by Dennis Crouch

In Vanda v. Teva, the Federal Circuit confirmed the obviousness of Vanda’s claims covering use of tasimelteon (Hetlioz) to treat circadian rhythm disorders (Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder).  Teva and Apotex, filed Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) with the FDA seeking to market generic versions of the $100m+ drug.  Vanda sued, but lost on obviousness grounds — with the court holding that the claimed combination was obvious because it was directed to a set of known elements and a person of ordinary skill would have a “reasonable expectation of success” in reaching the resulting invention.  The rulings here included a conclusion that – even if the particular limitations were not obvious, it would have been obvious for a skilled artisan to try them out.

Vanda argues that the law of obviousness requires more than simply a reasonable expectation of success. Rather, in their petition to the Supreme Court, the patentee argues that the resulting invention must have been “predictable” or an “plainly indicated by the prior art.”

The question presented is: Whether obviousness requires a showing of “predictable” results, as this Court held in KSR, or a mere “reasonable expectation of success,” as the Federal Circuit has held both before and after KSR?

VandaCertPetition.

A new amicus brief strongly supports the petition with an interesting historical review of obviousness doctrine from the past 150 years.  The brief, filed by The National Association of Patent Practitioners and Professor Christopher Turoski (current NAPP president) brief argues that the Federal Circuit’s “reasonable expectation of success” standard for assessing obviousness departs from longstanding Supreme Court precedent on obviousness that was subsequently codified in 35 U.S.C. § 103.  NAPP Amicus Brief.

Under Pre-1952 “Invention” Standard

The brief traces the obviousness requirement back to Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 52 U.S. (11 How.) 248 (1850), where the Court held that simply substituting one known material for another in an otherwise unchanged device was obvious and lacked “that degree of skill and ingenuity which constitute essential elements of every invention.” In the 100 years of “invention” cases following Hotchkiss, the Court consistently held that an invention “must be the result of invention, and not the mere exercise of the skill of the calling or an advance plainly indicated by the prior art.” Altoona Publix Theatres, Inc. v. Am. Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U.S. 477 (1935). The key question was whether the advance would “occur to any mechanic skilled in the art” or was “plainly foreshadowed by the prior art.” Loom Co. v. Higgins, 105 U.S. 580, 591 (1881); Textile Machine Works v. Louis Hirsch Textile Machines, Inc., 302 U.S. 490, 498 (1938).  None of the Supreme Court cases, either pre- or post-1952, rely upon reasonable expectation of success as a determinative factor in assessing the obviousness of an invention.

In Altoona Publix Theatres, the patentee sought to enforce its patent covering covering the use of a flywheel to sound recording and reproduction equipment in order to make the film movement more uniform. The Supreme Court held the patent claims invalid for lack of invention. The Court explained that a flywheel was a very old and common mechanism for improving uniformity of motion in machinery. Its addition here merely involved “the skill of the calling” rather than the inventive faculty, as the flywheel’s use was plainly indicated by prior art showing flywheels applied in other sound recording devices. The Court relied on longstanding precedent that an improvement is not patentable unless it required invention, not just ordinary skill, and was not “plainly indicated” in the prior art.

An improvement to an apparatus or method, to be patentable, must be the result of invention, and not the mere exercise of the skill of the calling or an advance plainly indicated by the prior art. . . . The inclusion of a flywheel in any form of mechanism to secure uniformity of its motion has so long been standard procedure in the field of mechanics and machine design that the use of it in the manner claimed by the present patent involved no more than the skill of the calling. . . . [The prior art] plainly  foreshadowed the use made of the flywheel in the present patent, if they did not anticipate it. The patentees brought together old elements, in a mechanism involving no new principle, to produce an old result, greater uniformity of motion. However skilfully this was done, and even though there was produced a machine of greater precision and a higher degree of motion-constancy, and hence one more useful in the art, it was still the product of skill, not of invention.

Altoona Publix Theatres, Inc. v. Am. Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U.S. 477 (1935).  In Altoona, the court thus concluded that the added flywheel failed this “invention” test, so the patent claims were held invalid.  The standard in Altoona of “plainly indicated” in the prior art is foreshadowed in the Supreme Court’s prior cases such as Slawson v. Grand Street, P.P. & F.R. Co., 107 U.S. 649 (1883) (cannot patent “an idea which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures”); see also Altantio Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192 (1883).

Section 103 Codifies Prior Precedent

Prior to 1952, the patent act did not include a statutory obviousness standard. Rather, both the statute and the US constitution simply required an “invention.”

