Intellectual Property

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) issued Final Written Decisions regarding Cisco’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,377,577 (the “’577 Patent”) and 7,023,853 (the “’853 Patent”) on May 25, 2017 and U.S. Patent No. 7,224,668 (the “’668 Patent”) on June 1, 2017.

In a unanimous decision issued on June 12, 2017, the Supreme Court for the first time interpreted key provisions of the 2010 Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (“BPCIA”).

A flurry of activity from various courts this past week on “exceptional cases” under Section 285 of the Patent Act provided notable guidance for practitioners and patent owners, with a particular emphasis on the motivation and conduct of the litigants.

In keeping with recent erosion of patent rights, patent owners’ power to control the post-sale use and sale of their patented products was severely limited this week by the U.S. Supreme Court in the highly anticipated case regarding the patent exhaustion doctrine, Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Impression Prods., Inc., No. 15-1189.

A recent decision in the Northern District of Illinois gave life to the inevitable disclosure doctrine under the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced its ruling in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC on May 22, 2017, a patent infringement case that has garnered national attention for its implications on venue.

On May 10, 2017 and following a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reexamination decision upholding certain claims, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Cirrex Systems, LLC that all of the appealed claims of a fiber optic patent held by Cirrex are invalid for lack of a written description support required by 35 U.S.C. § 112.

In its opinion in Aylus Networks, Inc. v. Apple Inc., the Federal Circuit expanded the scope of prosecution disclaimer to statements made by a patent owner during Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings.

On May 10, 2017, Amgen filed a complaint in the District of Delaware asserting that, under section 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(2)(C)(i) of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (“BPCIA”), Coherus infringed Amgen’s U.S. Patent No. 8,273,707 (the “’707 patent”) by filing an abbreviated Biologic License Application (“aBLA”) for a biosimilar version of Amgen’s Neulasta (pegfilgrastim) product.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is implementing eCommerce Modernization (eMod), as discussed at a Patent Quality Chat webinar on May 9, 2017.

Last week the Federal Circuit in Helsinn Healthcare v. Teva Pharmaceuticals clarified the scope of the on-sale bar rule under the America Invents Act (AIA).  The on-sale bar in general means that a sale or an offer to sale of an invention more than one year prior to the effective filing date of a patent qualifies as prior art.

The Federal Circuit has now reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision in Synopsys, Inc. v. ATopTech, Inc.  finding claims 1 and 32 of U.S. Patent No. 6,567,967 (the “‘967 patent”)  as being “not supported by substantial evidence.”

On April 26, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the much-anticipated Amgen v. Sandoz case, representing the first time the Court has had to grapple with the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (“BPCIA”) since this key law went into effect in 2010.

Today, the Federal Circuit, vacated-in-part and remanded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s obviousness determination regarding a Securus Technologies patent directed to systems and methods for reviewing conversation data for certain events and bookmarking portions of the recording when something of interest is said, finding that the Board failed to provide any explanation for its decision with respect to certain challenged claims.

MPEP §2103(VI) states that when a rejection is imposed, the “Office action should clearly communicate the findings, conclusions and reasons which support them.”  Examiners commonly satisfy this requirement by citing one or more prior art references allegedly teaching each of the limitations of a claim.

A variety of options are available to applicants to speed up patent application examination at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 

On April 7, 2017, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced it has launched an initiative to develop ways to improve Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings, particularly inter partes review proceedings. 

On April 6, 2017, the Federal Circuit reversed-in-part and affirmed-in-part the district court’s judgment of infringement and summary judgment for non-infringement of The Medicines Company’s (“MedCo”) patents-in-suit.

U.S. patent law elevates the importance of “the inventor” to an extent unseen in the rest of the world.  Unlike many other countries, ownership of patent applications in the United States initially vests in the inventors listed on the application.

Authorship is the currency of academia, and principle investigators are often generous with technicians and collaborators when listing authors on a paper.  However, the identification of an “inventor” has legal significance in the U.S. and cannot be applied to those who have not made an inventive contribution.