FedCircuitBlog

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:

• an article discussing “what’s at stake in pending Federal Circuit design patent case”;
• an article highlighting a recent notice by the USPTO published in the Federal Register “providing updated guidance for agency decision-makers on proper determinations of obviousness under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc.”; and
• an article about how “[t]he Federal Circuit reversed a district court judge’s dismissal of a breach-of-contract lawsuit against MasterCard International Inc. over a licensing agreement the company entered with patent owner AlexSam Inc.”

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:

• a blog post about the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Solicitor General “to provide its views on [a] petition asking the High Court to clarify the proper application of estoppel in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings”;
• an article about the Federal Circuit rejecting a “claim that the U.S. Supreme Court has implicitly overruled key design patent validity tests”; and
• another article about the Federal Circuit’s recent en banc decision that “overturned an earlier decision that would have allowed veterans to receive up to an additional year of education.”

Guest Post by Tejas N. Narechania*

The Supreme Court’s decision in Arthrex is the latest in a growing set of decisions regarding administrative patent law. A close look at this entire series suggests that Arthrex is a culmination of a subtle shift in the Court’s approach to such cases. Where the Court once lauded the Patent Office’s expertise, the Court’s more recent decisions have emphasized flexibility and political accountability in patent decision-making. This development is both significant and salutary. For one, it marks the ongoing maturation of administrative patent law as one branch of administrative law, subject to the influences of the myriad administrative law values beyond expertise. This shift, moreover, is constructive, subjecting innovation- and access-governing principles to more democratic constraints.

• Patenting Software-Related Inventions Is Getting Easier – Experts analyze Federal Circuit precedent and USPTO guidance to advance two recommendations for IP practitioners with regard to ensuring patent eligibility of inventions directed to software-related technologies.
• CAFC Reverses In-Part, Vacates In-Part PTAB Patentability Finding for Skin Cancer Detection Device – The Federal Circuit used an obviousness analysis and ruled that the PTAB erred in holding that patent claims directed at a skin cancer detection device were patentable.
• Federal Circuit Affirms District Court Decision Blocking Poultry Chiller Patent Suit Due to Equitable Intervening Rights – For the first time, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit addressed the “boundaries of the phrase ‘protection of investments’ in [35 U.S.C.] § 252”, which outlines the effect of reissued patents.

Here’s the latest.

This month we highlight two papers exploring research related to the Federal Circuit.

• Re-Thinking the “Motivation to Combine” in Patent Law by Joshua Lee Sohn.
• Ajinomoto v. ITC, the Doctrine of Equivalents, and Biomolecule Claim Limitations at the Federal Circuit by Professor Christopher M. Holman.