Congress created Section 103 obviousness standard in the 1952 Patent Act that we all rely upon today.  But, in its key and still leading analysis of the statute, the Supreme Court explained that the new law was “intended merely as a codification of judicial precedents embracing the Hotchkiss condition.” Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17 (1966). Assessing obviousness under § 103 thus follows the Hotchkiss line of cases by determining whether the advance was “plainly evident from the prior art” such that one skilled in the art “would immediately see” that it was obvious based on the existing disclosures.

Of course, one change with the addition of Section 103 is the final sentence of the provision stating that the “manner in which the invention was made” will not negate patentability. The legislative history and Graham are both clear that this provision was intended “to abolish the test [Congress] believed [the Supreme Court] announced in the controversial phrase ‘flash of creative genius,’ used in Cuno.”  What is left then is a focus on whether the invention would be within the mere skill of the calling and plainly evident from the prior art. In its most recent analysis of KSR, the court did not use the plainly evident standard, but rather focused on situations where the elements of an invention were all known and the combination was nothing more than “predictable use of prior art elements.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Throughout this time the Supreme Court has never used a “reasonable expectation of success” test.

Departure from Binding Precedent

According to the petition and the amicus brief, the Federal Circuit’s “reasonable expectation of success” test sets a lower bar, finding obviousness wherever a skilled artisan might reasonably expect to achieve the result, even if it was not plainly foreshadowed in the prior art.  This includes situations where it might be obvious to pursue a research question — but where the answer to the question is unknown or unpredictable.

The first court reference that I have found for “reasonable expectation of success” standard appears to have originated in the case of Cmmw. Engr. Co. of Ohio v. Watson, 293 F.2d 157 (D.C. Cir. 1961).The Patent Office Board had originally stated that “Appellant has merely applied an old process to another analogous material with at least reasonable expectation of success. It is well settled that this does not constitute invention.”  The District Judge affirmed this holding in a Section 145 action, as did the D.C. Circuit Court on appeal. Cmmw. Engr. Co. of Ohio v. Watson, 188 F. Supp. 544 (D.D.C 1960), aff’d, 293 F.2d 157 (D.C. Cir. 1961).

I did also find a 1925 decision by the Commissioner of Patents office affirming a rejection. Ex parte McElroy, 337 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 475 (1925).  In the case, the patent applicant argued that the cited reference was not sufficient to render the invention unpatentable — arguing “a reference must do more than suggest a possibility, that it must also postulate a reasonable expectation of success.”  The Assistant Commissioner rejected this argument, stating that Richter “carefully sets out the process of the present application and indicates its success.” The decision appears to agree with the  reasonable expectation of success standard, but concluded that the reference provided at least that level of teaching. But, it is not clear to me when this standard became sufficiently “settled” as recited in the 1960-61 Commonwealth Engineering decisions.  It was not until 1995 that reasonable-expectation-of-success was added to the MPEP, but by that time there had already been a number of Federal Circuit decisions on point.

In any event, I hope the Supreme Court will take up this case and push it forward — hopefully further developing obviousness doctrine.  Respondents in the case Teva and Apotex had waived their right to respond, but the Supreme Court expressed some interest in the case by requesting a response in a February 15 order (due March 18, 2024).

Parties:

• Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc., Petitioner, represented by Paul Hughes (McDermott Will & Emery)
• Apotex Inc. and Apotex Corp., Respondent, represented by Aaron Lukas (Cozen O’Connor)
• Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., Respondent,  represented by J.C. Rozendaal (Sterne Kessler)

Amici Curiae

• American Council of the Blind, Blinded Veterans Association, and PRISMS, Amicus Curiae, represented by Mark Davies (Orrick)
• Professor Christopher M. Turoski and The National Association of Patent Practitioners, Amicus Curiae, represented by Ryan Morris (Workman Nydegger)
• Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Ocular Therapeutix, Inc., Amicus Curiae, represented by Justin Hasford (Finnegan)

by Dennis Crouch

Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Tech (Supreme Court 2020)

In this case, the Supreme Court has sided with the PTO and Patent-Challengers — holding that the agency’s decision to hear an IPR challenge is not reviewable on appeal — even if the challenge is based upon the time-bar of §315(b).  According to the court, a ruling otherwise “unwind the agency’s merits decision” and “operate to save bad patent claims.”

