Patent Law Weblog
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- 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)
- To Require an Inventor ID, or Not to Require an Inventor ID – That Is the Question
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Category: Inequitable Conduct
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Opposing Federal Circuit Preliminary Injunction Standards in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz By Kevin E. Noonan — The decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, affirming the District Court's grant of a preliminary injunction, nicely illustrates the way the Federal Circuit exercises its prerogatives in applying the…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — We may have reached the high-water mark on the expansion of the inequitable conduct doctrine. Recent decisions from the Federal Circuit seem to signal a retrenchment in the Court’s treatment of the doctrine, and its willingness to affirm district court judgments finding inequitable conduct, particularly in the context…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Sanity may be returning to the Federal Circuit’s treatment of two issues, obviousness and inequitable conduct. In Eisai Co. v. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Inc., the Court (in an opinion by Judge Rader joined by Judges Linn and Prost) affirmed the District Court’s determination that the patent-in-suit, U.S. Patent…
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By Sherri Oslick — Late last week, Judge Pisano of the District Court of New Jersey granted summary judgment of no inequitable conduct in favor of AstraZeneca in its consolidated Paragraph IV litigation against Teva Pharmaceuticals and Sandoz, Inc. over AstraZeneca’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel®. Because the Defendants previously abandoned their other defenses, no…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — On June 9, 2008, the University of Pittsburgh obtained a judgment correcting inventorship of U.S. Patent No. 6,777,231 under 35 U.S.C. § 256. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California determined that several of the inventors, who had assigned their rights to the Regents of…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Among the many things "wrong" with U.S. patent law, few outside the profession (meaning few among the cadre of gadflies, pundits, careerists, and those grinding their different shades of political and rhetorical axes against current patent law) focus on one of the real problems: the varying and inconsistent…
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By Donald Zuhn — Earlier this month, the Federal Circuit in a 2-1 decision affirmed the determination by the District Court for the Central District of California that U.S. Patent Nos. RE 38,743 and 5,389,618, which are owned by Plaintiffs-Appellees Aventis Pharma S.A. and Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Aventis), are unenforceable for inequitable conduct. In affirming…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — On Friday, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed Pfizer a mixed decision on defendant Teva’s appeal of a District Court judgment that Teva was liable for infringing a trio of Pfizer patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 5,466,823; 5,563,165; and 5,760,068) relating to the pain medication Celebrex®…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Even as the Senate may be preparing to vote on a patent "reform" bill that contains (for the first time) provisions codifying a standard for inequitable conduct, the Federal Circuit continues to develop its own inequitable conduct jurisprudence. The draft Senate report on the proposed bill, S. 1145,…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Malpractice is an ugly word. But patent practitioners may take some comfort in two precedential decisions today from the Federal Circuit, holding that allegations of malpractice in patent prosecution "arise under" patent law and thus provide subject matter jurisdiction in Federal Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1338. The…
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