Mealey's Patents
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June 12, 2024
Board Enters Adverse Judgment Following Patent Owner Disclaimer
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Patent Trial and Appeal Board on June 11 denied a request to discretionarily terminate an inter partes review (IPR) without addressing allegations that petitioner BMW of North America LLC failed to follow through on a promise to drop the proceedings, purportedly causing a patent owner to miss the deadline to file its response.
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June 12, 2024
Panel Reinstates Trade Secret Liability Verdict, Affirms Denial Of Fees
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Allegations of patent infringement voluntarily dismissed midtrial and copyright infringement on the eve of trial were not so devoid of merit as to justify an award of attorney fees in favor of a defendant medical equipment company, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed June 11.
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June 11, 2024
Board: R.J. Reynolds’ Application For Cigarette Patent Properly Rejected
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Two prior art patents dating to the mid-1990s and assigned to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (RJR) have doomed the tobacco titan’s latest effort to patent a “smoking article,” with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on June 10 upholding an examiner’s rejection of 20 claims on grounds of obviousness.
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June 11, 2024
New Jersey Federal Judge: Teva ‘ProAir’ Patents Improperly Listed
TRENTON, N.J. — Five patents listed by Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc. with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in connection with a new drug application (NDA) for ProAir HFA (albuterol sulfate) Inhalation Aerosol do not cover albuterol sulfate, a federal judge in New Jersey found June 10, granting judgment on delisting counterclaims by Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. and others, which were backed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission as amicus curiae.
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June 11, 2024
Biotech Companies Agree To Dismiss Appeals Over DNA Sequencing Patents
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In orders issued June 10, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted voluntary dismissal in two appeals of final written decisions (FWDs) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board where Guardant Health Inc. prevailed.
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June 11, 2024
Divided Panel Rebuffs Google In Appeal Of Texas Patent Verdict
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Findings by a jury empaneled in a Texas federal court that Google LLC infringed smart thermostat technology to the tune of $20 million in damages owed to a patent owner will not be disturbed, a majority panel of the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled.
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June 05, 2024
U.S. High Court Extends Response Deadline In Review Of 9th Circuit FCA Suit Ruling
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 3 granted a 30-day extension for the qui tam plaintiff in a district court decision to respond to pharmaceutical companies’ petition seeking review of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ reversal of a district court’s dismissal of a suit accusing them violating the False Claims Act (FCA) by artificially inflating drug prices, arguing in part that the Ninth Circuit “created a circuit split by holding that a relator can avoid the public disclosure bar by ‘stitching together’ public disclosures.”
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June 03, 2024
Patent, Trade Dress Row Over Vape Design Will Proceed Without Injunction
CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois overseeing a dispute between competing vape makers has rejected as premature a motion to dismiss counterclaims of design patent and trade dress infringement as well as a motion by the counterclaimant for a preliminary injunction.
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May 31, 2024
Micron Defends Idaho Anti-Patent Troll Law As ‘Constitutionally Sound’
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an appellee brief in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Micron Technology Inc. pushes back on arguments by two appellants that an Idaho statute intended to deter bad faith patent infringement litigation, or patent trolling, is “arguably the most extreme” such law in the country as well as an “egregious” example of preemption.
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May 31, 2024
Motorola: Board Analysis Of Motivation To Combine References Was Faulty
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A final written decision (FWD) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review (IPR) of a lens assembly patent must be vacated, Motorola Mobility LLC argues on appeal, because the board “largely misidentified” an asserted combination of prior art references.
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May 31, 2024
Netflix Motion To Join Litigation Fund Manager To Failed Patent Case Denied
SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix Inc. was dealt dual blows by a federal judge in California, who denied the streaming service’s motion for an order to show cause, as well as its unopposed request to join a litigation fund manager to the case, in connection with a Netflix counterclaim for violations of state law against a former patent infringement plaintiff.
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May 31, 2024
Terminal Disclaimer By Patentee Yields Partial Dismissal In Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA CITY — Litigation over wireless control and distribution technology will proceed with two fewer patents, following voluntary dismissal of one patent from the case and findings by an Oklahoma federal judge that another patent was rendered unenforceable by representations of common ownership in a terminal disclaimer.