Read the Decision Here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf

The statutes authorizing inter partes review proceedings (IPRs) provides the USPTO Director with substantial latitude in determining whether or not to grant initiate an IPR. One limitation is that an IPR petition must be filed within 1-year of the petitioner (or privy) being served with a complaint fo infringing the patent. 35 U.S.C. §315(b).  The PTO cancelled Click-to-Call’s patent claims, but the Federal Circuit vacated that judgment after holding that the PTO should not have initated the IPR.  The issue on appeal was whether a lawsuit that had been dismissed without prejudice still counted under the §315(b) time-bar.  No, according to the PTO; Yes, according to the Federal Circuit.

A key problem with the Federal Circuit’s decision is the no-appeal provision also found in the statute:

The determination by the Director whether to institute an inter partes review under this section shall be final and nonappealable.

35 U.S.C. §314(d).  The Federal Circuit held that the time-bar issue should be seen as an exception to the statute, the Supreme Court though has rejected that analysis.

Cuozzo: This is the Supreme Court’s second venture into analysis of the time-bar.  In Cuozzo Speed Techs., LLC v. Lee, 136 S. Ct. 2131 (2016), the court held that the no-appeal provision will preclude appellate review in cases “where the grounds for attacking the decision to institute inter partes review consist of questions that are closely tied to the application and interpretation of statutes related to the Patent Office’s decision to initiate inter partes review.”   Cuozzo expressly did not decide when you might find exceptions — “we need not, and do not, decide the precise effect of § 314(d) on appeals that implicate constitutional questions, that depend on other less closely related statutes, or that present other questions of interpretation that reach, in terms of scope and impact, well beyond ‘this section.'”

In Thryv, the Supreme Court found that Cuozzo governs the time-bar question — holding that the statutory time-bar is closely related to the institution decision:

Section 315(b)’s time limitation is integral to, indeed a condition on, institution. After all, §315(b) sets forth a circumstance in which “[a]n inter partes review may not be instituted.” Even Click-to-Call and the Court of Appeals recognize that §315(b) governs institution.

Majority Op.  “The appeal bar, we … reiterate, is not limited to the agency’s application of §314(a).” Id. at n.6.

In its decision, the Supreme Court also puts its thumb on the policy concerns of “overpatenting” and efficiently “weed[ing] out bad patent claims.”

Allowing §315(b) appeals would tug against that objective, wasting the resources spent resolving patentability and leaving bad patents enforceable. A successful §315(b) appeal would terminate in vacatur of the agency’s decision; in lieu of enabling judicial review of patentability, vacatur would unwind the agency’s merits decision. And because a patent owner would need to appeal on §315(b) untimeliness grounds only if she could not prevail on patentability, §315(b) appeals would operate to save bad patent claims. This case illustrates the dynamic. The agency held Click-to-Call’s patent claims invalid, and Click-to-Call does not contest that holding. It resists only the agency’s institution decision, mindful that if the institution decision is reversed, then the agency’s work will be undone and the canceled patent claims resurrected.

Majority Op. Section III.C

Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion joined in fully by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Kavanaugh.  Justices Thomas and Alito joined with the decision except for the policy statements found in III.C.

Justice Gorsuch wrote in dissent and was substantially joined by Justice Sotomayor.  Justice Gorsuch was not yet on the court when Cuozzo was decided, and Justice Sotomayor joined Justice Alito’s dissent to that decision.  The basics of the dissent is that our Constitution does not permit a “politically guided agency” to revoke property rights without judicial review:

Today the Court takes a flawed premise—that the Constitution permits a politically guided agency to revoke an inventor’s property right in an issued patent—and bends it further, allowing the agency’s decision to stand immune from judicial review. Worse, the Court closes the courthouse not in a case where the patent owner is merely unhappy with the merits of the agency’s decision but where the owner claims the agency’s proceedings were unlawful from the start. Most remarkably, the Court denies judicial review even though the government now concedes that the patent owner is right and this entire exercise in property taking-by-bureaucracy was forbidden by law.

Id.  The majority reject’s the dissent’s call for patents-as-property:

The dissent acknowledges that “Congress authorized inter partes review to encourage further scrutiny of already issued patents.” Yet the dissent, despite the Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of such review in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 584 U. S. ___ (2018), appears ultimately to urge that Congress lacks authority to permit second looks. Patents are property, the dissent several times repeats, and Congress has no prerogative to allow “property-taking-by-bureaucracy.” But see Oil States, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (“patents are public franchises”). The second look Congress put in place is assigned to the very same bureaucracy that granted the patent in the first place. Why should that bureaucracy be trusted to give an honest count on first view, but a jaundiced one on second look?

Majority Op. at n.4.

