December 9, 2019
Motions to amend (MTAs) are generally disfavored. The prevailing approach calls for patentees to file an MTA in Inter Partes Review (IPR) only in limited circumstances. In particular, most patentees are moving to narrow or clarify claim scope via an MTA only in cases where (i) there is no related application pending at the Office and (ii) the specter of lost past damages due to intervening rights outweighs the risk of an invalidity finding. At first glance, neither (i) nor (ii) appears to be true in the case of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. v. Ethicon, LLC, (IPRs2018-00933, 00934, and 00935), yet Ethicon elected to pursue an MTA in each of the IPRs and was successful in doing so.... Read more
March 11, 2019
Spring gardening season has begun and the USPTO is once again planting its Motion to Amend ("MTA") seeds. In a substantial redux of Western Digital Corporation v. Spex Technologies, IPR2018-00082,-00084, paper 13, the PTAB this past week designated paper 15 of Lectrosonics v. Zaxcom, IPR2018-01129, 01130("Lectrosonics Order") as an informative decision.... Read more
June 18, 2018
In Medtronic, Inc. v. Barry (2017-1169 and 2017-1170), the Federal Circuit (Circuit Judges Taranto, Plager, and Chen, decision authored by Judge Chen, hereinafter "the panel") vacated the PTAB's finding in IPRs2015-00780 and -00783 that Medtronic's slides and videos constitute "printed publications" within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. §102(b). Since only patents and printed publications are eligible as prior art in inter partes review ("IPR"), the question whether non-patent literature ("NPL") such as slides and videos distributed at a conference constitute printed publications is clearly of interest to those in the medical device field.... Read more