Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:
- an article examining how “[t]ech companies are embracing an unorthodox appellate procedure to challenge policy shifts expanding the US Patent and Trademark Office director’s power”;
- another article covering how advocacy groups “have thrown their support behind” a challenge to the USPTO’s retroactive application of “a decision withdrawing earlier guidance on when the Patent Trial and Appeal Board should not review patent challenges”;
- a post discussing how “certain comments” by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director nominee John Squires “during his Senate Judiciary Confirmation hearing . . . could reflect alignment not only with Acting Director Stewart, but with Congress’s objective when it passed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act”;
- a blog post criticizing a recent Federal Circuit decision for offering “a concerning example of the Federal Circuit departing from well-established patent claim construction doctrine”; and
- a piece covering how “James Woodruff II, Trump’s nominee” for the Merit Systems Protection Board, saw his nomination advance out of a Senate committee “on an 8-4 vote.”