Patentee’s Unclean Hands

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by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit's new decision in Luv'N'Care, Ltd. (LNC) v. Laurain and EZPZ, relies on the doctrine of unclean hands to deny relief to the patentee (Laurain and EZPZ), affirming the district court's judgment.  The appellate panel also vacated and remanded the district court's finding that LNC failed to prove the asserted patent is unenforceable due to inequitable conduct during prosecution, as well as its grant of summary judgment one of the asserted patents was invalid as obvious.  U.S. Patent No. 9,462,903. The case here involves bowls/plates attached to a mat to help avoid spills and for easy cleanup. 22-1905.OPINION.4-12-2024_2300689.

Unclean Hands: The doctrine of unclean hands is an equitable defense that bars a party from obtaining relief when they have engaged in misconduct

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What I’m doing with LLM-Based GenAI Tools

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by Dennis Crouch

As many of you know, I have done machine learning work for many years -- starting in the 1990s while in college.  However, like most of the world, I have been surprised and amazed by the power of LLM-based GenAI technology and have been trying to figure out ways to use it both for patent practice and in my job as a law professor.  I hope that it helps me become both more effective and more efficient.

On the Patently-O side,

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Patent Term Adjustment and Obviousness-Type Double Patenting: Cellect’s Bid for Supreme Court Review

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by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit's August 2023 decision in In re Cellect, LLC has set-up a significant question regarding the interplay between the patent term adjustment (PTA) statute, 35 U.S.C. § 154(b), and the judicially-created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP). Now, Cellect is seeking Supreme Court review, recently filing a petition for an extension of time that also indicated its intent to file. Cellect's petition is now due May 20, 2024, and I expect significant support from the patent owner community.

Patentees often receive PTA due to USPTO delays that otherwise eat into the 20-year patent term.  A fundamental issue in Cellect boils down to whether a patentee must forfeit their PTA term extensions to avoid an OTDP invalidity finding.  This comes up in situations where a patentee has two patents that cover only slightly different inventions.  Most often this is seen in family-member continuation applications, but it can also arise when applicants file several applications all within a short period.

Under the judge-made law of OTDP

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The Design Law Treaty and the Struggle for International Harmonization of Industrial Design Protection

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By Dennis crouch

The international IP community is moving toward further harmonizing legal protection for industrial designs. For almost twenty years, member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have been negotiating a Design Law Treaty (DLT) that would streamline and align procedural requirements for obtaining registered design rights across jurisdictions. If successful, the DLT would make it "significantly easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain industrial design protection overseas as a result of simplified, streamlined and aligned procedures and requirements."[1]  The DLT can be seen as parallel to the Patent Law Treaty (PLT) adopted in 2000 that helped to harmonize and standardize the formal patent procedures such as the filing requirements sufficient for obtaining a filing date.

Throughout this time, it has been difficult to implement almost any global IP treaty because

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Guest post by Prof. Holbrook: Extraterritoriality and Patent Damages Under § 271(a)

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Guest post by Tim Holbrook. Robert B. Yegge Endowed Distinguished Professor of Law and Provost's Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

United States patents are generally territorial.  Their exclusive rights only operate within the United States and its territories.  Or so one may think reading the Patent Act.  Moreover, in a global marketplace, the territorial nature of intellectual property rights can create challenges. It would be simpler for a patent holder to just use the U.S. patent to cover foreign activity. This is especially true if a domestic act of infringement has spillover effects into other countries.

So, when – if ever – can a patent owner receive damages for foreign activity that may flow from acts of domestic infringement?

The Supreme Court answered that question  

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Using AI in your Patent Practice

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By Dennis Crouch

Over the past year I've been investigating various generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools for assisting patent attorneys in their practice.  I have a strong belief that these tools and their progeny are now fixtures in our legal environment and are being used to both improve efficient delivery of legal services and to also improve the quality of those services.  Of course the generative creativity of our LLMs go hand in hand with hidden false narratives or hallucinations. Vendors are stepping up to thread the needle here: providing valuable GenAI tools while limiting false story telling.  As we move forward some of the struggle will be a focus on how much the attorney needs to know about how the GenAI works in order to use it responsibly.

Enter the USPTO and its Wet Blanket: The USPTO has released new guidance on the use of AI tools in practice before the USPTO.

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Docketing Nightmare: CPA Global wins Despite their Docketing Error; Law Firm still on the hook for Missed Deadline

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By Dennis Crouch

In a recent unpublished decision, the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of CPA Global Support Services, LLC ("CPA") (now part of Clarivate) against a claim of negligent misrepresentation brought by inventor James C. Robinson, M.D. and his patent holding company (Spectrum Spine).  Robinson's firm FisherBroyles had relied upon the dates erroneously entered by CPA and missed the national stage filing deadlines.  The parallel case against FisherBroyles is still pending in Georgia state court. Robinson v. CPA Global Support Services, LLC, No. A24A0405 (Ga. Ct. App. Apr. 8, 2024). CPA vs Robinson.

