Patent 213

New thinking on written description, enablement and patent eligibility issues

Blog Authors

Nicholas J. Landau, Ph.D.

Bradley

Latest from Patent 213

Patent 213

Another Gaming Patent Struck Down as Ineligible

By Stephanie D. Scruggs

July 19, 2021

Bot M8 LLC, a patent assertion entity, was unsuccessful in its effort to have the Federal Circuit reverse the lower court’s invalidity finding related to one of six different patents asserted against Sony in Northern District of California. In fact, the Federal Circuit was so unpersuaded by Bot M8’s arguments that it devoted less than a page of the 25-page opinion to this portion of the appeal. That being said, the little that was written…

Patent 213

Court Decision Means that Antibody Patenting Is Not Getting Easier

By Nicholas J. Landau, Ph.D.

June 29, 2021

Patenting antibodies has long been challenging. Although most inventions can be patented based on their functionality, assuming the functionality is new and non-obvious, for antibodies and other biomolecules there is a higher standard. Although the antibody standard was recently challenged, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decided to uphold it. The Historic Antibody Rule One of the main requirements for a patent is that the invention be described thoroughly enough to…

Patent 213

Stanford’s Method for Inferring Haplotype Phase is Not Patent Eligible

By Andrew Tuggle & Jessica L. Zurlo

April 6, 2021

Stanford University applied for a U.S. patent for statistical methods of predicting haplotype phase. In 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected the application as ineligible subject matter. Last week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed. The opinion is interesting for being related to two, often separate fields: software and medicine (specifically genetics and bioinformatics). So, let’s look at what the Federal Circuit said about this…

Patent 213

“Anything You Say …” — Terms with Inconsistent Definitions Are Indefinite

By Andrew Tuggle

February 16, 2021

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) held the term “computer” to be indefinite. That such a familiar term could be indefinite should warn patent practitioners to take care when arguing the scope of a term — even in otherwise unrelated proceedings, possibly separated by years. Infinity Computer Products, Inc., owns a U.S. patent on using a fax machine as a printer/scanner for a personal computer. As detailed below, one…

Patent 213

Drug Patent Invalid Due to Poor Quality Translation

By Nicholas J. Landau, Ph.D.

September 28, 2020

In IBSA Institut Biochimique v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. a valuable lesson was learned about relying on a translation of a non-English patent application. The IBSA Institut Biochimique (IBSAIB) hired an Italian patent agent to file a patent application in Italian for a thyroid drug formulation. The application was filed in Italy. Within 12 months of filing in Italy, IBSAIB filed a patent application in the United States, citing its Italian patent application under…

Patent 213

Bradley Attorney and Patent 213 Editor Nicholas J. Landau and Six Other Patent Attorneys Listed in 2021 The Best Lawyers in America

By Bradley

September 25, 2020

We are excited to announce that attorney and Patent 213 blog editor, Nicholas J. Landau, was included in the 2021 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® for Patent Law. Firmwide, seven patent attorneys at Bradley are listed by Best Lawyers. Several of our patent law attorneys also author blog content for Patent 213. A member of the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group and contributing author and editor of the Patent 213 blog, Mr.…

Patent 213

Patenting COVID-19 Tests: Avoiding the Common Pitfalls

By Nicholas J. Landau, Ph.D.

July 2, 2020

The impact on human health of the global pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the resulting disease termed COVID-19 cannot be overstated. Not since the influenza pandemic of 1918 have so many regions of the world been so acutely impacted by a single pathogen. Society in 2020 has the advantage of a more sophisticated biotechnology industry. Testing is considered crucial in controlling (or at least mitigating) the pandemic, and tests from several companies have become…

Patent 213

“Abstract Assertion of Breadth” Does Not Prove Non-Enablement

By Andrew Tuggle

May 27, 2020

McRO, Inc., owns a U.S. patent on a method for animating faces in video games. Back in 2016, when McRO sued a number of video-game developers for patent infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) upheld the patent as subject-matter eligible. Now, the CAFC has again upheld the patent, this time against a challenge of non-enablement. Patents must enable the full scope of claims At their core, patents are a…

Patent 213

An Early Out Under § 101 Based on Claimed Long-standing Commercial Practices

By Stephanie D. Scruggs

May 22, 2020

Late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit delivered ShoppersChoice.com the affirmation it ordered in Electronic Communication Technologies, LLC (ECT) v. ShoppersChoice.com, LLC. In doing so, the court supplied accused infringers with a helpful example of what may be appropriate for early dismissal under 35 U.S.C. § 101. In addition, this opinion discusses the ineligibility of claims directed at long-standing commercial practices. ECT brought suit in the Southern District of Florida…

Patent 213

Done at Step 1: When a Claim Is Tied to an Improvement, No Need to Proceed to Alice Step 2

By Stephanie D. Scruggs

May 11, 2020

https-patent213fullservice-babc-blogs-com-wp-content-uploads-sites-32-2020-05-working-on-tech_gettyimages-1191651018-300x200-jpg

By reversing the lower court’s ruling that the asserted claims were not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Uniloc v. LG Electronics, the Federal Circuit resurrected Uniloc’s infringement suit against LG Electronics. It also demonstrated what we already know — courts have been inconsistent in their application of the Alice/Mayo test. Nevertheless, this latest opinion provides us with another good example of claim language that the Federal Circuit considers to be non-abstract such that…

Patent 213

New thinking on written description, enablement and patent eligibility issues

Blog Authors

Another Gaming Patent Struck Down as Ineligible

Court Decision Means that Antibody Patenting Is Not Getting Easier

Stanford’s Method for Inferring Haplotype Phase is Not Patent Eligible

“Anything You Say …” — Terms with Inconsistent Definitions Are Indefinite

Drug Patent Invalid Due to Poor Quality Translation

Bradley Attorney and Patent 213 Editor Nicholas J. Landau and Six Other Patent Attorneys Listed in 2021 The Best Lawyers in America

Patenting COVID-19 Tests: Avoiding the Common Pitfalls

“Abstract Assertion of Breadth” Does Not Prove Non-Enablement

An Early Out Under § 101 Based on Claimed Long-standing Commercial Practices

Done at Step 1: When a Claim Is Tied to an Improvement, No Need to Proceed to Alice Step 2

Stay Connected

Company

Products

Support

New to the Network