Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases, including two articles highlighting recent panel decisions, one blog post commenting on a recent grant of panel rehearing, and another blog post addressing a pending petition for certiorari.
Jan Wolfe filed an article for Reuters noting that in Slot Speaker Technologies v. Apple Inc. “Apple Inc won an appeals court decision on Friday that likely finishes off a patent infringement case brought against it by an audio technology firm founded by ‘Star Wars’ filmmaker George Lucas.”
At Bloomberg Law, Malathi Nayak and Blake Brittain reported that the Federal Circuit in Board of Regents of University of Texas System v. Boston Scientific Corp. clarified “when states and state-owned entities can invoke sovereign immunity in patent disputes,” stating that “[a] state can’t claim sovereign immunity in a bid to file a patent infringement lawsuit in a venue of its choice.”
Kevin Noonan over at Patent Docs reported on the Federal Circuit’s recent grant of panel rehearing in Amgen Inc. v. Sandoz Inc.—the panel eliminated a phrase in its opinion indicating that the doctrine of equivalents “applies only in exceptional cases”—and argued that “[p]rudence suggests the Court would have done itself a better service if it had struck the entire sentence, because the sentiment remains that the doctrine [of equivalents] is not ‘readily available to extend protection beyond the scope of the claims’” when Supreme Court precedent indicates that it is.
Dennis Crouch of Patently-O commented on the pending petition for certiorari in HP Inc. v. Berkheimer, stating that the Solicitor General is expected to provide an amicus brief “by about October 10” with the views of the U.S. Government on “whether patent eligibility is a question of law for the court based on the scope of the claims or a question of fact for the jury based on the state of the art at the time of the patent.”