FedCircuitBlog

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. The court received three new petitions raising questions related to ­­means-plus-function limitations and transfers. The court also denied five petitions for rehearing raising issues including the standard for granting a motion to seal court records, choice of law, estoppel arising from inter partes review, and claim construction. Here are the details.

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

• an article discussing how the Federal Circuit recently gave “the Patent Trial and Appeal Board more freedom to identify its own unpatentability grounds that could block requests to amend a patent”;
• an article explaining how the Federal Circuit recently reversed and remanded “a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas that . . . claims were invalid as indefinite”;
• another article detailing how the “Federal Circuit is going to take a look at U.S. District Judge Alan Albright’s first decision invalidating a patent on eligibility grounds”; and
• yet another article assessing how “[t]he Arthrex appointments clause case is back before the [Federal Circuit] . . . calling into question not only Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions, but also hundreds of thousands of patents issued in the last 14 months.”

This morning the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in a patent case appealed from the Western District of Texas. The opinion reversed a finding of invalidity. The court also issued four nonprecedential opinions in patent cases appealed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Notably, in the fourth case, Judge Prost wrote a concurring opinion to explain that had a patentability challenge been preserved it likely would have succeeded. Finally, the court issued three nonprecedential orders concerning, respectively, a dismissal for failure to prosecute and two voluntary dismissals. Here are the introductions to the opinions and orders.