Patents

Image from here We’re pleased to bring to you an incisive guest post by Rahul Bajaj, arguing that it is not only wise for the Government to use the patent law flexibilities to ensure accessibility to medical devices required to combat ... Read More

Motupalli v. Iancu (Supreme Court 2020) This pro se petition to the Supreme Court has a number of major problems, but does ask one interesting question: Whether 35 U.S.C. §112 [the enablement doctrine] is satisfied when the specification of a patent application is enabling to an interdisciplinary team of two or ... Read More

The Federal Circuit is set to start holding oral arguments again for the week of April 6, 2020. The arguments not be in-person but rather conducted via telephone (audio only).  The currently conceived setup won’t allow non-parties to listen-in on the conversation but the court is recording oral arguments and ... Read More

A press relaease issued yesterday by Christine Lambrecht, the German minister of Justice and Consumer Protection states: “I will continue to work to ensure that we can provide the European innovative industry with a single European patent with a European patent court. The Federal Government will carefully evaluate the decision ... Read More

Contrary to all expectations, the German government wants the Unitary Patent project to go ahead as soon as possible, despite the recent ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, declaring void the Act of Approval of the UPC Agreement. In a press release of 26 March 2020, the German minister of ... Read More

Higher Regional Court of Munich on the requirements for the reasons for a preliminary injunction in patent litigation – change of previous case law (judgment of December 12, 2019 – Case 2 U 4009/19*) – “Leiterklemme” In patent litigation, the reasons for an injunction necessary for the issuance of a ... Read More

On both sides of the Atlantic one can watch interesting examples of "reverse protectionism":Not only did this blog comment on the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's intervention on behalf of a foreign-owned industrial-scale patent troll against Apple and Intel, but Reuters also noted that the DOJ "backs [a] prolific ... Read More

Genentech v. Iancu (Fed. Cir. 2020) Hospira, Samsung Bioepis, Celltrion, and Pfizer each filed one or more inter partes review (IPR) petitions challenging Genentech breast-cancer slow-down patents: US7846441 and US7892549.  The patents recognize that some breast cancer patients make too much ErbB2 protein.  The offered solution is administration of an ... Read More

The US is reporting more new jobless claims last week than for the entire prior year — ending a 10-year streak of month-by-month “job growth” that began shortly after Pres. Obama took office and has continued for the past three years under Pres. Trump. In addition to cutting employees, businesses ... Read More

The Covid 19 pandemic has now changed the way most of us are going about our day to day lives. In India, we are now on day 2 of our 21 day nation wide lock-down. In the midst of all that is going on now, Intellectual Property enthusiasts with a ... Read More

The following is the text of the CARES Act as it relates to the USPTO deadlines. [Full Text of the Bill]. SEC. 12004. (a) IN GENERAL.—During the emergency period described in subsection (e), the Director may toll, waive, adjust, or modify, any timing deadline established by title 35, United States ... Read More

CJEU, judgment dated January 30, 2020 – Case C-307/18 According to the CJEU, pay-for-delay agreements between the holder of pharmaceutical patents and manufacturers of generic medicines have the object of restricting competition and, thus, violate Art. 101 TFEU if the assets transferred to the manufacturers of generic medicines do not ... Read More

Just as the country is coming to terms with the reality of the COVID pandemic, we are being warned of mass shortages of everything from quality masks to hazmat suits to diagnostic kits to ventilators and other crucial medical equipment. The Health Ministry should have prepared strategic stockpiles of this ... Read More

The $2 trillion stimulus and economic rescue bill known as the CARES Act is moving forward in the Senate.  Although not generally a key aspect of the legislation, the current proposal on the table includes temporary authority for the USPTO Director to “toll, waive, adjust, or modify, any timing deadline” ... Read More

I am writing a separate post on Galderma Labs., L.P. v. Amneal Pharms. LLC (Fed. Cir. March 25, 2020), but wanted to note the claim language found in Gladerma’s U.S. patent No. 8,206,740.  In particular, I was first surprised to see the final element of the claim written as an “optional” ... Read More

