Intellectual Property

A recent decision by a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) panel in Canadian Solar Inc., et al v. The Solaria Corporation may have opened the door for aggrieved parties to seek rehearing for any reason, rather than the prescribed situation where the panel “misapprehended or overlooked” some issue in an inter partes review (IPR).

Patent owners searching for an appropriate venue for cases against alleged infringers may be able to point to the activity of an infringer’s agents, based on a new decision from the Eastern District of Texas. In recommending denial of a Netflix motion to dismiss, Magistrate Judge Payne explained that the nature and extent of Netflix’s relationship with internet service providers (“ISPs”) within the district gives rise to proper venue as a regular and established place of business of Netflix.

In our penultimate patent owner tip for surviving an instituted IPR, we turn our discussion to defending the deposition of your expert. At this stage of the proceeding, your Patent Owner Response has been filed, and all the facts and arguments you need have already been developed, including any necessary expert testimony.

In this episode of the EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS: Intellectual Property podcast, Mintz Intellectual Property attorneys Frank Gerratana and Daniel Weinger explore cryptocurrency, blockchain, and how IP factors into the future of these emerging technologies.

In what appears to be a case of first impression, on August 23, 2021 U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied a biosimilar applicant’s motion to dismiss a patent infringement suit brought under the Biosimilar Price Competition and Innovation Act (“BPCIA”) against a foreign parent corporation that did not file or sign the relevant abbreviated Biologics License Application (“aBLA”).

In a recent IAM article, Levelling the playing field in ITC patent cases by identifying redesigns to a set deadline, we commented on best practices for ITC complainants to protect their interests against the nascent uptick of redesign submissions at the tail end of fact discovery. Although reasonable minds can differ as to whether the uptick in motion practice is coincidence or a more troubling sign that some respondents are using late redesign disclosures as a vehicle to put complainants at a disadvantage in fast-paced Section 337 proceedings, such late disclosures undoubtedly prejudice complainants’ ability to fully review and assess such disclosures for possible infringement.

In late August of 2021, the Federal Circuit reversed a jury verdict of $1.2 billion in favor of Juno Therapeutics and Sloan Kettering Institute because the jury’s finding that four of the asserted patent claims did not lack adequate written description under 35 U.S.C. § 112 was not supported by substantial evidence.

The United States FRAND jurisprudence had a recent watershed moment in a decision that is sure to reverberate through the standard essential patent (SEP) world, and specifically SEP litigation in the United States. Earlier this week, a Fifth Circuit panel affirmed a jury verdict that found licensing offers made by Ericsson to HTC for Ericsson’s 4G SEPs complied with Ericsson’s FRAND obligations, the first jury verdict of its kind in the United States.

After an inter partes review (“IPR”) is instituted, a patent owner may move to amend challenged claims to overcome the prior art. Here we provide some further information for patent owners considering ways to amend claims that are challenged in IPR by filing a reissue application or requesting reexamination.

Here are four tips for improving your chances of convincing PTAB to grant a motion to amend your claims.

The PTAB recently published the first update to its 2019 study of AIA trials involving petitions challenging Orange Book-listed patents and biologic patents through June 2021. Highlights of these pharmaceutical patent challenge statistics include, e.g., the number of these petitions filed, the number of instituted trials, and the trial outcomes since fiscal year 2013.

See the guidelines on the procedural aspects of filing a motion to amend claims.

We look to those circumstances when a patent owner should think twice about amending, including when significant past damages exist, the current claims possess strong infringement reads and claim scope, petitioners are highly-motivated to fight and patent owner is cost sensitive.

Machine learning (ML), bioinformatics, artificial intelligence (AI), and other computational tools have become ubiquitous in the biotech and synthetic biology industries because such technology allows for rapid processing of a large amount of complex data to produce advancements in therapeutics and diagnostics. As the landscape becomes increasingly more competitive, it is important for companies, particularly in the aforementioned industries, to obtain patent protection for their AI-related technology.

After an inter partes review (“IPR”) is instituted, a patent owner has an opportunity to file a motion to amend the claims and thereby propose a reasonable number of substitute claims. Here we provide some instances where a motion to amend may be a favorable option for a patent owner to consider. 

The Federal Circuit recently found that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) violates a patent owner’s procedural rights under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) when construing a disputed claim term by omitting an uncontested requirement in its construction.

In inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, the PTAB will often uphold the validity of dependent claims despite finding the independent claim invalid.  Dependent claims recite additional limitations that must be separately accounted for in the prior art references in the Petitioner’s asserted grounds.