December 04, 2024
In Cooperative Entertainment Inc. v. Kollective Technology the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the District Court’s dismissal of patent owner’s complaint on the basis that all claims of US 9,432,452 were patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The CAFC reasoned that the patent describes “several alleged inventive concepts which the specification… Read more »
August 21, 2024
“If a patent claims an entire class of processes, machines, manufactures, or compositions of matter, the patent’s specification must enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the entire class. In other words, the specification must enable the full scope of the invention as defined by its claims. The more one claims,… Read more »
July 18, 2024
“The name of the game is the claim,” wrote Giles Rich, the Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit at the time of this comment.[1] Whether or not this pithy aphorism remains true in other aspects of patent law, it has become clear that in the realm of Subject Matter Eligibility, the story told by the… Read more »
June 10, 2024
In a relatively rare panel rehearing, the Federal Circuit vacated its prior decision and reversed the District Court’s decision that the patent at issue was not invalid for inadequate written description.[1] Novartis, the owner of U.S. Patent No. 9,187,405 (the ‘405 patent) directed to the use of Gilenya®, a drug for treating multiple sclerosis, sued… Read more »
May 08, 2024
The Federal Circuit struck down two of IBM’s patents – the ‘789 and ‘389 patents – on the ground of patent ineligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101, dealing another blow to software-based patents and applications.[1] The ‘789 patent is directed to methods for coordinated geospatial, list-based and filter-based selection, while the ‘389 patent is directed… Read more »
February 06, 2024
The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Grace Instrument Industries, LLC (Grace) v. Chandler Instruments Co. (Chandler)[1] provides useful guidance for patent practitioners seeking to use a term of degree and/or a relative term in their claims to protect an invention. Grace, the owner of U.S. Patent No. 7,412,877 (the ‘877 patent), appeals a claim construction… Read more »
May 19, 2023
Regardless of technology area or complexity of the subject matter, nearly all patent practitioners include the same phrase in every application they have ever written — “incorporated by reference herein.” Those magical words, according to the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP), allow the referenced material to form “as much a part of the application… Read more »
March 21, 2023
The USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently overturned an Examiner’s obviousness rejection of a claim disclosing a specific ratio, where the cited reference disclosed a range that encompassed the claimed ratio. The rejected claim recites: An oral care composition, comprising: a soluble zinc citrate and sodium hexametaphosphate, and water; wherein the relative amounts of… Read more »
August 19, 2022
On June 29, 2022, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office surprised patent practitioners across the nation by announcing their intention to discontinue the Patent Application Information Retrieval system (most commonly known as “PAIR”) starting Monday, August 1st, 2022.[1] From this date forward, publicly accessible status information concerning any published patent application will become available through… Read more »
August 16, 2022
The lack of consistency and clarity in subject matter eligibility following the Supreme Court’s rulings in Mayo[1] and Alice Corp.[2] prompted four senators[3] to ask the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to publish a request for opinions on the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States, evaluate the responses, and… Read more »