FedCircuitBlog

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights a call for the Federal Circuit to live stream an upcoming hearing for the public, a petition to the Supreme Court related to sovereign immunity and venue, and an appeal to the Federal Circuit of a ruling granting an extra year of college tuition benefits to thousands of veterans.

This morning the Federal Circuit issued four Rule 36 judgments. Here is a list of the judgments.

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. Highlights include four new petitions, three of which related to Arthrex and another related to obviousness, two responses to petitions raising questions related to the statutory experimental use exception and obviousness, and the denial of three petitions. 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 a note on the USPTO urging en banc review in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, an article weighing in on a recent dissent by Judge Newman to a denial of en banc rehearing, a discussion of a request for attorneys’ fees by Microsoft in an appeal against Uniloc 2017, and a comment on the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in a life sciences case.

As a reminder, once a month we provide an update on activity in patent cases pending before panels of the Federal Circuit where the cases involve at least one amicus brief. We keep track of these patent cases in the “Other Cases” section of our blog. (There we also highlight non-patent cases that attract amicus brief, but only once those cases have been scheduled for oral argument.) Today, with respect to these patent cases, we highlight one new opinion, briefing in five cases, and a recent oral argument.

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. Highlights include two new petitions, a response to a petition, and an amicus brief in support of a petition.

Once a month we provide an update on activity in cases pending before panels of the Federal Circuit where the cases involve at least one amicus brief. Today we highlight recent activity in six such cases. We introduced four of these cases last month in a previous blog post. Of the two new cases, one concerns an attempt to vacate a judgment of non-infringement of a patent in favor of a settlement agreement, and the other questions whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may consider eligibility challenges to amended patent claims filed in inter partes review proceedings.

Late on Friday the Federal Circuit issued two precedential orders in patent cases and one nonprecedential order in a patent case. These orders represent the immediate fall out from the Federal Circuit’s opinion late on Thursday in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. that the Secretary of Commerce’s appointment of Administrative Patent Judges to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. (You can find this blog’s report on that decision here.) On Friday, the Federal Circuit ruled in two cases that the appellants forfeited this same challenge by not raising it in their opening briefs, but instead only in a post-briefing motion or notice of supplemental authority. In the third case, the court canceled this week’s oral argument, vacated the PTAB’s decision, and remanded the case because the appellant did raise the Appointments Clause challenge in its opening brief. Here is the text of the orders.