The spread of COVID-19 has created a defining moment for the digital health sector, as many products and services once considered “nice-to-haves” have transformed into necessities. Venture investors and company founders may be operating remotely but they are still hard at work, and the deal flow in the second quarter of 2020 reflects that.
The first quarter of 2020 was a record-breaker, with billions of dollars raised by digital health startups across hundreds of…
In my post back in March 2018, I analyzed an upward change in allowance rates in the 36XX art units based on my practitioner’s observation that inventions were finally beginning to be more frequently found eligible for patenting following a string of pro-eligibility Federal Circuit decisions.
It has now been 1.5 years since the USPTO issued its 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance in January 2019, specifying that patent prosecution henceforth should cite to…
Despite the changes and uncertainty rippling across the entire venture-backed startup ecosystem, the digital health sector saw its best first quarter since analysts began tracking its performance more than a decade ago, logging $3.1 billion across 107 deals, according to Rock Health. StartUp Health put the figure even higher, reporting $4.5 billion raised in health innovation funding.
But these record-breaking numbers are not expected to hold up for the rest of 2020, researchers said.…
On April 30, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Uniloc v. LG Electronics, concerning claims to a software invention for a local communication system that reduced latency for parked secondary systems, e.g., when connecting a local wireless peripheral device to a computer.
Although the court’s reasoning itself is not of particular note, in concluding that the claims were in fact patent-eligible, the court stated that “[t]o the extent [defendant] LG argues that the…
On Thursday, April 23, the USPTO released a new study entitled “Adjusting to Alice: USPTO patent examination outcomes after Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International.” The report illustrates the dramatic impact of two developments in the application of § 101 law: first, the Supreme Court’s Alice decision in June 2014, and—second and more recently—promulgation to patent examiners of the USPTO’s internal documents providing more specific guidance for how to apply the doctrine of Alice.
Although…
Under the America Invents Act, the USPTO is to stop accepting petitions for review of covered business method patents after September 16, 2020. Given the various other priorities Congress will be dealing with between now and then, it appears virtually certain that Congress will not do anything to prevent the scheduled sunset of this transitional proceeding.
Two years ago, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet held hearings on…
Recent comments from Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia offer a counterpoint to my last post on the state of patent eligibility reform, in which I noted that Senator Tillis had recently expressed that modifications to the existing legal framework were unlikely to take place in the near future.
Speaking to Law360, Rep. Johnson, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, stated that although reform is “very complicated,”…
Since I last wrote on the Coons-Tillis patent eligibility reform in Congress, the Federal Circuit declined to take up an en banc rehearing of Athena v. Mayo. The court was deeply divided in the 7-5 decision, with all 12 judges believing that the diagnostic claims at issue should be patentable despite their holding, and with 7 judges writing separately to express their concerns, many of them expressly entreating the Supreme Court and/or Congress to…
The annual gathering of life sciences executives and investors in San Francisco that many now call “JPM Week” recently concluded, marking the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference’s 38th year.
The Big Story of 2019 & 2020 Outlook: M&A
The one-week confab centered on the Westin St. Francis Hotel in Union Square is thought to set the stage for life sciences investing for the coming 12 months. Last year, that certainly proved to be the case when…
At Fenwick’s recent Digital Health Investor Summit, Bill Evans—CEO and managing director of Rock Health—noted to attendees that private investment in digital health showed signs of leveling off in the third quarter of 2019. As of November 8, 2019, the year-to-date total through the third quarter is $5.5 billion, putting the sector on track to raise $7.3 billion this year, slightly below 2018’s high watermark of $8.3 billion. He also noted that megadeals,…