Attorney:
Grace Kim
January 23, 2023
Update by Kasumi Kanetaka & Grace Kim
Last month, the Federal Circuit issued a non-precedential decision affirming the PTAB’s holdings in two final written decisions. P Tech, LLC (herein “P Tech”) appealed the PTAB decisions holding that claims 1 and 4 of U.S. Patent 9,192,395 (herein “’395 patent”) and claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent 9,149,281 (herein “’281 patent”) are unpatentable because they would have been obvious over the cited prior art, U.S. Patent 6,331,181 (herein “Tierney”) in view of U.S. Patent 5,518,163 (herein “Hooven”).P Tech, LLC, v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., No. 22-1102, No. 22-1115 (December 15, 2022)<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
December 14, 2022
Update by Grace Kim and Chris Tuinenga
Colgate-Palmolive Co. appealed the Examiner’s rejection of U.S. Application No. 15/539,725 (filed June 26, 2017) as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. §112(b) and obvious under §103 in light of U.S. Application No. 2007/0025928 A1 (published February 1, 2007), “Glandorf.” The PTAB reversed the Examiner’s rejections under §112(b) and several of the Examiner’s rejections based on the Glandorf reference but affirmed an obviousness-type double patenting rejection over U.S. Patent No. 10,350,151 B2 (issued July 16, 2019) to Qiao in view of Glandorf. The Board quickly dispatched the Examiner’s indefiniteness rejection based on the claims’ express limitation that the complex must have a 20:1 phosphorous to zinc mole ratio before focusing on the obviousness rejections.<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
December 13, 2022
Update by Grace Kim and Sara Pistilli, PharmD.
On December 6, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) overturned a rejection of a claim to a plant extract based on patent ineligible subject matter (Appeal 2022-001062). Claim 1 of the application US 15/521,212 (the 212 Application) is directed towards:<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
December 9, 2022
The USPTO has published a Federal Register Notice announcing a new program: the Cancer Moonshot Expedited Examination Pilot Program. Beginning on February 1, 2023, the new program expedites examination for a broad scope of technologies to prevent cancer and cancer mortality. Patent applications pertaining to the qualifying technologies will be accorded special status and reviewed earlier. The program is scheduled to run until either January 31, 2025, or the date by which the USPTO accepts a total of 1,000 grantable petitions, whichever is earlier.... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
October 15, 2021
Patents are undoubtedly essential to many industries, and in recent years, the decisions regarding patent eligibility, written description, and enablement have certainly shaken up the life sciences industry in particular. There is an increasing burden on patent applicants and patentees to provide complex, lengthy, thoroughly written disclosures to satisfy the rising standards for written description and enablement, as well as the added pressure to draft multiple claims of varying scope.<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
July 15, 2021
In the recent decision PacificBiosciences of California, Inc. v. Oxford Nanopore Techs., Inc., No. 20-2155 issued on May 11, 2021, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s holdings on two important issues, which are particularly of present-day relevance: (1) the influence of the global COVID-19 crisis on the public or jury’s view of the enforcement of intellectual property; and (2) the question of enablement.<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
April 21, 2021
I recently wrote an article (NHK-Fintiv Rule Challenges Look Futile at Federal Circuit) about a Federal Circuit decision that dismissed Mylan’s appeal of a PTAB decision that denied institution of an IPR. The Federal Circuit concluded that although judicial review is available by petition for mandamus and the Federal Circuit may consider Mylan’s request for mandamus, “there is no reviewability of the Director’s exercise of his discretion to deny institution except for colorable constitutional claims.” Mylan Laboratories Ltd. v. Janssen Pharmaceutica. N.V., No. 2021-1071, slip op. at 12 (Fed. Cir. March 12, 2021) (precedential).<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
April 6, 2021
The NHK-Fintiv rule allows the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to deny institution of an inter partes review petition based on the progress of a parallel U.S. district court proceeding of the same patent. The rule was established under former USPTO director Andrei Iancu in 2018, in NHK Spring v. Intri-Plex., No. IPR2018-00752, Paper 8 (PTAB Sept. 12, 2018) (precedential). As a result of the restrictions opposed by the NHK-Fintiv Rule, many petitioners have been facing increasing challenges in seeking review at the PTAB for patents where there is a parallel district court proceeding.<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
May 08, 2020
The Federal Circuit issued a public opinion in Boston Scientific Scimed, Inc., v. Andrei Iancu, No. 2018-2004 (Fed. Cir. May 6, 2020) (sealed opinion was previously issued on April 27, 2020), affirming the PTAB’s final written decision in IPR 2017-00060. The CAFC upheld that challenged claims 1-4 of U.S. Patent No. 8,992,608 to Boston Scientific are invalid as being obvious over prior art.<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
May 07, 2020
The Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision addressing standing requirements in Argentum Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., No. 2018-2273, slip op. (Fed. Cir. April 23, 2020).<... Read more