The case serves as an important reminder about the limitations on vendor liability for negligent misrepresentation claims in the absence of contractual privity -- and how attorneys are often stuck in the middle.

What are your thoughts on how to avoid this situation?

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Federal Circuit Affirms ITC Divided Opinion in Sonos v. ITC

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by Dennis Crouch

In a non-precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit has affirmed the US International Trade Commission's (ITC) final determination in the patent infringement dispute between Sonos and Google involving smart speaker technology. Sonos, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, Nos. 2022-1421, 2022-1573 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 8, 2024).  The ITC had issued a split opinion - finding that Google infringed a number of Sonos speaker patents, but concluded that Google's proposed work-around was non-infringing.  Both sides appealed and the Federal Circuit's deferential standard of review resulted in a full affirmance. The outcome then

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De Forest Radio v. GE: A Landmark Supreme Court Decision on the Invention Requirement

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By Dennis Crouch

In 1931, the United States Supreme Court decided a landmark case on the patentability of inventions, De Forest Radio Co. v. General Electric Co., 283 U.S. 664 (1931), amended, 284 U.S. 571 (1931). The case involved a patent infringement suit over an improved vacuum tube used in radio communications. While the case predated the codification of the nonobviousness requirement in 35 U.S.C. § 103 as part of the Patent Act of 1952, it nonetheless applied a similar requirement for "invention."

I wanted to review the case because it is one relied upon in the recent Vanda v. Teva petition, with the patentee arguing that the court's standard from 1931 has been relaxed by the Federal Circuit's "reasonable expectation of success" standard. The decision also provides an interesting case study in the way that the court seems to blend considerations of obviousness and

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Munsingwear Mootness in Sumitomo Pharma v. Vidal

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by Dennis Crouch

Although non-precedential, the Federal Circuit's new decision in Sumitomo Pharma v. Vidal offers the important conclusion that a patentee has no standing to appeal an invalidity holding once the patent expires, absent some showing of likely infringement during the prior six years.  Sumitomo Pharma Co. v. Vidal, No. 22-2276 (Fed. Cir. April 5, 2024).  The case is not so bad for the patentee because

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Guest Post: Where Are the Patent Judge Shoppers Going?

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By Paul R. Gugliuzza and J. Jonas Anderson

In the past few weeks, more and more people outside of patent law have learned about ‘judge shopping’—quirks in procedural rules that allow plaintiffs to pick not just a court but the individual judge who will hear their case.

Republican state attorneys general and conservative activists have been exploiting those rules to challenge federal government policies on abortion, immigration, gun control, transgender rights, and more in front of sympathetic, Republican-appointed judges, primarily in Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas.

Last month, the Judicial Conference of the United States (a group of judges who oversee the operation of the federal courts) issued a new policy urging courts to adopt case assignment procedures that prevent judge shopping, especially in cases challenging federal law.

Predictably, the beneficiaries of judge shopping—namely, Republicans—decried the new policy as politically motivated and urged district courts to ignore it. Democrats, for their part,

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USPTO Fees: Targeted Higher Fees to Push for Compact

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by Dennis Crouch

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently proposed a new fee structure for fiscal year 2025, which includes significant increases in various patent fees. [Read the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] While incremental fee adjustments are common, the proposed changes for FY2025 are particularly noteworthy due to their magnitude in certain targeted areas and potential impact on applicant behavior. Many filers will likely change their practices based on the new higher fees. The USPTO appears to be using these fee adjustments as a tool to shape patent prosecution strategies, encouraging more compact patent applications and smaller patent families.  However, the USPTO is also seeking ways to ensure that the agency remains financially solvent and able to perform its statutory duties in the face of inflation and the Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022 which reduced patent fees for small and micro entity applicants. The USPTO's proposed fee increases are largely unchanged from the plan announced last year.

One of the most striking changes in the proposed fee structure . . .

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Dow Chemical’s 1945 ‘Perfectly Plain’ Test for Obviousness

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by Dennis Crouch

The pending obviousness petition in Vanda v. Teva has prompted me to look back on some of the key Supreme Court cases cited in the briefs. Last week, I wrote about Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192 (1883) in a blog post titled The Quest for a Meaningful Threshold of Invention.  Today, I'm looking at Dow Chemical Co. v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co., 324 U.S. 320 (1945), an obviousness case decided just a few years before a rewriting of the 1952 Patent Act.  At the time, the doctrine was identified as "want of invention," but the court's analysis is familiar to anyone practicing patent law today.

