Patent Law Weblog
recent posts
- Why the Alice Test is Stupid, Part III: Eligible Independent Claims Can Have Ineligible Dependent Claims
- Chewing the Cud: Are Tariffs Sucking IP Blud?
- USPTO Issues Notice Regarding Improper Small and Micro Entity Status
- Aortic Innovations LLC v. Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (Fed. Cir. 2025)
- Why the Alice Test is Stupid, Part II: The Mental Steps Doctrine Literally Makes No Sense
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Category: Written Description
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By Kevin E. Noonan — A patent applicant dissatisfied by an patent examiner's rejection of that applicant's claims in ex parte prosecution has recourse by appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) under 35 U.S.C. § 134, and to the Federal Circuit thereafter under 35 U.S.C. § 141. While there is no right…
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By Andrew Velzen — As reported by Quantum Insider[1], this past week, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) overturned an examiner's rejections of an application directed to a quantum computing invention.[2] Even though this decision is based solely on the view of three administrative patent…
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Note: This post addresses two Federal Circuit decisions issued on January 29, 2025. Both appeals involved Plaintiff-Appellee Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., with the first appeal involving Defendant-Appellant Formycon AG (Case 24-2009) and the second appeal involving Defendant-Appellant Samsung Bioepsis Co. (Case 24-1965). At trial, each case also included Defendants Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amgen USA, Inc., Biocon…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – One of the many changes introduced into U.S. patent law by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act were provisions for post-grant review (PGR) and inter partes review (IPR). There have been thousands of these proceedings instituted since their enactment into law, and the contours of how the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – Not surprisingly, the Federal Circuit visited upon Plaintiff/Appellant PureCircle two of the Four Horsemen of the Biotech Patent Apocalypse* in a decision affirming the District Court's invalidation of the claims asserted against Defendant SweeGen in PureCircle USA Inc. v. SweeGen, Inc. To recap, PureCircle sued SweeGen for infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 9,243,273…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — Section 112 of the patent statute, which in earlier years was something of a backwater in patent law, has had a tumultuous quarter century beginning with the Federal Circuit decision in Regents of the University of California v. Eli Lilly & Co., which (in the view of many) heightened the…
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By Kevin E. Noonan — There has been some comment in certain quarters regarding the recent penchant for the Federal Circuit to issue Rule 36 summary affirmances instead of full-fledged opinions as had been the Court's practice for much of its 40-year existence (see, e.g., D. D. Crouch, Wrongly Affirmed without Opinion, 52 Wake Forest…
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By Kevin E. Noonan – The Supreme Court's (re)consideration of the enablement requirement expected in its decision later this year in Amgen v. Sanofi may be the most closely watched patent case since AMP v. Myriad Genetics. But in a decision handed down on Monday, Regents of the University of Minnesota v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., the…
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By Donald Zuhn –- After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 16th annual list of top patent stories. For 2022, we identified ten 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 Kevin E. Noonan – As the dodo of patent practice, the number of interferences has been steadily dwindling since enactment of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in 2012 abolished the practice in favor of a "first inventor to file" regime and a derivation proceeding for instances where a patentee is found to have taken the…
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