Category: Uncategorized

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…

By Michael Borella – More than a decade after Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, the two-step framework for patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 remains as contentious as ever.  Courts, commentators, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have all acknowledged the difficulty of applying a test that turns on undefined terms such…

By Kevin E. Noonan – The Federal Circuit affirmed a District Court determination that method claims reciting administration of a modification of an established antibiotic by adding magnesium to the composition were infringed and not invalid in Melinta Therapeutics, LLC v. Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The case arose as ANDA litigation over Nexus Pharma’s generic version…