Wolf Greenfield Attorneys Preview What’s Ahead in 2024
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Allergan USA, Inc. v. MSN Laboratories Private Ltd., No. 24-1061 (Fed. Cir. 2024), holding that “a first-filed, first-issued, later-expiring claim cannot...more
The US Supreme Court has denied cert on several cases involving patents and trademarks, meaning that the Court will not consider the appeals and the lower court rulings will stand....more
The Supreme Court denies Cellect LLC's petition for certiorari to consider whether patent term adjustment ("PTA") should be included in patent term for obviousness-type double patenting ("ODP") purposes....more
On October 7, 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear Cellect LLC v. Vidal, No. 23-1231. The case has been followed closely by patent professionals ever since the Federal Circuit upended the judicially-created doctrine of...more
On October 2, the USPTO terminated proceedings in approximately 3,100 patent applications due to the fraudulent entry of S-signatures of registered practitioners by others. The final order noted that improper use of a...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced that a recent update to its software “introduced a coding error into the patent term adjustment software the agency uses to perform patent term adjustment (PTA)...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has revealed “a coding error” in the software used to calculate Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) awards that may have impacted patents issued from March 19, 2024, through July 30,...more
In Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation v. Apple, the Federal Circuit expanded the preclusive effect of non-infringement rulings. It ruled that prior judgments of non-infringement can prevent follow-on lawsuits involving...more
In Allergan USA, Inc. et al., v. MSN Laboratories Private Ltd., et al., the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision relating to obviousness-type double patenting (“ODP”) and...more
On August 6, 2024, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) announced the fee standards for patent term adjustment (PTA) requests. Before this announcement, all submitted requests for PTA were pending...more
Obviousness-type double patenting (ODP), a judicially-created ground of patent invalidity, has become the subject of intense interest after the Federal Circuit issued two decisions refining the application of the doctrine in...more
The term of a U.S. utility patent extends 20 years from the date of priority filing. However, the USPTO provides a guarantee of “prompt patent and trademark office response” that may allow the term to extend beyond the 20...more
Medical device companies are often well versed in prosecuting multiple patents within a single “family.” Indeed, such families are often of significant value to early stage (and later stage) medical device companies. But a...more
On August 13, 2024, the Federal Circuit issued its decision in Allergan USA, Inc. v. MSN Laboratories Private Ltd., No. 24-1061, which limits the scope of obviousness-type double patenting for patents in the same family. The...more
On August 13, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in Allergan v. MSN that “a first-filed, first-issued, later-expiring claim” cannot be invalidated for obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) “by a...more
In December 2021, patent practice was upended by four related United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions holding that patents subject to statutory Patent Term Adjustment...more
In Allergan USA v. MSN Labs, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held, that later-filed, later-issued claims cannot serve as proper reference for invalidating earlier-filed, earlier-issued claims having the same...more
On August 13, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Allergan v. MSN Laboratories (Case No. 24-1061). This decision reversed the District of Delaware's application of the Federal Circuit precedent in In re:...more
Last year, the Federal Circuit surprised many observers of patent law in In re Cellect LLC, 81 F.4th 1216, 1228–29 (Fed. Cir. 2023) when—for the first time—it affirmed a U.S. Patent & Trademark Office decision cancelling an...more
In a new precedential decision issued August 13, 2024, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Allergan USA. v. MSN Labs, 24-1061, held that a first-filed, first-issued parent patent that receives a patent term...more
In its most recent decision addressing the complicated interplay between Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) and obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP), the Federal Circuit ruled that a first-filed, first-issued parent patent...more
The recent In re Cellect decision by the Federal Circuit1 is significant for patent owners who have obtained patent-term adjusted patents in the same patent family. The court held that term-adjusted patents can be potentially...more
A later-filed, later-issued, earlier-expiring child patent cannot be used as an obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) reference against its first-filed, first-issued, later-expiring parent patent having a common priority...more
In a case it described as “‘a prime example’ of when ODP does not apply,” the Federal Circuit recently reversed a decision from the District of Delaware that invalidated a claim for obviousness-type double patenting (ODP),...more
Under the patent laws, the term of a patent may be increased for delays by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) during the application process. See 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1). Conversely, the USPTO can reduce a patent term...more