Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a news alert suggesting decisions by the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit “have called into question the validity of broad antibody patent claims, leading some commentators to declare the death of the antibody genus claim;”
- a blog post indicating the Federal Circuit “issued a notable opinion on federal preemption of state law conversion (theft) claims and correction of inventorship;”
- a report highlighting how the Supreme Court “rejected a case asking the justices to interpret a patent-infringement safe-harbor provision in a federal statute ‘solely for uses reasonably related’ to the process [for] winning government approval of a drug or medical device;” and
- an article reporting how an “import ban on Roku Inc. streaming devices will stand after the U.S. Supreme Court turned away its challenge to the U.S. International Trade Commission’s finding Universal Electronics Inc. met the agency’s domestic-industry requirement with patented software.”
Geoffrey Biegler, Madhuri Roy, and Christina Stock co-authored a news alert for Cooley suggesting decisions by the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit “have called into question the validity of broad antibody patent claims, leading some commentators to declare the death of the antibody genus claim.” The authors go on to say “some practitioners have suggested means-plus-function claiming as one strategy to obtain antibody claims that are broader in scope than the specific antibodies provided in the application as filed.”
Dennis Crouch penned a blog post for PatentlyO indicating the Federal Circuit “issued a notable opinion on federal preemption of state law conversion (theft) claims and correction of inventorship.” Noting that the “dispute arose from a chance encounter at a Bitcoin mining conference in May 2019” and a “single follow up email with four attachments describing [the] technology” at issue, Crouch pointed out how the court held that “federal patent law preempted BearBox’s Louisiana state law conversion claim.” The court issued the opinion yesterday in Bearbox LLC v. Lancium LLC.
Michael Shapiro filed a report for Bloomberg Law highlighting how the U.S. Supreme Court “rejected a case asking the justices to interpret a patent-infringement safe-harbor provision in a federal statute ‘solely for uses reasonably related’ to the process [for] winning government approval of a drug or medical device.” Shapiro covered how “[t]hat language from Section 271(e)(1) of the Hatch-Waxman Act, a 1984 law governing the US system for regulating and shepherding to market generic drugs, was the focus of the petition . . . denied by the high court on Monday.” For more information, check out the case page in Edwards Lifesciences Corp. v. Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd.
Christopher Yasiejko published an article for Bloomberg Law reporting how an “import ban on Roku Inc. streaming devices will stand after the U.S. Supreme Court turned away its challenge to the U.S. International Trade Commission’s finding Universal Electronics Inc. met the agency’s domestic-industry requirement with patented software.” Yasiejko discussed how the Supreme Court “denied Roku’s request to ‘cabin the ITC to the authority granted by its enabling statute.'” Check out our case page in Roku, Inc. v. International Trade Commission for more details.