The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has again relied on the Supreme Court’s Alice case to invalidate patents on the grounds that they are directed to an abstract idea. Realtime Data LLC v. Fortinet Inc. ( Fed. Cir. 8/2/2023)...more
Not everything is patentable. First, only inventions are patentable. Second, only certain inventions are patentable. Four types of inventions are patentable: articles of manufacture, machines, processes, and compositions of...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
A party accused of infringing a patent may challenge the validity of the patent in the federal court infringement litigation or in separate administrative proceedings in the Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and...more
The validity of a patent can be challenged in four different types of proceedings: ex parte reexamination, inter partes review, post grant review, and covered business method review. An ex parte reexamination is initiated by...more
6/14/2019
/ Administrative Agencies ,
America Invents Act ,
Covered Business Method Proceedings ,
Government Entities ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Patent Validity ,
Patents ,
Post-Grant Review ,
Return Mail Inc v United States Postal Service ,
SCOTUS
This week, the Supreme Court resolved a split in the circuits regarding an issue in copyright law that affects copyright owners in California. Until now, the law in the Ninth Circuit was that a copyright owner could file...more
Patent owners can no longer restrict the use of their patented products after the products are sold. Under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, a patent owner’s rights are “exhausted” once the patent owner sells the product. ...more
Although the general rule (based on 35 USC section 101) is that anything made by humans is patentable, there are exceptions. Laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. Inventions that fall in...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has established a new test for “divided” patent infringement. Direct infringement of a method patent exists when a single party performs all of the steps of the claimed method. 35 U.S.C....more
9/14/2015
/ Akamai Technologies ,
Appeals ,
Divided Infringement ,
En Banc Review ,
Joint Enterprise Theory ,
Limelight Networks ,
Limelight v Akamai ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court upheld the longstanding case law that prohibits a patent owner from receiving royalties after a patent has expired. In Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC (June 22, 2015) 2015 U.S....more
A U.S. patent is “presumed” valid. That means a patent owner does not need to prove the patent is valid in a suit for infringement. And, as the U.S. Supreme Court just explained in Commil United States, LLC v. Cisco Systems,...more
This week’s decision by the United States Supreme Court in Tibble v. Edison International, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 3171 (May 18, 2015), is expected to trigger an increase in lawsuits against 401(k) plan fiduciaries....more
5/28/2015
/ 401k ,
Beneficiaries ,
Breach of Duty ,
Duty of Prudence ,
Duty to Monitor ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Retirement Plan ,
SCOTUS ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Tibble v Edison Int ,
Trusts
The Supreme Court recently decided a patent case involving a significant procedural issue. In Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 831 (1/20/15), the question before the Court was whether the Federal...more