Due to the COVID-19 Emergency, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced extensions (read more here) to the time allowed to file certain patent- and trademark-related documents, as well as payment of certain required fees. These actions are an exercise of temporary authority provided to the USPTO by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, […]
In the Federal Register Notice of March 2, 2020 (linked here), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a guidance such that, effective immediately, it will be necessary to provide evidence that delays were unintentional for the following petitions:
In a recent case, Samsung Electronics America v. Prisua Engineering Corp., the Federal Circuit held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) cannot invalidate patent claims as indefinite during an Inter Partes Review, making some patents more difficult to challenge.
The Safe Harbor Provision of 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1) states that: “It shall not be an act of infringement to make, use, offer to sell, or sell within the United States or import into the United States a patented invention (other than a new animal drug or veterinary biological product which is primarily manufactured using […]
In two recent cases, the Federal Circuits held that claim amendments at issue were “tangential” to the “equivalent” at issue, and upheld findings of infringement. The case details are below: Case #1: Ajinomoto Co. v. ITC The claim amendment at issue related to an encoding nucleotide sequence. The original claim language recited “a protein which […]
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed to modify the fees associated with all aspects of patent filing and maintenance. The proposal includes an increase — by about 25% — of the petition fees and institution fees for all post-grant proceedings. Post-Grant Proceeding Fee Increases The total fees due will bring the […]
The Senate IP subcommittee recently held three public hearings on the state of patent eligibility. It clearly appeared that relatively recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have left companies, universities, and investors confused and unable to understand what is patentable and what is not. The consequences are very important because currently, companies are reluctant to start […]
{2:50 minutes to read} Recently, the Federal Circuit issued a decision stating that a reasoning that it is “intuitive” to combine references is insufficient to support an obviousness-type rejection.
A series of recent Supreme Court cases have left the state of patent law in flux, and what happens next is really anyone’s guess. The Court’s decisions in Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. and Association For Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. have resulted in scores of patent applications being rejected […]