New Developments in Obviousness-Type Double Patenting and Original Patent Requirements — Patents: Post-Grant Podcast
Inter Partes Review: Validity Before the PTAB
In Virtek Visions international ULC v. Assembly Guidance Systems, Inc., DBA Aligned Vision Nos. 2022-1998, 2022-2022 (Fed Cir. Mar. 27, 2024), the Federal Circuit reviewed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s findings...more
There have been only a few precedential decisions from the Federal Circuit related to obviousness since spring sprung. While these decisions have produced mixed results for the lower courts, clinical study protocols have held...more
The Federal Circuit has reversed a finding by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board) that certain challenged claims of a patent for a method for aligning a laser projector with respect to a work surface are...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness decision, finding that disclosure in the prior art of all recited claim elements across multiple references, without more,...more
Volvo Penta appealed from a Board decision finding all of its claims unpatentable as obvious. The claims at issue covered a tractor-type stern drive for a boat. Volvo Penta raised three main issues on appeal, arguing (1) that...more
Zap filed an IPR petition alleging obviousness of a patent owned by Elekta. The petition relied on a combination of two references. The Board found a reason to combine the references and ultimately found obviousness of the...more
In Elekta Limited v. Zap Surgical Systems, Inc., No. 21-1985 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 21, 2023), the case addresses the interplay between findings related to motivation to combine and reasonable expectation of success in determining...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed an obviousness decision by the Patent Trial & Appeal Board, explaining that nothing requires a petitioner to identify a prior art reference as a “primary reference” in...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board unpatentability decision, finding that a combination of prior art references only requires an implicit indication of a reasonable...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board non-obviousness decision, finding that the context of the proposed combination of prior art in the Board’s obviousness inquiry...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court decision finding that two patents covering enantiomerically pure compositions of the psoriasis drug Otezla® (apremilast) were valid and one patent...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, addressing the issue of whether certain factual and legal conclusions relating to obviousness were supported by substantial evidence, held that the Patent Trial & Appeal Board...more
Affirming an obviousness decision by the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit explained that the expectation of success need only be reasonable and not absolute. Transtex Inc....more
In a recent opinion by the Federal Circuit, Auris Health, Inc. v Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc., Case 2021-1732, the panel split on the weight of general industry skepticism in an obviousness analysis and split on...more
The PTAB Strategies and Insights newsletter provides timely updates and insights into how best to handle proceedings at the USPTO. It is designed to increase return on investment for all stakeholders looking at the entire...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision finding the challenged claims patentable because the Board impermissibly rested its motivation-to-combine...more
SynQor, Inc. appealed the inter partes reexamination decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) holding un- patentable as obvious original claims 1–19, 28, and 31 of SynQor’s patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,072,190 as...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Last year, the continued global COVID-19 pandemic forced American courts to largely continue the procedures set in place in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was no...more
Addressing the sufficiency of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (PTAB) justification of its inter partes review (IPR) determination, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s obviousness...more
Building on Tip #4, one effective way to avoid institution and not address facts is to point out shortcomings in the petition's application of KSR when asserting motivation to combine for an obviousness analysis. The Patent...more
274-1 Federal Circuit Revisits American Axle & Manufacturing; Case Remanded to Determine if One of the “Hooke’s Law” Claims is Ineligible under Other Theories of Eligibility - The Federal Circuit recently issued a modified...more
PERSION PHARMACEUTICALS LLC v. ALVOGEN MALTA OPERATIONS LTD. Before O’Malley, Reyna, and Chen. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: The FDA’s acceptance of safety data for a...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a finding of obviousness by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), concluding that the finding was based on a reference that was included only in a non-instituted...more
FOX FACTORY, INC. v. SRAM, LLC - Before Prost, Wallach, and Hughes. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Summary: When a commercial product contains unclaimed features, a presumption of nexus between...more
On appeal from a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding of non-obviousness, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that a petitioner could not raise an “entirely new rationale” for combining two...more