Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- an article about the Federal Circuit affirming a holding that “lens and filter features aren’t eligible for patent protection”;
- another article about the Federal Circuit “hand[ing] Moderna Inc a win” in a patent dispute related to “Moderna’s blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines”; and
- a blog post about “the Federal Circuit . . . interpret[ing] the claim term ‘a.’”
Kelcee Griffis wrote an article for Bloomberg Law about the Federal Circuit affirming a holding that “lens and filter features aren’t eligible for patent protection.” Griffis reported how a “district court found that the patents claim an abstract idea, one of the exceptions to patent eligibility the Supreme Court carved out in its controversial 2014 decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International .” Griffis also discussed how the Federal Circuit found the district “court didn’t err when it . . . deprived [the patent owner] of a chance to update its lawsuit” through an amended complaint.
Blake Brittain authored an article about the Federal Circuit “hand[ing] Moderna Inc a win [by] affirming a decision to cancel an Arbutus Biopharma Corp patent related to the companies’ legal fight over Moderna’s blockbuster COVID-19 vaccines.” Brittain reported how “the Federal Circuit upheld a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal’s ruling that the patent for Arbutus’ lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology was invalid based on an earlier Arbutus patent that disclosed the same invention.” Brittain pointed out that the decision “does not affect an ongoing lawsuit filed by Arbutus and Genevant Sciences . . . against Moderna last year.”
Dennis Crouch authored an article about “the Federal Circuit . . . interpret[ing] the claim term ‘a,’” in interpreting the phrase “‘a microprocessor.’” Crouch highlighted that “[w]hile ‘a ___’ is usually interpreted to include ‘one or more ___,’ the court upheld Judge Gilstrap’s narrower singular construction in this case, finding it limited by later references to ‘said microprocessor.’” Crouch explained that, “[w]hile the indefinite article ‘a’ is generally interpreted broadly as not limited to one item, this presumption can shift when necessitated by the patent documents.”