The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a final rule in the Federal Register on August 3, 2020 that includes a fee for patent applications that are not filed in DOCX format, except for design, plant, or provisional applications. This new fee was scheduled to become effective on January 1, 2023. Through this […]
On May 22, 2019, the draft language of a bipartisan bill meant to amend section 101 of 35 U.S.C. was released by Senators Tom Tillis and Chris Coons. The sponsors say the bill is needed because recent Supreme Court rulings have rendered more difficult to patent certain types of inventions (diagnostic methods, software, and business […]
On June 7, 2018, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued another memorandum on patent eligibility: the Vanda Memo (click here to view PDF copy). The memo is based on a recent case decided by the Federal Circuit, Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. West-Ward Pharmaceuticals.
In a recent case, Droplets, Inc. v. E*Trade Bank, the Federal Circuit agreed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that a patent belonging to Droplets, Inc. was invalid because of a defective priority claim. In so holding, the Court affirmed that a priority […]
In February 2018, the Federal Circuit decided the case Berkheimer v. HP Inc., in which it held that evaluating patent eligibility may involve issues of facts that may preclude ineligibility. On April 19, 2018, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a memorandum stating that elements of a patent cannot be found to […]
In a new case, Exergen Corp. v. Kaz USA, Inc., the court considered an inventor’s investment in determining a patent’s eligibility of two patents. The patents were directed to a “body temperature detector” and related methods. There were two representative claims recited.
{2:30 minutes to read} In this article, we will look at a transitional phrase and at how the courts decided its meaning. So, what is the meaning and the scope of the closed-ended transitional phrase “consisting of”?
{1:35 minutes to read} On July 11, 2016, the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) initiated a pilot program called The Post-Prosecution Pilot Program (P3). Under this program, once an applicant files an after final response, a panel of examiners, including the examiner of record, will conduct a conference with the applicant to review […]
{1:35 minutes to read} On April 8, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, decided Genetic Technologies Limited v. Merial L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. The issue of this case related to the discovery that, in human DNA, certain coding alleles are always linked with certain non-coding alleles. Thus, searching for the non-coding sequences corresponding […]
{1:40 minutes to read} A significant case for the patent law industry is currently on appeal before the Federal Circuit court. The case, Immersion Corp. v HTC Corp., could decide what happens when an application is filed before the patenting of its parent application. Oral arguments for this case will be heard by the court […]