Category: Uncategorized

By Kevin E. Noonan – The course of the proceedings involving the attempts to remove Judge Pauline Newman from the Federal Circuit is long, and in many senses tragic (see links below).  Just when you might think the last Act has begun (see “Judge Newman Seeks Recourse from Supreme Court“), the Judicial Conduct and Disability…

Despite a pointed decision by the Federal Circuit vacating and remanding the matter to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, yesterday the Board once again granted priority for CRISPR technology to the Broad Institute. A more detailed discussion of the basis for this judgment will follow.

By Kevin E. Noonan – The Parties – Senior Party Broad Institute, Harvard University, and MIT (collectively, “Broad”) and Junior Party Regents of the University of California, Berkeley; University of Vienna; and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively “CVC”) – each timely filed a paper on conception dates upon which they intend to rely in the Patent Trial…

By Michael Borella – Among the many failings of the current U.S. patent eligibility framework under 35 U.S.C. § 101, perhaps none is more corrosive to the patent system’s basic function than the fact that the framework keeps changing.  The judicial exceptions to patentability are, in theory, stable background principles.  These exceptions limit the breadth…

By Kevin E. Noonan – Neither the Parties nor the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) have been resting in addressing the decision by the Federal Circuit that vacated and remanded the Board’s decision awarding priority in Interference No. 106,115 to Senior Party The Broad Institute, Harvard University, and MIT (collectively, “Broad”; Junior Party is…

By Kevin E. Noonan – The course of the proceedings involving the attempts to remove Judge Pauline Newman from the Federal Circuit is long and in many senses tragic (see links below).  Last week the latest, and likely last, Act of this sad drama was initiated by Judge Newman filing a petition for certiorari with…

By Kevin E. Noonan – One of the beneficial characteristics of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic were pledges from companies involved in developing vaccines (such as Moderna, Pfizer, BioNTech and others) not to enforce patents on relevant technology during the duration.  That restraint has long-since vanished (as has the global pandemic effects of the…

By Kevin E. Noonan – A consequence of the gradual decline in COVID infections worldwide has been a less gradual increase in patent litigation by the many entities having patent rights for the vaccines or components of them.  This is particularly true of the so-called “mRNA” vaccines, which have been the subject of development by…

By Joshua Rich – On February 27, 2026, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice filed a “Statement of Interest” in Collision Communications, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a case pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in which the judge…

By Michael Borella – If we have learned anything from the last twelve years of patent eligibility jurisprudence, it is that the Federal Circuit continues to find new ways to disappoint.  The Federal Circuit’s recent nonprecedential decision in Oasis Tooling, Inc. v. Siemens Industry Software Inc. is a master class in how not to conduct…