News

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:

  • an article discussing how a “California software company has warned that a venue dispute it lost at the Federal Circuit . . . has opened the door ‘for improper venue to be rectified by new facts arising any time throughout litigation'”;
  • an article about “more than half a dozen amicus briefs” urging the Federal Circuit “to keep the [design patent] law as is in order to avoid major disruptions”; and
  • an article about the future of AI, highlighting the Federal Circuit’s holding that “AI did not qualify as a human.”

Andrew Karpan wrote an article for Law360 discussing how a “California software company has warned that a venue dispute it lost at the Federal Circuit . . . has opened the door ‘for improper venue to be rectified by new facts arising any time throughout litigation.'” As explained by Karpan, the court indicated “there was nothing wrong with Judge Albright’s decision to credit an ‘office space . . . leased after the date of the original complaint’ in Austin, in concluding that RingCentral did enough business in the district to be sued there.”

Eileen McDermott wrote an article for IP Watchdog about “more than half a dozen amicus briefs” urging the Federal Circuit “to keep the [design patent] law as is in order to avoid major disruptions.” According to McDermott, the briefs filed in LKQ Corporation v. GM Global Technlogy Operations “mostly warned against making changes” to the test used to determine design patent non-obviousness.

Keegan Caldwell wrote an article for Forbes about the future of AI, highlighting the Federal Circuit’s holding in Thaler v. Vidal that “AI did not qualify as a human.” Caldwell characterizes the Federal Circuit as stating “there is no ambiguity: the Patent Act requires that inventors must be natural persons; that is, human beings.”