPR or CBM proceeding from being initiated.

On February 25, 2016, Judge Richard Andrews granted the parties’ cross-motions to exclude both sides’ damages experts in M2M Solutions LLC v. Motorola Solutions, Inc., C.A. No. 12-33-RG.