Category: Post-Grant Proceedings

  • By Kevin E. Noonan — Last week, the Federal Circuit affirmed invalidation of claims to methods for reducing Protein A leaching in affinity column chromatographic methods important inter alia in purifying monoclonal antibodies, in Genentech, Inc. v. Hospira, Inc.  In doing so, the panel majority (over a dissent by Judge Newman) illustrated anew the importance…

  • By Donald Zuhn –- Last month, in Becon Medical, Ltd. v. Bartlett, Senior District Judge Jan E. Dubois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied a motion to stay filed by Defendants Scott P. Bartlett, M.D. and TalexMedical, LLC ("TalexMedical").  In denying TalexMedical's motion, the District Court concluded that all…

  • By Donald Zuhn –- After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 13th annual list of top patent stories.  For 2019, we identified fifteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe had (or are likely to have) a significant impact on patent practitioners and…

  • By Donald Zuhn –- After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 13th annual list of top patent stories.  For 2019, we identified fifteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe had (or are likely to have) a significant impact on patent practitioners and…

  • By Kevin E. Noonan and James L. Lovsin — Today in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit held that the way the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has appointed administrative patent judges at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution (Art.…

  • Functional Language in Device Claim Ignored for Patentability Purposes By Joseph Herndon — The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently issued a decision indicating that certain claims of a patent directed to the popular PopSockets are invalid.  In Quest USA Corp. (Petitioner) v. PopSockets LLC (Patent Owner) (Case IPR2018-00497), the…

  • By Joshua Rich — When post-grant proceedings under the America Invents Act began, the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeals Board ("PTAB") treated motions to amend in those proceedings like most other motions:  the movant, here the patentee, bore the burden of production of evidence and the burden of persuasion on the issue of patentability of…

  • By Kevin E. Noonan — Last week, the Federal Circuit overturned an obviousness determination in an inter partes review by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in OSI Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Apotex Inc.  The Court also reaffirmed its holdings in earlier-decided cases that applying the IPR portion of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act to patents…

  • By Donald Zuhn — Today, in Honeywell Int'l v. Arkema Inc., the Federal Circuit vacated a combined Final Written Decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board in two post-grant review proceedings finding that claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 9,157,017 were unpatentable.  The Federal Circuit also remanded to the…

  • By Kevin E. Noonan — Last week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,064,197 to be invalid for anticipation or obviousness, in Enzo Life Sciences, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson and Co. (Fed. Cir. 2019).  Because Enzo raised the issue du jour,…