By Richard Stanley ( July 12, 2017, 12:39 PM EDT) -- It has been six years since the Federal Circuit issued the en banc opinion of Therasense Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 649 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Circ. 2011). In Therasense, the court raised the bar for proving inequitable conduct in patent cases. The court criticized the inequitable conduct doctrine as a plague on the entire patent system and noted that allegations of inequitable conduct were being raised in 80 percent of patent cases. The court identified numerous problems associated with the inequitable conduct doctrine, including "increased adjudication cost and complexity, reduced likelihood of settlement, burdened courts, strained U.S. Patent and Trademark Office resources, increased PTO backlog, and impaired patent quality." In response to these problems, the court tightened the standards for both the intent and materiality prongs of the inequitable conduct test....