Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a blog post about the oral argument in the Supreme Court case Amgen v. Sanofi;
- an article about “Centripetal Networks LLC urg[ing] the Federal Circuit to stop a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal’s validity review of a patent that was part of a wiped-out $1.9 billion verdict against Cisco Systems Inc.”; and
- another article about “the U.S. Supreme Court quickly pass[ing] on the opportunity to look at the Federal Circuit’s use of one-sentence Rule 36 rulings.”
Dennis Crouch wrote a blog post for PatentlyO about the oral argument in the Supreme Court case Amgen v. Sanofi. Crouch reported that, in his view, “the Supreme Court was quite hostile to [Amgen’s counsel] . . . and his attempt to defend Amgen’s functionally claimed genus of antibodies.” Crouch suggested Amgen’s counsel “took the wrong turn by first repeatedly telling the court that the claim covered only about 400 antibodies, before eventually admitting . . . a scope covering millions of yet unidentified antibodies.”
Michael Shapiro wrote an article for Bloomberg Law about “Centripetal Networks LLC urg[ing] the Federal Circuit to stop a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal’s validity review of a patent that was part of a wiped-out $1.9 billion verdict against Cisco Systems Inc.” Shapiro explained how the Federal Circuit “vacated that award in a case alleging infringement of several patents” because “the presiding judge’s wife’s 100 shares of Cisco stock.” Shapiro reported how “the administrative case could undermine Centripetal’s district court case against Cisco, which is up for a new trial.”
Andrew Karpan authored an article for Law360 about “the U.S. Supreme Court quickly pass[ing] on the opportunity to look at the Federal Circuit’s use of one-sentence Rule 36 rulings.” Karpan explained how Virentem’s petition centered “around a procedural challenge” concerning the Federal Circuit’s “somewhat dreaded ‘Rule 36’ affirmations,” which “are one-line decisions that end appeals without further comment from the judges.”