FedCircuitBlog

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• an article discussing how an en banc petition “is drawing new attention to the question of when altered DNA becomes different enough from nature to be patented”;
• a blog post suggesting a recent Federal Circuit “opinion is a useful teaching vehicle on the patent/trade-secret interface”; and
• an article explaining how the “U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Artificial Intelligence Search Automated Pilot, or ASAP, program introduces earlier visibility into the prior art landscape by providing applicants with an automated search results notice prior to substantive examination.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• a blog post suggesting the “Federal Circuit’s tightening of the nexus requirement for secondary considerations of nonobviousness has become one of the most consequential doctrinal developments in patent law over the past decade”;
• an article reporting that “Big Tech companies and the lawyers who represent them are expressing disappointment that the nation’s top patent court is declining to rein in changes at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.”
• a blog post highlighting how a recent Federal Circuit decision “underscores the critical importance of rigorously documenting inventorship, maintaining contact with all contributors, and proactively managing inventorship determinations before patent applications are filed”; and
• an article analyzing another recent Federal Circuit decision that found an “accused device to be plainly dissimilar” to a “claimed design . . . even though lay observers might initially see close visual similarity.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• a piece outlining factors “behind the Patent Office head’s recent refusal to have the agency institute certain proceedings”;
• an article discussing two recent decisions that “show how parties can navigate the draconian effect of an exclusion order by pursuing the simultaneous paths of a Federal Circuit appeal and ancillary proceedings” at the International Trade Commission and before U.S. Customs & Border Protection “to adjudicate a design-around”;
• a blog post highlighting how a recent filing “shines a spotlight on a structural vulnerability in how post-grant review is functioning in practice”; and
• an article examining “the Federal Circuit’s evolving view of two key trade secrets issues: (1) whether information was readily ascertainable and therefore not a trade secret; and (2) how and when plaintiffs must sufficiently define their trade secrets.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• a blog post arguing the Federal Circuit’s application of the judicial exceptions to patentability for software patents “has resembled less a coherent legal standard and more a series of freely-improvised opinions”;
• an article discussing a recent Federal Circuit decision holding that “composition of matter claims covering engineered cells containing DNA from two different organisms chemically spliced together are not patent-ineligible natural phenomena”;
• a blog post addressing how the repeal of 35 U.S.C. § 102(f) “left an open question that the patent bar has been debating for more than a decade: can incorrect inventorship still be raised as a defense in patent litigation?”; and
• a blog post exploring a recent Federal Circuit decision in which the court “couldn’t determine whether the plaintiff suffered a physical taking of its radio license” because the parties had not adequately briefed whether a federal statute created “a private property right.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• an article observing how the Federal Circuit is “increasingly using the ‘plainly dissimilar’ formulation to affirm summary judgment of noninfringement in design patent cases”;
• a blog post reporting how “the Bar Association for the District of Columbia (BADC) filed an amicus brief supporting Judge Newman’s petition for cert currently before the U.S. Supreme Court”; and
• an article indicating “[p]atent challengers are increasingly ⁠relying on” ex parte reexaminations instead of inter partes reviews.

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• a blog post suggesting a recent Supreme Court copyright-law decision is a “troubling signal for the branded pharmaceutical company trying to hold a generic manufacturer liable for induced patent infringement” in the skinny label case decided by the Federal Circuit;
• a blog post highlighting a recent Federal Circuit “decision regarding recombinant DNA subject-matter eligibility”; and
• a blog post discussing a recent Federal Circuit decision focusing on “whether . . . the patentee is entitled to damages reflecting foreign sales.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• an article reporting how recently a “panel of seven appellate and district court judges rejected Judge Pauline Newman’s effort to regain her position on the Federal Circuit, where the 98-year-old jurist was suspended by her colleagues”;
• a blog post highlighting how, on remand from the Federal Circuit, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board “reaffirmed its decision that The Broad Institute, Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and President and Fellows of Harvard College (‘Broad’) were the first inventors of the use of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in eukaryotic cells”;
• an article discussing how the U.S. International Trade Commission “has launched more infringement investigations over patents and other intellectual property that have not been in dispute there before”; and
• an article commenting on how Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires “faced sharp questions during an oversight hearing at the House of Representatives . . . on his office’s role in benefiting other Trump administration officials.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• an article suggesting the “Trump administration’s 10% stake in Intel Corp. may give plaintiffs in patent disputes a weapon against the company”;
• a blog post discussing how the “course of the proceedings involving the attempts to remove Judge Pauline Newman from the Federal Circuit is long and in many senses tragic”;
• a blog post observing how “the effective term for most U.S. patents is considerably shorter” than 20 years because “roughly 60% of all patentees now abandon their patents before the full term expires”; and
• an article noting how the “Federal Circuit’s rejection of all mandamus petitions asking it to rein in the way U.S. Patent and Trademark Office leadership is ​evaluating patent challenges cements the appeals court’s near-impossible standard for reviewing institution decisions.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• a blog post describing a petition at the Supreme Court as a battle with the Federal Circuit over “prosecution laches—and whether the doctrine even exists”;
• a blog post characterizing a Federal Circuit decision as “a masterclass in the consequences of acting as one’s own lexicographer” and “a stark reminder that definitions placed in patent specifications carry enormous weight”;
• an article reporting how the Patent and Trademark Office has “significantly expanded design patent protections with its guidance for claiming computer-generated images shown using virtual reality, holograms and similar technologies”; and
• a blog post emphasizing how the Supreme Court “left a variety of questions open” in its decision affirming the Federal Circuit in President Trump’s tariffs case.

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today we highlight:

• a blog post reporting how Judge Newman “filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court” to review her suspension from exercising judicial duties at the Federal Circuit;
• an article arguing a recent Federal Circuit decision “presents an opportunity to confront doctrinal tensions in design patent law claim construction that have lingered for decades and intensified in recent years”;
• a blog post examining how the Federal Circuit recently affirmed an “Examiner’s obviousness rejection after rejecting [a] narrow construction of the claim term ‘configured for’”; and
• an article discussing how the Federal Circuit “rejected the Trump administration’s request to delay next steps in the fight over tariff refunds for importers.”’”