March 26, 2019
The Federal Circuit on March 19 in Natural Alternatives Intl. v Creative Compounds LLC. reversed a district court's opinion finding Natural's patent claims to be patent ineligible. The district court's decision arose out of a motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by Creative.... Read more
Category: Federal Circuit
March 19, 2019
IPS Group Inc. ("IPS") appealed from two decisions of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granting summary judgment of non-infringement of U.S. Patents 8,595,054 and 7,854,310. Duncan Parking Technologies Inc. ("DPT") appealed from a related decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("the Board") in an inter partes review holding that claims 1–5 and 7–10 of the '310 patent were not shown to be unpatentable as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).... Read more
March 12, 2019
A bipartisan group of senators sponsored a bill this week—the Biologic Patent Transparency Act, S. 659—aimed at making patent information associated with biologics easier to identify and easing the approval process for biosimilar manufacturers encountering patent roadblocks.... 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
March 4, 2019
In an order last month, the Delaware district court ruled that some communications involving Onyx's patent agent were not privileged and must be produced to Cipla. The court's order highlights potential pitfalls when relying upon advice solely from patent agents.... Read more
February 27, 2019
In a precedential opinion issued on February 26, 2019, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court's finding of patent ineligibility for a claim "directed to the abstract idea of "collecting, analyzing, manipulating, and displaying data."" University of Florida Research Foundation Inc. v General Electric Company et al (Fed. Cir. 2019).... Read more
February 24, 2019
The USPTO argues that a petitioner who has received a favorable final written decision in an IPR is estopped from reusing the same winning argument in a district court. If the Federal Circuit in BTG International Ltd. v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, agrees with the PTO, an ANDA sponsor would not take the risk of "winning" at the PTAB and would rather present the best argument in a district court.... Read more
February 11, 2019
In the recent decision, Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Research Corporation Technologies, Inc., the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's finding that Claims 8 to 13 of U.S. Reissue Patent 38,551 ("the '551 patent") owned by Research Corporation Technologies, Inc. ("RCT") are not unpatentable.... Read more
January 28, 2019
Since the Federal Circuit’s decision in Wyeth v. Kappos, 591 F.3d 1364, 93 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1257 (Fed. Cir. 2010), aff’g, Wyeth v. Dudas, 580 F. Supp. 2d 138, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1538 (D.D.C. 2008), which held that the USPTO was improperly reducing patent term adjustment (PTA) by improperly calculating “overlapping” days of agency delay under 35 U.S.C. §154, the courts have been asked on numerous occasions to look at how the USPTO is calculating PTA. Not every case has been decided in favor of the challenger, but a fair amount has. In addition, the USPTO has identified several internal errors including not accounting for the IDS safe harbor under 37 C.F.R. §1.704(d). As such, patentees should be very mindful of this evolving and important provision of law.<... Read more
January 2, 2019
The USPTO has recently announced extension of Patents 4 Patients, also called as the Cancer Immunotherapy Pilot Program, until June 30, 2020. This pilot program was started on June 29, 2016, to provide a fast-track examination for an application related to cancer immunotherapy. The PTO’s goal is to issue a final decision within a year of the entry of the program. <... Read more