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May 31, 2024
Federal Circuit Agrees: Charge-Back Patents Lack Inventive Concept
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel of the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld findings by a federal judge in Georgia that five patents “essentially” cover the abstract idea of underwriting, rejecting the patent owner’s position at recent oral arguments that the “unconventional data flow” recited in the claims is sufficiently inventive to overcome a patent eligibility challenge.
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May 30, 2024
Petitioner Seeks PTO Director Review Of Split Decision By Patent Board
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A recent denial of institution of inter partes review (IPR) by a divided Patent Trial and Appeal Board came under fire on May 29, with the petitioner asserting that “the record contains no evidence on which the majority could rationally base its decision.”
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May 29, 2024
Hoverboard Design Patent Row Back At Federal Circuit For 2nd Time
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The decision by a hoverboard maker and its U.S.-based distributor to continue to press design patent infringement litigation despite an earlier appellate ruling that questioned their likelihood of success is evidence of anticompetitive intent, various China-based appellees maintain in a filing with the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
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May 29, 2024
Patent Owner Wins More Time To Reply To Novartis Appellee Brief
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 28 granted a patent owner a 14-day extension of its deadline to reply to claims by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. that the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars review of a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that canceled a patented form of polymorphic fingolimod hydrochloride.
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May 29, 2024
Tech Firm Asks High Court To Address Impact Of Patent Term Adjustment On Validity
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A cellular and mobile technology company filed a petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to determine that a patent that has had its expiration extended under patent term adjustment (PTA), due to application delays by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), should not then be susceptible to findings of obviousness and invalidity.
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May 28, 2024
High Court Passes On Another Challenge To Federal Circuit Rule 36 Judgments
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The owner of a patent canceled by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as anticipated by prior art failed May 28 to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ practice of affirming without an opinion when certain conditions exist and the panel determines an opinion will have no precedential value.
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May 28, 2024
Board Institutes Google Petitions For Review Of Encryption Patents
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A method of securing data that relies on repeatedly parsing and splitting data will be the subject of inter partes review (IPR), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has announced in a preliminary win for petitioner Google LLC.
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May 24, 2024
Federal Circuit Undoes Patent Priority Determination, Endorses 2-Way Test
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A motion by the owner of a junior patent for a finding that a senior patent application was time-barred was wrongly rejected by the Patent Trial and Appeals Board in an interference proceeding, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held May 23, vacating and remanding the board’s subsequent decision to award priority to the patent applicants.
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May 23, 2024
Squabble Over Subpoena In Semiconductor Substrate Patent Row Sent To Texas
BOSTON — A federal magistrate judge in Massachusetts on May 22 did not reach the merits of a motion to quash a subpoena served on a wafer manufacturer, instead transferring the request to the Texas federal court where an infringement action over semiconductor products incorporating the wafers is already under way.
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May 22, 2024
DISH Can Amend Patent Complaint; FuboTV Denied Dismissal In Delaware
WILMINGTON, Del. — Litigation over a series of adaptive bitrate streaming patents will proceed in Delaware, a federal judge there ruled May 21, granting a motion by the patent owner and exclusive licensee to amend their complaint to add more than 100 patent claims allegedly infringed by the sports streaming service fuboTV Media Inc.
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May 21, 2024
En Banc Court Overrules Rosen-Durling, Endorses Graham For Design Patents
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a May 21 en banc holding, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the “same conditions for patentability that apply to utility patents apply to design patents” and declared their decades-old approach to determining design patent obviousness “improperly rigid” and no longer good law.
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May 21, 2024
Board Distinguishes Dell Patent Application From AI Example In Revised Guidance
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An examiner’s determination that a machine learning model for providing improved forecasting of market behavior is unpatentable will not be disturbed, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board said May 20, rejecting reliance by real party-in-interest Dell Products L.P. on a neural network-based example in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s updated guidance on patent eligibility.
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May 21, 2024
Divided Panel: ‘Own Time’ Language In Patent Invention Agreement Is Ambiguous
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Findings by a federal judge in California that a 2011 assignment by an inventor to his company of rights to a bandwidth optimization patent was ineffective because of an invention agreement he signed with a former employer more than two decades earlier must be revisited, a divided Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded May 21.