Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases, including a discussion of a recent petition for certiorari and three articles discussing recent Federal Circuit decisions.
At Patent Docs, Kevin E. Noonan discussed the State of Minnesota’s recent petition for certiorari in Regents of the University of Minnesota v. LSI Corp., noting the State “contends that the Federal Circuit erred in deciding that the university, as an ‘arm of the state,’ could not assert sovereign immunity against LSI in its attempt to have the Patent Trial and Appeal Board institute inter partes review against university-owned patents.”
Malathi Nayak of Bloomberg Law wrote that in the Federal Circuit’s decision in Mayo Foundation v. Iancu “[t]he Mayo Foundation . . . lost its argument that the PTO miscalculated how it adjusted the term of its patent that described antibodies to treat diseases such as cancer and AIDS.”
Holland & Knight’s Anthony J. Fuga highlighted the Federal Circuit’s ruling in In re Greenstein, in which the court upheld the PTAB’s rejection of Mr. Greenstein’s patent claims as ineligible despite the argument “that the successful commercial launch of the product demonstrated that the patent claims contained an inventive concept.”
Writing for Law 360, Sarah Kagan commented that while “[t]wo opinions and three judges do not necessarily make a trend,” the Federal Circuit’s decisions in two cases, Ajinomoto Co. v. International Trade Commission and Eli Lilly and Company v. Hospira, Inc., could signal “that the prosecution history estoppel pendulum is beginning to swing in a more liberal direction for patentees.” Notably, Hospira recently filed a petition for en banc rehearing in its case.