In Hip, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, held that there was no joint inventorship when the contribution of preheating meat pieces using an infrared oven was insignificant in quality...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision to correct inventorship in a post-issuance inventorship dispute, finding that the alleged joint inventors’ contributions were significant...more
On February 12, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released guidance and a solicitation for public comments on assessing inventorship in the context of inventions aided by artificial intelligence...more
The Background: In response to the Biden administration's "Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" on October 30, 2023, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...more
This case addresses the requirements necessary to establish a prima facie case to correct inventorship under 35 U.S.C. § 256. Background - Hormel Foods appealed the District Court’s ruling that David Howard should be...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision to correct inventorship, finding that the alleged joint inventor’s contribution to a claimed invention was significant and adequately corroborated by...more
Last week, the Federal Circuit issued another precedential decision on inventorship. However, unlike in HIP, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corporation (22-1696) where the appellate panel found the purported inventor’s contribution to...more
The Federal Circuit has reversed the District of Delaware’s ruling that added an inventor to a patent. The Federal Circuit found that the contribution by the added inventor was not significant when measured against the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court decision and found that an asserted inventor not named in the application was not a joint inventor because in the context of the entire invention his...more
Efforts by HIP, Inc. to have David Howard added as an inventor to Hormel’s U.S. Patent No. 9,980,498 (Bacon Patent) were recently scorched by the Federal Circuit. More specifically, in HIP, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corporation...more
HIP, Inc. v. Hormel Foods Corp., Appeal No. 2022-1696 (Fed. Cir. May 2, 2023) In its only precedential patent opinion this week, the Federal Circuit reversed a district court determination that David Howard should be...more
As part of the recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took steps to return to normal operations. It began requiring live oral arguments in August 2022 and, by November,...more
In a case involving medical methods invented by two Nobel laureates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that sovereign immunity prevents a third researcher from pursuing his claim of co-inventorship...more
It is common for medical device makers to partner with doctors, universities, designers, manufacturers, R&D labs, or salespeople in the development of medical devices. To reap the intended benefits of such efforts,...more