FedCircuitBlog

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. Since our last update, five new petitions for en banc rehearing have been filed raising questions related to correction of inventorship, damages, the domestic industry requirement, and infringement. Three new amicus briefs were also filed in a case raising questions related to design patent infringement. Finally, four petitions were denied in cases raising questions related to eligibility and infringement. Here are the details.

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 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.

This morning, the Federal Circuit released one precedential opinion and one nonprecedential opinion. The precedential opinion comes in comes in a patent case addressing inventorship. The nonprecedential comes in another patent case addressing anticipation and obviousness. Here are the introductions to the opinions.