In This Issue:

• Double Patenting Applies With Distinct Inventive Entities

• Inducement Judgment Remanded in Light of Akamai

• First Sale Doctrine Applies to Sales Made Abroad

- Excerpt from Double Patenting Applies With Distinct Inventive Entities:

In In Re Jeffrey Hubbell, Appeal No. 2011-1547, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s rejection of the claims at issue for obviousness-type double patenting.

The Board rejected Appellant Hubbell’s ’509 patent application, citing the ’685 patent and finding obviousness-type double patenting. Hubbell was the first named inventor on the ’509 application (with two other inventors) and on the ’685 patent (with one other inventor). The patent and application had different owners.

Hubbell argued that obviousness-type double patenting did not apply because the application and the cited patent were not commonly owned and lacked identical inventive entities. The Federal Circuit rejected this argument, relying on the justifications for the doctrine in its prior case law and language in the MPEP...