In a portion of the dissent not signed by Justice Sotomayor, Justice Gorsuch laments that the majority decision “takes us further down the road of handing over judicial powers involving the disposition of individual rights to executive agency officials.”

So what if patents were, for centuries, regarded as a form of personal property that, like any other, could be taken only by a judgment of a court of law. So what if our separation of powers and history frown on unfettered executive power over individuals, their liberty, and their property. What the government gives, the government may take away—with or without the involvement of the independent Judiciary. Today, a majority compounds that error by abandoning a good part of what little judicial review even the AIA left behind.

Justice Gorsuch in Dissent – Part V.

Just try to imagine this Court treating other individual liberties or forms of private property this way. Major portions of this country were settled by homesteaders who moved west on the promise of land patents from the federal government. Much like an inventor seeking a patent for his invention, settlers seeking these governmental grants had to satisfy a number of conditions. But once a patent issued, the granted lands became the recipient’s private property, a vested right that could be withdrawn only in a court of law. No one thinks we would allow a bureaucracy in Washington to “cancel” a citizen’s right to his farm, and do so despite the government’s admission that it acted in violation of the very statute that gave it this supposed authority. For most of this Nation’s history it was thought an invention patent holder “holds a property in his invention by as good a title as the farmer holds his farm and flock.” Hovey v. Henry, 12 F. Cas. 603, 604 (No. 6,742) (CC Mass. 1846) (Woodbury, J., for the court). Yet now inventors hold nothing for long without executive grace. An issued patent becomes nothing more than a transfer slip from one agency window to another.

Id.

Guest post by Timothy R. Holbrook, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law, Emory University.

The America Invents Act (AIA) effected a sea change in U.S. patent law.  One of the most significant changes was to shift the U.S. from a “first to invent” to a “first inventor to file” system for allocating priority.  This move is reflected in the restructuring of 35 U.S.C. § 102, the provision that defines prior art for assessing whether an invention is novel and non-obvious.

Aside from the shift in assessing priority, some contended that, by amending § 102, Congress had rejected long-standing Supreme Court precedent that allowed secret uses and sales of the invention to trigger the statutory bars under the 1952 Patent Act.  In Helsinn Health Care S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., the Supreme Court, in its first case addressing the AIA’s § 102, rejected this argument.

The AIA did more than shift the United States to a first-inventor-to-file system, however.  The AIA also eliminated geographic limits on prior art.  Under the 1952 Patent Act, activities triggering the public use and on-sale bars under then-35 U.S.C. § 102(b) had to take place “in this country.” The elimination the geographic limit greatly expands what qualifies as prior art under the AIA.  Moreover, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the AIA in Helsinn makes that even more sweeping as secret sales activity that may not be accessible to the broader public can now qualify as prior art.

The removal of the territorial limits, however, also presents a different question: whose law will govern whether an invention is deemed “on sale”?  Under the 1952 Patent Act, to be on sale, an invention (1) had to be the subject of a formal commercial offer for sale and (2) had to be ready for patenting.  Whether the invention is subject to a formal commercial offer is assessed from basic contract principles.

In the foreign context, however, what constitutes a formal commercial offer may vary from U.S. law. Because these proposed or completed sales transactions could take place outside of the United States, the law of another country generally would govern any potential or actual agreements.

The elimination of the geographic limits to on-sale activity now presents a choice of law problem.  On one hand, one could argue that the law of the relevant country should control: the parties in the transaction have that law in mind and not necessarily U.S. patent law.  On the other, if the courts were to rely on foreign law to assess whether the invention is “on sale” under § 102(a) of the AIA, then what qualifies as on-sale prior art would vary widely, depending on the law of the country in which the commercial activity took place.  The same activity might qualify as prior art in one context and not in another.  Courts, therefore, would be better of creating U.S. law defining triggers on-sale prior art regardless of where the activity occurred.

So what route will the courts take?  I suspect it will be the latter, using Federal Circuit law to define the contours of on-sale prior art even when the activity arises overseas.

The Federal Circuit addressed an analogous situation in interpreting the statutory bars under § 102(b) of the 1952 Patent Act.  After the Supreme Court reworked the on-sale bar test in Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc., the Federal Circuit in Group One, Ltd. v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., clarified step one of the two-part test by requiring a formal commercial offer for sale.  In so doing, the court confronted a similar choice of law issue: should the law of the state governing the transaction dictate whether the invention was on sale, or should Federal Circuit law?

