Intellectual Property

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently released statistics about its Fast-Track Appeals Pilot Program. The program went into effect on July 2, 2020 and is currently slated to run until the earlier of July 2, 2021 and 500 appeals being accepted into the program.

On January 8, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case calling for it to abolish or limit the doctrine of assignor estoppel. See Minerva Surgical, Inc. v. Hologic, Inc., et al., No. 20-440, 2021 WL 77248 (U.S. Jan. 8, 2021). Mintz previously discussed the Federal Circuit’s decision, which found assignor estoppel to be applicable.

As we noted in Are Design Patents Missing From Your IP Portfolio, a design patent protects the visual ornamental characteristics of an article and can be an important part of a company’s patent portfolio. Like other patent rights, design patent applications may be filed internationally to expand the number of countries in which a company’s designs are protected.

On January 28, 2021, the Federal Circuit affirmed the general principle that the mere fact of copying by an accused infringer is insufficient to rebut a charge of obviousness (L’Oreal USA, Inc. v. Olaplex, Inc.; appeal from PGR2018-00025; non-precedential). 

For many parts of the world, a voluntary divisional application (known as a continuation application in the U.S.) may be filed at any time during the pendency of any parent application.  The claims in the voluntary divisional application must be supported by the original specification and cannot introduce any new matter.  

It is now over 10 years since the Bilski decision was handed down by the United States Supreme Court.  In that decision and several other decisions that followed (i.e., Mayo, Myriad, and Alice), the Supreme Court pronounced patent claims directed to abstract ideas not eligible for patent protection.

On February 4, 2021 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) extended for two years the expansion of the Collaborative Search Pilot Program (CSP), which began in 2015 and is now scheduled to end October 31, 2022.

It can be difficult to advance prosecution of a U.S. patent application efficiently and effectively after prosecution has been closed and an Advisory Action has been mailed.  Various U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) programs are available to expedite prosecution (see Mintz’s previous article about speeding prosecution), but a final Office Acton and then an Advisory Action being mailed makes most of those programs unavailable. 

As 2021 begins and intellectual property (IP) strategies are being developed for the new year, it is a good time to reflect on what IP issues were prominent in 2020.  According to many readers, hot topics included Chinese foreign filing licenses, patenting involving either artificial intelligence (AI) or COVID-19, inter partes review, and attorney fee awards.

On December 27, 2020, the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (“the Act”) became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. 

The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently designated its decision in Snap, Inc. v. SRK Technology LLC (§ II.A), IPR2020-00820, Paper 15 (Oct. 21, 2020) (“Snap”) as being informative regarding the Fintiv factors analysis.

One of the provisions included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act that President Trump signed into law on December 27, 2020 addresses the so-called “felony streaming” loophole in the Copyright Act and criminal code. 

Following up on our initial report last year on the possible creation of a Copyright Claims Board, we can now confirm the creation of that Board. The Consolidated Appropriations Act signed into law by President Trump on December 27, 2020 incorporates the CASE Act, establishes this new Copyright Claims Board (CCB) within the Copyright Office. 

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) issued a pair of Guidance for Industry documents outlining best practices for developing proprietary names (i.e. brand names) for prescription and nonprescription human drug products. 

Patent protection in China has been a hot topic of discussion and strategy for U.S. companies. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) China team within the USPTO's Office of Policy and International Affairs is a dedicated group of intellectual property (IP) attorneys and specialists with knowledge and experience on China manners from the U.S. law perspective as well as the Chinese law perspective.

A Chinese Court recently decided that it has the willingness, and jurisdiction, to set a global licensing rate that is fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) for standard essential patents (“SEP”). 

Recently in Nike, Inc. v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc., 2:17-cv-08509 (C.D. Cal.) (October 26, 2020), the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted-in-part and denied-in-part Defendant, Skechers U.S.A., Inc.’s (“Skechers”), motion to limit Plaintiff, Nike, Inc.’s (“Nike”), claim seeking attorney’s fees related to the infringement of its eight asserted design patents, resulting in the bifurcation of the willfulness issue from the trial on the merits.

Building on Tip #4, one effective way to avoid institution and not address facts is to point out shortcomings in the petition’s application of KSR when asserting motivation to combine for an obviousness analysis. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) is an administrative tribunal that frequently encounters proposed grounds that challenged claims are obvious pursuant to 35 U.S.C. ¶103.