Category: Uncategorized

By Kevin E. Noonan – Written description jurisprudence has been one of the areas of statutory explication of Section 112(a) (along with enablement) primarily under the purview of the Federal Circuit (until the Supreme Court’s Amgen v. Sanofi decision on enablement; the Court has yet to take a written description case in the Federal Circuit…

By Kevin E. Noonan – In addition to Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences defending on appeal the District Court’s summary judgment decision in their favor, these plaintiffs filed their complaint against the Federal Government pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1498 for recompense before the Court of Federal Claims (No. 26-446 C) resulting from Moderna’s infringing…

By Kevin E. Noonan – The parties in the appeal of the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Arbutus and Genevant over Moderna, holding Moderna liable for $1.3 billion in patent infringement damages, attracted a fair amount of amicus support.  Although Plaintiffs Arbutus and Genevant had more amici writing in their favor, there appear…

By Kevin E. Noonan – The parties in the appeal of the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Arbutus and Genevant over Moderna, holding Moderna liable for $1.3 billion in patent infringement damages attracted a fair amount of amicus support.  Although Plaintiffs Arbutus and Genevant had more amici writing in their favor, there appear…

By Kevin E. Noonan – Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences, having prevailed in district court litigation against Moderna involving infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,058,069, 8,492,359, 8,822,668, 9,364,435, 9,504,651, and 11,141,378 regarding lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology specifically comprising a particular cationic lipid: used in making vaccines against SARS-CoV-19 virus (COVID-19), filed its responsive brief in…

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 Donald Zuhn – In a Patent Alert distributed last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reminded stakeholders that beginning on Monday, July 20, patent applicants and owners who are not domiciled in the U.S. or its territories are now required to be represented by a USPTO-registered patent practitioner.  The requirement was announced earlier…

By Kevin E. Noonan – Since the institution of inter parte review (IPR) proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in 2012, parallel proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board and district courts have become somewhat commonplace.  Frequently, the former proceedings arise after a patent infringement defendant is served, as a way to accomplish…

By Michael Borella and Walter DeGroft[1] – For the fifth consecutive year, we have surveyed how the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decides appeals of § 101 rejections from examiners.  Readers of the previous installments will know the drill by now.  Applicants who appeal a subject matter eligibility rejection to the PTAB have historically…

By Kevin E. Noonan – In a nonprecedential opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that the claim challenged in an ex parte reexamination was invalid for anticipation in In re Magnolia Medical Technologies, Inc. The appeal involved the ex parte reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 10,039,483, wherein…