Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- REGENEXBIO Inc. v. Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2026)
- Apple v. Squires: USPTO Director Has Unlimited Discretion on IPR Institution
- The Ghost in the Machine: Why GenAI Can Be Both a Brilliant Researcher and a Terrible Advocate
- Bayer Files Suit Against Trio of COVID-19 Vaccine Makers
- Allen v. Cooper (4th Cir. 2026)
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Category: Federal Circuit
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By Kevin E. Noonan – It is not surprising that the Federal Circuit has taken the opportunity to apply the Supreme Court's recent precedent in Amgen v. Sanofi regarding the sufficiency of disclosure needed to satisfy the statutory enablement requirement under 35 US.C. § 112(a). After all, the decision is a rare affirmance of Federal Circuit…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – The Federal Circuit provided a reminder last week that merely identifying an unappreciated consequence of a prior art method cannot confer non-obviousness on practice of methods that did not acknowledge that consequence, in In re Couvaras. The appeal arose from a Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirming an Examiner's rejection that…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – Responsive to the letter from Judge Pauline Newman's counsel sent June 15th (see "Judge Newman Matter Continues"), the Special Committee directing the Federal Circuit's inquiry regarding Judge Newman's fitness for continued service on the Court (consisting of Chief Judge Moore, former Chief Judge Prost, and Judge Taranto) issued a per curiam…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – The Federal Circuit's Special Committee released two documents relevant to their continuing assessment of Judge Pauline Newman's fitness for the bench today, neither of which can be considered comforting to the patent community or those concerned about the Judge or the Court. The first is a letter from Judge Newman's counsel…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – In its recent review of a district court decision the Federal Circuit characterized as "a thorough opinion," the Federal Circuit affirmed invalidation for obviousness of four claims from four different Orange Book-listed patents in Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. The case arose in ANDA litigation involving Vanda's tasimelteon…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – The efforts to have Judge Pauline Newman, Circuit Judge on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, unfit or guilty of misconduct have been the subject of reporting in the patent blogosphere (Patently-O, IP Watchdog), the general legal press (Bloomberg Law, IPLaw360) and the popular press (Reuters) for over a…
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By Michael Borella — The patent statute requires that, to be patentable, the subject matter of an invention must be at least one of a process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. It is hard to find examples of things that do not fall into these broad categories, though signals in motion and…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – An appellant's burden on appeal is never easy but it is particularly difficult when the questions at issue are based on factual evidence. The appellate judiciary is loathe (generally) to second guess a district court judge on factual matters, in deference to the judge's experience in observing the demeanor of the…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – "This application claims priority to [properly identified earlier-filed application, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated herein in its entirety" is a phrase commonly found in patents and patent applications as an attempt to bolster disclosure without burdening the specification unnecessarily. Like many (most) stratagems, use of this phrase can give…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – The Supreme Court's (re)consideration of the enablement requirement expected in its decision later this year in Amgen v. Sanofi may be the most closely watched patent case since AMP v. Myriad Genetics. But in a decision handed down on Monday, Regents of the University of Minnesota v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., the…
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