Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- Why the Alice Test is Stupid, Part IV: The Usefulness Paradox
- Teva Capitulates to Federal Trade Commission Coercion
- USPTO Issues Memoranda on Subject Matter Eligibility
- USPTO Revokes Guidance on AI-Assisted Inventorship, But Rules Remain Basically the Same
- Why the Alice Test is Stupid, Part III: Eligible Independent Claims Can Have Ineligible Dependent Claims
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Category: Supreme Court
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By Kevin E. Noonan — In a month where the Supreme Court's conservative majority has exercised its judicial muscle by striking down several well-established precedents, one portion of their jurisprudence is as fixed a constant as the North Star: the Court will not address the morass in patent subject matter eligibility created by the decisions…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The faintest glimmer of hope crept over the clouded patent law horizon today, when the Solicitor General provided the government's views to the Supreme Court in an amicus brief in American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc., Petitioner v. Neapco Holdings LLC. A simple synopsis is provided in the first sentences of…
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By Donald Zuhn –- After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 15th annual list of top patent stories. For 2021, we identified nine 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…
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By Donald Zuhn –- After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 15th annual list of top patent stories. For 2021, we identified nine 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…
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Supreme Court Retains Doctrine of Assignor Estoppel, But With Limits By Kevin E. Noonan and Joshua R. Rich — Patent law is replete with arcane (and often judge-made) doctrines, such as the doctrine of equivalence and obviousness-type double patenting. In addition, long having been considered a property right (Oil States to the recent contrary), patents…
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Supreme Court Narrows Federal "Anti-Hacking" Law to Exclude Enforcement Against Those Who Use Otherwise Authorized Access for Improper Purpose By Joshua Rich — There is a well-worn legal maxim that "hard cases make bad law." In deciding Van Buren v. United States today, the Supreme Court was faced with the opposite problem: bad laws[i] make…
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By Kevin E. Noonan and Michael Borella — Today, the Supreme Court requested the views of the Solicitor General in its consideration of American Axle's certiorari petition, which asks the Court to reverse the Federal Circuit's decision in American Axle & Mfg. v. Neapco Holdings LLC. That decision is noteworthy on several grounds. It is…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The Supreme Court heard oral argument last week in Minerva Surgical Inc. v. Hologic, Inc. over the issue of assignor estoppel (transcript). As a reminder, the case arose in an infringement suit over U.S. Patent Nos. 6,782,183 and 9,095,348. The patents were directed to "procedures and devices for endometrial ablation." Claim 9 of…
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By James Lovsin — As discussed here, the Justices asked many questions in the oral argument in Arthrex this week on both questions: (1) whether there was an Appointments Clause defect and (2) if so, whether the Federal Circuit properly cured it. With respect to the first question, several of the Justices appeared skeptical that…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — The Supreme Court heard argument on Monday in U.S. v. Arthrex, involving the question of whether appointment of Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) and their authority under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Both the Government and Smith & Nephew, who lost this argument below,…
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