patent

The recent Tokai v. Easton opinion (PDF) raises a timely standard of review issue that the Supreme Court will soon consider in Microsoft v. i4i, and highlights the danger of hindsight bias in an obviousness analysis. The timely issue here regards the level of deference that a court should accord the ...

Summary Collectively, Brooks Furniture and iLOR v. Google (PDF) establish the standards a defendant must meet for an award of attorney fees from vexatious and unjustified litigation under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Brooks Furniture Manufacturing, Inc. v. Dutailier International, Inc., 393 F.3d. 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2005); iLOR v. Google (Fed. ...

This month, our team members have been consumed with outlines, papers, and finals, and now the holidays are upon us. Although we won’t be able to write full posts on all of the recent developments in technology law, we wanted to offer some quick updates on some of the biggest ...

In the recent Finjan v. Secure Computing decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed that software that is sold in locked or inactivated form can directly infringe apparatus claims even before the customer unlocks or activates the software in separate subsequent steps. The patents at issue in Finjan concern software for computer ...

In the recent Solvay v. Honeywell (PDF) decision, the Federal Circuit dealt with the issue of who qualifies as a prior inventor for the purpose of 35 U.S.C. § 102(g)(2). In particular, this case concerns an invention that was invented in Russia but later duplicated in the United States (“U.S.”). ...

On September 28, 2010, the Solicitor General (SG) filed a brief explaining the views of the United States in the pending appeal of Stanford v. Roche, 583 F.3d 832 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (PDF). The SG’s brief argues strongly in Stanford’s favor, and urges the Supreme Court to grant Stanford’s petition for ...

In Teva v. Eisai, the Federal Circuit held that a subsequent Paragraph IV filer has standing when a patent listed in the Orange Book causes a delay in the triggering of a first filer’s exclusivity period and prevents the subsequent filer from bringing a generic drug to market. The Hatch-Waxman ...

The recent decision in Goeddel v. Sugano concerns an appeal from an interference proceeding. Although these types of cases may be a “dying breed” if patent reform goes through (as discussed in this PLI Patent Law Practice Center post), this case highlights written description requirement issues that are relevant outside ...