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Patent Rights and Cell-Free DNA cancer testing

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by Dennis Crouch

I have been following the ongoing case of Natera v. NeoGenomics that is currently on appeal before the Federal Circuit. Docket No. 24-1324. The technology in these cases has amazing potential and I have several friends who have used these techniques to detect early stage cancer.

The particular litigation here centers on Natera's US Patent No. 11,519,035 issued on December 6, 2022 that covers a method of detecting cancer through analysis of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) obtained from blood samples.  The basic idea is that small fragments of DNA that are released into the bloodstream by cells, including cancer cells. High throughput extraction and sequencing technologies can then be used to detect mutations and their potential associated risk factors, including the presence of cancer and the specific type of cancer. cfDNA cancer screening has lots of advantages, most notably, it is almost non-invasive (blood sample) and provides potential early across the entire body.  It can be particularly effective for detecting reemergence of cancer for someone in remission because the particular mutation is already known.  This is known as a "tumor-informed" test.

Natera's '035 patent is directed to methods for amplifying and sequencing cell-free DNA (cfDNA) to detect cancer. The claimed invention involves three key steps: (1) tagging cfDNA with universal adaptors, (2) amplifying 25-2,000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci in a single reaction volume, and (3) performing massively parallel sequencing.  Each of these steps were known in the prior art, but the combination of all three appears to be new. NeoGenomics is accused of infringing through its use of its RaDaR, an independently developed cancer-detection test that purportedly employs a similar process for analyzing cfDNA to provide highly sensitive detection of cancerous mutations. NeoGenomics disagrees, arguing the claims require the tagging and targeted amplification to occur in separate PCR reactions with different primer sets, and that its approach combines this process.

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Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity of Blockchain Gemstone Tracking Patent Under Section 101

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by Dennis Crouch

In Rady v. The Boston Consulting Group, Inc., No. 2022-2218 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 27, 2024), the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a patent infringement lawsuit, holding that the asserted claims of Rady's US10469250 were ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.  The patent, owned by Max Rady, patent describes scanning a physical item, determining its unique pattern of imperfections (i.e., "signature"), and recording that signature to a blockchain if not previously registered.

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Obviousness and Pharmaceutical Method of Treatment Claims

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by Dennis Crouch

In April 2024, the Federal Circuit issued a significant decision vacating a district court's judgment that Janssen Pharmaceuticals' dosing regimen patent claims were nonobvious. Janssen Pharms., Inc. v. Teva Pharms. USA, Inc., No. 2022-1258 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 1, 2024). The case involved Janson's U.S. Patent No. 9,439,906, which claims methods of treating schizophrenia by administering specific doses of the long-acting injectable antipsychotic paliperidone palmitate.

Teva filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) seeking approval to market a generic version of Janssen's Invega Sustenna product, which embodies the claimed methods. In the ensuing Hatch-Waxman litigation, Teva stipulated to infringement but challenged the patent on obviousness and indefiniteness grounds. Following a bench trial Judge Cecchi (D.N.J.) rejected Teva's invalidity defenses, and Teva appealed.

On appeal, Judge Prost authored a unanimous opinion affirming the district court's indefiniteness determination but vacating and remanding on obviousness.  Overall, this is a bad case for pharmaceutical formulary patents.

This post focuses on the court's obviousness holding and its potential implications for pharmaceutical method of treatment claims more broadly. I make three key claims. . .

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Jury Instructions and Objective Indicia of Nonobviousness: Federal Circuit Grants New Trial in Inline Plastics v. Lacerta

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In a recent decision, the Federal Circuit vacated a judgment of invalidity and remanded for a new trial, holding that the district court's jury instruction on objective indicia of nonobviousness constituted prejudicial legal error. The case, Inline Plastics Corp. v. Lacerta Group, LLC, No. 2022-1954 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 27, 2024), involved patents relating to tamper-resistant and tamper-evident food containers.

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Today’s Obviousness Key: Motivation to Combine

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by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Virtek Vision International ULC v. Assembly Guidance Systems, Inc. focuses on the motivation to combine aspect of the obviousness analysis. The court's ruling emphasizes that the mere existence of prior art elements is not sufficient to render a claimed invention obvious; rather, there must be a clear reason or rationale for a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine those elements in the claimed manner.  In the case, the IPR petitioner failed to articulate that reasoning and thus the PTAB's obviousness finding was improper.

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Federal Circuit Debates Scope of 271(e)(1) Safe Harbor and the Meaning of “Solely”

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by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit's recent 2-1 decision in Edwards Lifesciences Corp. v. Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd. highlights tensions in the court's interpretation of the patent infringement safe harbor under 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1). A forceful dissent by Judge Lourie argues that the majority's approach, while following precedent, improperly reads the word "solely" out of the statute and unduly expands the safe harbor exemption.  Lourie ends his opinion with a call for en banc rehearing.

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