FedCircuitBlog

This week, the Federal Circuit will hold 16 panel hearings and hear oral arguments in about 58 cases. Amicus briefs were filed in four of these cases. The first of these is a patent case dealing with patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The second case addresses the issue of obviousness-type double patenting. The third is a takings case involving a notice of interim trail use. The fourth case focuses on invalidity and infringement standards for the administration of a multiple sclerosis treatment. Continue reading for more information about each of the featured cases.

One of the four cases being argued next week that attracted an amicus brief is Voip-Pal.com, Inc. v. Twitter, Inc., which focuses on patent eligibility. Specifically, this case raises the question of whether a patent claiming a method for “automatically routing telephone calls and other communications in a multinetwork environment using a physical controller” covers abstract ideas not eligible for patenting. This is our argument preview.

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 patent cases, we highlight one new opinion, a recent oral argument, and three upcoming oral arguments.

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights two articles summarizing Oracle’s appeal of the government’s denial of its bid on the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, a plea for “clarity and a new approach” on patent eligibility in 2020, and two blog posts covering a recent defamation lawsuit related to a trademark case on appeal at the Federal Circuit.

One type of case we track here at Fed Circuit Blog is any patent case pending before a panel where an amicus brief has been filed. Besides identifying these cases, aggregating related data (e.g., briefs, oral argument recordings, orders, and opinions), and making this data available using our “Other Cases” page, once a month we plan to provide a blog post summarizing recent activity in these cases. Today we do that with respect to eight such patent cases. Of these cases, three concern the non-obviousness requirement; two include jurisdictional questions; one pertains to infringement; one discusses F/RAND commitments; and one raises the issue of patent eligibility.