Intellectual Property

In our continued post-TC Heartland coverage, the Southern District of New York recently held that an employee’s home office in New York constituted a “regular and established place of business” in the state as required by the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b).

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued an August 2018 update to the American Invents Act Trial Practice Guide (the “Updated TPG”).  The Updated TPG incorporates the PTAB’s current practices and provides further explanation of certain aspects of the PTAB’s standard practices to the public. 

In our continued post-TC Heartland coverage, Judge Gilstrap in the Eastern District of Texas recently held that venue was proper because Google exercises exclusive control over physical servers implicated by the litigation, as well as the physical space within which the server is located and maintained.

A recent International Trade Commission decision, Vacuum Cleaning Devices, improves a patent owner’s ability to demonstrate that it possesses a statutorily required “domestic industry” and can therefore obtain relief from the Commission when others infringe its intellectual property. This alert reviews the Vacuum Cleaning Devices ruling, which serves to better align the statutory purpose of the ITC’s domestic industry requirement with contemporary business practices.

Patent practitioners are probably well familiar with circumstances in which prosecution history estoppel can limit the scope of a U.S. utility patent’s claims.  Examples include claim amendments and statements made by the applicant during prosecution in papers filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

In our continuing post-TC Heartland coverage, the District of Nevada recently identified a key factor in analyzing venue challenges in patent litigation: whether the public can access the defendant corporation or its services in the respective forum.

Is there any possible danger in using the abbreviation “i.e.” in the specification of a U.S. patent application?  The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in TF3 Limited v. TRE Milano, LLC shows that the answer is “yes.” 

Some inventions require testing before they are ready for patenting, and sometimes that testing requires use by the public. A recent decision from the Federal Circuit provides additional guidance on what activities qualify for the experimental use exception to the public use bar of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).

In the time since the Federal Circuit issued its Vanda Pharma decision in April, Vanda Pharm. Inc. v West-Ward Pharm. Intl. Ltd. 887 F.3d 1117 (Fed. Cir. 2018), we have had more good news for the patent eligibility of claims relating to diagnostic or similar tests utilized in treating patients.

A recent decision by the International Trade Commission (“ITC” or the “Commission”) improves intellectual property holders’ ability to prove that they have a “domestic industry” and obtain relief for infringement from the Commission. 

This article is first in a two-part series focusing on various issues related to priority claims in U.S. patent applications.  Part 1 is a general overview of how to make a proper priority claim, without addressing how to correct an improper priority claim, which will be examined in Part 2.

Patent owners have a new arrow in their quiver. The Supreme Court has held that patent owners can recover foreign lost profits for the use or sale of infringing products abroad if the products were assembled from components of the patented invention exported from the United States.

Further to our previous blog post, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reported that the 10 millionth patent issued today with the new patent cover design.

According to the Eastern District of Texas, no. In our continued post-TC Heartland coverage, for the purpose of establishing venue, courts typically will decline to treat the place of business of one corporation as the place of the business of the other, even when the two are related, so long as a formal separation of entities is preserved.

A recent order from the Northern District of California provides some succinct guidance on the relevancy of discovery concerning litigation funding. In Space Data Corp. v. Google LLC, 5-16-cv-03260, the court denied Defendants Google and Alphabet’s motion to compel discovery as to potential litigation funding allegedly considered by Plaintiff Space Data.

According to a recent decision from the Southern District of New York, no.  In our continued post-TC Heartland coverage, the court in CDX Diagnostic, Inc. v. U.S. Endoscopy Group, Inc. clarified that a storage unit does not qualify as a regular and established place of business.

A recent opinion from the District of New Jersey is a cautionary tale for patent practitioners regarding conduct during patent prosecution that can be framed as bad faith. This can become an expensive misstep during subsequent litigation. 

A recent order from the Northern District of California provides patent practitioners interesting guidance regarding conduct during licensing discussions—and may be a cautionary tale to potential licensors engaged in efficient infringement.

A California jury recently awarded Apple $538.6 million in total damages for patent infringement by Samsung. This is the latest development in the patent battle between smartphone industry titans that began in 2011 and took another step towards completion.

In another interesting development in our ongoing coverage of the application of the TC Heartland patent venue standard by lower courts, the District Court for the Western District of Texas recently determined that when a parent company ratifies its subsidiary company’s place of business, it can be considered a “regular place of business” for purposes of establishing proper venue.