Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- an article about last Friday’s Fed Circuit Blog symposium, noting how two law professors “argued . . . that it might be time to reevaluate the 40-year ‘experiment’ of the Federal Circuit”;
- another article about Friday’s symposium, explaining that other “law professors . . . were torn between whether the appeals court was ‘overstepping’ or reacting rationally to a judge who does not always take the court’s direction”;
- a blog post discussing the backgrounds of the judges of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board; and
- an article analyzing a recent Federal Circuit ruling that a “heart monitor patent . . . is invalid for claiming only an abstract idea.”
Dani Kass filed an article with Law360 about Friday’s Fed Circuit Blog symposium, noting how law school professors “argued . . . that it might be time to reevaluate the 40-year ‘experiment’ of the Federal Circuit, which they said had failed to bring uniformity to patent law and had stifled the creativity that comes with multiple circuit courts reviewing the same issues.”
Dani Kass filed another article with Law360 about Friday’s Fed Circuit Blog symposium, noting how, “[a]s the Federal Circuit continues to grant mandamus petitions overriding Judge Alan Albright’s transfer refusals, law professors on a panel Friday were torn between whether the appeals court was ‘overstepping’ or reacting rationally to a judge who does not always take the court’s direction.”
Bill Vobach authored a post for 717 Madison Place discussing the backgrounds of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s judges. Vobach expressed surprise that only “40% are engineers/scientists.” He speculated that “that statistic is actual work experience as an engineer/scientist, rather than just degree earned.”
Ryan Davis wrote an article for Law360 regarding how, in CardioNet, LLC v. InfoBionic, Inc., the Federal Circuit recently ruled “that another heart monitor patent that Philips unit CardioNet accused InfoBionic of infringing is invalid for claiming only an abstract idea.” Davis highlighted that the Federal Circuit held “that a lower court wrongly found that the invention was patent-eligible because it is tied to a machine.”