Patent Law Weblog
Category: Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — In a brief Order issued September 25, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board authorized the Junior Party (the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna; and Emmanuelle Charpentier; collectively, "CVC") in Interference No. 106,115 to file a motion opposing Senior Party's (the Broad…
-
By Andrew Williams — Earlier this week, we noted that parties wishing to challenge IPR Final Written Decisions from the PTAB on appeal to the Federal Circuit would face an uphill challenge. However, even if that challenge is extremely difficult, it is not necessarily futile. This was demonstrated by the Federal Circuit on June 16,…
-
By Donald Zuhn — Last week, in Ex parte DeGrado, an appeal before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences concerning U.S. Application No. 10/801,951 (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2006/0041023), the Board issued an order calling for further briefing on two issues related to a claim that the Board "conservatively estimate[s] . . .…
-
Board Finds Metabolite Claim to be Patentable By Kevin E. Noonan — The most significant non-decision from the Supreme Court in recent memory is Justice Breyer's dissent over the Court's decision to dismiss its granted certiorari petition (as improvidently granted) in the Laboratory Corp. v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc. case regarding the patent-eligibility of this…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The correspondence between a nucleic acid sequence and its encoded amino acid sequence is the basis for a great deal of how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examines biotechnology claims. In many instances the Office treats these sequences differently. For example, it is common practice for the Office…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The Federal Circuit will hear oral argument on Thursday for In re Kubin, a case having great significance for biotechnology patenting. At issue is the question of whether the existence in the prior art of a purified protein, combined with "routine" cloning methods, renders obvious a claim to a…
-
By Donald Zuhn — Last month, we reported on a presentation that Dr. George Elliott, Group 1600 Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, gave at this year’s BIO International Convention (see "Docs at BIO: Representatives from JPO, EPO, SIPO, and USPTO Discuss Recent Developments in Japan, Europe, China, and the U.S."…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences recently got its long awaited opportunity to opine on the continued validity of the Federal Circuit’s In re Deuel decision in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. Deuel is widely acknowledged (and decried…
-
By Mark Chael — On November 24, 2006, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office affirmed the examiner's rejection of the pending claims in U.S. Patent App. No. 10/305,577 (U.S. Patent App. Publication No. 2004/0101613) based on obviousness. The invention disclosed in the application relates…
-
By Mark Chael — On November 22, 2006, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided a patent interference in favor of Prof. J. Gregor Sutcliffe and colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute related to hypocretins. Hypocretins are a recently discovered family of neuropeptide hormones…
Patent Docs 