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
about
Category: Written Description
-
By Kevin E. Noonan – On November 15th, the Federal Circuit handed down its opinion affirming all aspects of the District Court's decision in Pharmacyclics LLC v. Alvogen, Inc. The case illustrates once more the importance of the clear error standard in support of factual aspects of a district court's decision, even regarding ultimate questions of…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The Federal Circuit recently granted a panel rehearing and vacated a panel decision between these parties decided earlier this year (see Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Accord Healthcare), and rendered a decision that reversed the District Court finding in that earlier opinion. To recap, the case arose in ANDA litigation over…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — On May 23rd, U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna of the Central District of California granted summary judgement to Defendant Sweegen, Inc. on its motion that Plaintiff Pure Circle USA Inc.'s claims in suit were invalid for reciting patent ineligible subject matter and for failing to satisfy the written…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The consequences of joint development agreements, particularly under circumstances where later development is pursued independently by the parties, can create, inter alia, allegations of improper ownership and infringement if the agreements do not contemplate these possibilities and account (or attempt to account) for them. Such was the case in the…
-
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…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — When does the absence of evidence turn into evidence of absence, and when does such absence amount to an adequate written description of the absence of a step of a method claim? This is a question that comes readily to mind when reading the Federal Circuit's opinion (and Chief Judge…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — As is well-known, Congress established the Federal Circuit as a circuit court of appeals to harmonize U.S. patent law in an environment where regional Circuit Courts had developed their own judicial interpretations of the patent statute. As a consequence, it was often to a party's benefit to choose to litigate…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act prescribed two very different post-grant review proceedings in U.S. patent law. The first, post-grant review (PGR), had some analogies with European opposition practice, in that petitions for PGR could be filed no later than nine months after the patent had granted and any ground of…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — Dominating the entering gallery of the Impressionists exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago is Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (see below). Painted in the pointillist style, the work comprises millions of individual paint dots reminiscent of photos taken with late 20th Century technology made up of…
-
By Kevin E. Noonan — The written description requirement has had a twenty-five year renaissance, particularly in the chemical and biotechnology arts as a way of restricting claim scope to what an inventor has actually invented (see Regents of the University of California v. Eli Lilly & Co. and "Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Eli Lilly…
Patent Docs 