Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- an article about how the “Federal Circuit refused . . . to rehear a challenge to a Delaware judge’s probe into the financing of patent litigation”;
- another article about “Sanofi and Regeneron on Friday urg[ing] the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Amgen’s arguments that it deserves broad patent coverage on cholesterol drugs”; and
- a blog post examining the reasons why the “Federal Circuit has ordered [Google’s] case moved out of the Western District of Texas (Waco) to the Northern District of California.”
Michael Shapiro wrote an article for Bloomberg Law about how the “Federal Circuit refused . . . to rehear a challenge to a Delaware judge’s probe into the financing of patent litigation . . . after previously refusing to halt the judge’s investigation.” Shapiro reported the “order cuts short an effort to stymie US District of Delaware Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly’s pursuit of information about funding sources behind a handful of patent infringement litigation campaigns.” Shapiro summarized that first Judge “Connolly grilled Nimitz’s putative owner in open court about the formation of the company [and] followed up by ordering Nimitz to turn over several categories of records relating to Nimitz’s ownership structure and finances, as well as communications its owner and attorneys may have had with two other companies.”
Dani Kass wrote an article for Law360 about “Sanofi and Regeneron on Friday urg[ing] the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Amgen’s arguments that it deserves broad patent coverage on cholesterol drugs.” Kass highlighted Sanofi and Regeneron’s argumebt that “Amgen Inc. is trying to monopolize the market by obtaining overly broad patents on PCSK9 inhibitors, therefore pushing out cholesterol-medicine competitors like Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.” Kass further explained how Sanofi and Regeneron are arguing “Amgen originally patented specific antibodies . . . [and] later went back and claimed the full genus of antibodies that attach to the PCSK9 protein, defining the invention not by how it is accomplished, but by the final result.”
Dennis Crouch authored a blog post for PatentlyO examining reasons why the “Federal Circuit has ordered [a] case moved out of the Western District of Texas (Waco) to the Northern District of California.” Crouch first noted how the Federal Circuit “indicated that the likelihood of a speedy resolution in one jurisdiction versus another should not be given any regard in the convenience analysis unless the parties particularly justify why a speedy trial is important.” Second, Crouch pointed out how, although “[t]he district court gave substantial weight to the fact that Jawbone is a Texas company and has an office in Waco . . . [t]he Federal Circuit rejected that analysis” as Jawbone is currently only a “patent-holding company” with “no meaningful presence in the district.”