On July 24, 2023, the United States Patent and Trademark Office changed its procedures for the PTO Director’s review of certain decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The decisions in question are those decisions of...more
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) whereby a U.S. patent can be challenged in the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Although a patent can be challenged in federal district...more
In Mobility Workx, LLC v. Unified Patents, LLC, (Fed. Cir. 2021), the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals addressed challenges to the constitutionality of the structure of the Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recently tangled with a patent application for an invention that did not have scientific support. The court affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejecting a patent...more
The validity of a United States patent can be challenged in federal court litigation. Patents can also be challenged in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which, in most cases, is a quicker and less costly process...more
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure to challenge a patent in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The IPR procedure was established by the American Invents Act, and was intended to be an improvement on the...more
A new temporary pilot program in the US PTO will speed up appeals in patent applications before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The program, which went into effect on July 2, 2020, is called the “Fast Track Appeals...more
There are a number of requirements that must be met for an invention to be patentable. The invention must be novel (unique) and nonobvious (i.e., a person skilled in the field of the invention would not have found the...more
The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) may reject a patent application on several different grounds. One of those grounds is obviousness. Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, if an invention is obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the...more
A lot of things are patentable. Under 35 U.S.C. §101, machines, articles of manufacture, processes, and compositions of matter (including new chemical compounds) are patentable. But some things are not: the exceptions are...more
Some things are not patentable: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. The Supreme Court has long held that inventions falling within these categories are not patentable; they are patent-ineligible subject...more
An inter partes review (IPR) is one of the ways a party can challenge a patent in the Patent and Trademark Office. This procedure was added by the America Invents Act, which established a panel of judges called the Patent...more
The latest issue in the patent world is one no one would have expected – sovereign immunity.
How did this issue arise? Allergan, the company that makes the dry-eye drug Restasis, has employed an aggressive strategy in...more
In In re Stepan Co., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 16246, decided August 25, 2017 the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals made it very clear that during patent prosecution, the burden of proving patent ability lies with the PTO examiner....more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has reminded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in no uncertain terms that covered business method review has limits. In Unwired Planet, LLC v....more