Patent Infringement Pleading Standards Remain Unsettled Five Years After the Abrogation of Form 18 – Part 1: Inconsistent Federal Circuit Guidance
December 1, 2020 will mark the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abrogation of Form 18—the model complaint that provided the minimum requirements for stating a claim of direct infringement. Following the abrogation of Form 18, patent infringement claims must satisfy the plausibility standard articulated in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). Courts, however, have diverged in applying Iqbal and Twombly to patent…