Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a blog post “assessing responses to the PTO’s 2021 patent eligibility study”;
- another blog post explaining how the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded an International Trade Commission decision in a patent case based on an abuse of discretion in admitting expert testimony;
- an article discussing how the Federal Circuit recently reversed a decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to invalidate patent claims for indefiniteness; and
- another article detailing how “Qualcomm Inc. convinced the Federal Circuit that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office improperly invalidated parts of its semiconductor patent based on admissions made in the patent itself.”
Victoria T. Carrington and Professor Jorge L. Contreras and co-authored a guest post for PatentlyO “assessing responses to the PTO’s 2021 patent eligibility study.” Carrington and Contreas noted that “[t]his preliminary assessment shows a range of views expressed by public commenters in response to the PTO’s Section 101 Patent Eligibility Study.”
Angeline L. Premraj wrote a blog post for Finnegan IP Law Blog explaining how, “[i]n Kyocera Senco Industrial Tools Inc. v. International Trade Commission, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded an International Trade Commission decision finding that Koki Holdings America Ltd. infringed Kyocera’s drilling tool patent.” Premraj specified that “[t]he Federal Circuit’s decision was based in part on its finding that the Administrative Law Judge (‘ALJ’) abused his discretion by admitting any testimony from Kyocera’s expert.”
Logan Murr filed an article with IPWatchdog discussing how, in Nature Simulation Systems Inc. v. Autodesk, Inc., the Federal Circuit “reversed the decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to invalidate claims in two related patents.” More specifically, Murr noted that the Federal Circuit held “that the district court used the incorrect legal standard for indefiniteness.”
Perry Cooper published an article for Bloomberg Law detailing how “Qualcomm Inc. convinced the Federal Circuit that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office improperly invalidated parts of its semiconductor patent based on admissions made in the patent itself.” The court held that admissions do not qualify as prior art and therefore cannot form the basis of an obviousness determination in an inter partes review proceeding.