In re Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2020) Sprouts is a supermarket chain sued by Motion Offense, LLC in W.D.Tex. for infringing its patents, US10013158  & US10021052 (processing and sharing a “data object”).  The basic allegation in the case is that Sprouts’ is infringing the patents by using Dropbox.  ... Read More

The author would like to begin this blog by wishing that all the readers are well at this difficult time. The purpose of this piece is to briefly set out some questions and answers that may give readers a feel of the impact that the measures approved by the Spanish ... Read More

by Dr. Simon Klopschinski In the wake of the evolving Corona pandemic the German government intends enacting amendments to the German Act on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases in Humans (Gesetz zur Verhütung und Bekämpfung von Infektionskrankheiten beim Menschen – Infektionsschutzgesetz – IfSG), which could also have an ... Read More

I previously discussed Fote v. Iancu. Charles Fote has now petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari — asking the following question: Whether a court of appeals must provide an opinion explaining its reasoning in an appeal that involves a complex and unsettled area of the law and in which a written ... Read More

by Dennis Crouch My Civil Procedure class at Mizzou is now “Online Civil Procedure.”  The final topic in the course will be “respect for judgments.” A basic setup of our  legal system is to offer substantial justice — giving all parties due process including an opportunity to be heard ... Read More

The following post is republished from the USPTO Director’s Blog and is authored by USPTO Director Andrei Iancu and Deputy Director Laura Peter.  “To maintain our technological leadership, the United States must broaden our innovation ecosphere demographically, geographically, and economically.”—USPTO Director Andrei Iancu Today, as part of Women’s History ... Read More

Bill of the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection for a Second Act concerning the Simplification and Modernization of German Patent Law (Second Patent Law Modernization Act (2. PatMoG)) On January 14, 2020, the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection published a bill for a Second ... Read More

by Dennis Crouch Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. and U.S. as intervenor (Fed. Cir. 2020) (en banc denial) None of the parties in this case were happy with the Federal Circuit’s original decision in Arthrex and all filed petitions for en banc rehearing.  Those petitions have now been denied in ... Read More

By Dennis Crouch This case is welcome news to state-employed teachers infringing copyrights like crazy as they post materials online.  Allen v. Cooper (Supreme Court 2020) Justice Kagan offered the US Supreme Court’s opinion siding with the State of North Carolina (Cooper) in a Copyright federalism question — holding that ... Read More

In this week’s Patent News – All hearings at Patent Office cancelled amid COVID19 outbreak, All in-person hearings to be held via Video Conferencing (VC) till April 15th, Hearing of Design applications scheduled on 27th March 2020 now adjourned to 22nd April 2020, IPO adjourns hearing of all Design applications ... Read More

In these unprecedented times where a pandemic has brought the globe to a standstill, the top-most concern of IP owners (of course, other than to save themselves from COVID-19) would be about meeting deadlines in IP prosecution. This is because, deadlines in IP prosecution are often hard deadlines, and if ... Read More

This week’s Patent & Design data has been compiled from the Official Journal of Patents and Designs published by the patent office on the 20th of March 2020. These statistics are presented to you by the Patent attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading Intellectual Property Firm. INDIAN PATENT ... Read More

Recent Headlines in the IP World: Andrew Hard: Medical Marijuana, Inc. Portfolio Investment Company Kannalife, Inc. Receives Patent in the European Union (Source: Yahoo Finance) Jonathan Lamont: Samsung Patent Application Shows Gamepad the Company Already Sells (Source: Mobile Syrup) Anita Balakrishnan: IP Lawyers Guide Clients Through Drug Pricing Framework Transition (Source: The Los ... Read More

Sometimes the Indian patent applicant (Company or Individual) may decide to file the patent application as an International patent application under PCT or file directly with the foreign Patent Office of their choice without filing their patent application in India first due to some reasons. Sometimes an FFL is also ... Read More

By now, the decision by the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) voiding the German law approving the ratification of the UPC Agreement has gone viral in the patent world, though fortunately not pandemic. Most of the usual suspects have already taken position for one side or the other, so I thought ... Read More