The court opted for the latter, rejecting the district court’s use of Missouri law to determine whether the invention was on sale.  The court reasoned that reliance on state law would create variability in interpreting a federal statute and emphasized “the importance of having a uniform national rule.” As the court stated:

To hold otherwise would potentially mean that a patent could be invalid in one state, when the patentee’s actions amounted to an offer under the laws of that state, and valid in a second state, when the same actions did not amount to an offer under the laws of that second state. Such a result is clearly incompatible with a uniform national patent system.

If past is prologue, one could easily see the court reaching the same conclusion with respect to the use of foreign law to interpret § 102(a) of the AIA.  Applying the law of various countries where commercial activities arise could lead to widely varying standards for on-sale prior art.  Indeed, the situation would be fare more complex than applying state law not only because of differing legal standards but also differing legal systems.  It is a more complicated analysis for U.S courts to discern foreign law than to discern the law of a given state.  It seems highly likely, therefore, that the Federal Circuit choose to apply its own law, using basic contract principles, in interpreting § 102(a) on-sale prior art that arises in foreign countries.

The situation at the international level, however, is far more complex than refusing to apply state law.  Activities in a foreign country would be assessed, and indirectly regulated, through the application of a U.S. legal standard, implicating concerns of the extraterritorial application of U.S. law.  Unlike the state law situation – where state law is subordinate to federal law – the Federal Circuit will be applying the law of the United States to acts in a co-equal sovereign. Actors in the relevant country may be unaware that their commercial behavior is violating U.S. patent law if there are significant substantive differences. That said, I would be surprised if courts consider this activity to trigger the presumption against extraterritoriality, in the same way they failed to truly account for the presumption in the patent exhaustion context.

The removal of geographic limits on public uses and on-sale prior art is a rather sweeping change.  As yet, the importance of the removal of these territorial limits has not been explored by the courts.  Particularly as it relates to on-sale prior art, courts likely will be applying U.S. law to activities arising in foreign countries in the interest in having a uniform standard.

Tim Holbrook is Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University.  This essay is drawn from part of his article, What Counts As Extraterritorial in Patent Law?, 25 B.U. J. SCI. & TECH. L. 291 (2019).

by Dennis Crouch

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently designated as precedential a portion of its Penumbra v. RapidPulse decision in that provides important guidance on the use of a provisional patent application’s filing date for 102(a)(2) prior art under the America Invents Act. Penumbra, Inc. v. RapidPulse, Inc., IPR2021-01466, Paper 34 (March 10, 2023) (made precedential as to section II.E.3 on November 15, 2023).  This is a pretty long post, but key takeaways are: (1) the PTAB expressly rejected the Federal Circuit’s pre-AIA Dynamic Drinkware rule (we’ll see how it goes on appeal); (2) when using a patent/publication as prior art based on an earlier provisional filing date, a petitioner now only needs to show the provisional describes the relied upon subject matter instead of requiring claims supported under §112; (3) this lowers the bar for leveraging provisionals as invalidating prior art before the PTAB (i.e., makes it easier to invalidate patents); however, (4) it remains unclear whether the courts will adopt the PTAB’s interpretation given the fairly minor statutory distinction underlying the decision. Toward the end of the post, I note that the ultimate questions on appeal may focus on the purposes and policy goals of the 102(a)(2) prior art provision and recognition of the provision’s potential unfairness.  These may push the Federal Circuit toward rejecting the USPTO approach and instead extending Dynamic Drinkware to AIA patents.

= = =

The language of 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) is a bit clunky, but its effect is to codify the first-to-file regime created by the America Invents Act of 2011.  The provision recognizes that a prior-filed patent application will typically serve as prior art against another later-application filed by a different inventor and assignee.  The provision does have some important caveats.  Notably, in order to be prior art under 102(a)(2), the application must first either (a) issue as a US patent (under 35 U.S.C. 151) or (2) be published as a US patent application publication (under 35 U.S.C. 122(b)).  Although a PCT application is not actually published under Section 122(b), it is “deemed a publication under section 122(b)” so long as it designates the US.  35 U.S.C. 374.

Foreign patent applications and provisional applications typically do not publish under Section 122(b) or issue as US patents — and therefore do not directly qualify as prior art as of their filing dates.  Here though there is an important caveat — the 102(a)(2) designates the US patent/publication prior art as of its effective filing date.   Section 102(d) then stretches the prior art date back to the earliest priority filing date so long as the US patent/publication “is entitled to claim a right of priority … or to claim the benefit of an earlier filing date.”  By its terms, the Section 102(d) reach-back does not apply to the patent  or published application as a whole. Rather, the statute indicates that the earliest effective filing date for prior art purposes is determined based whether “subject matter described in the patent or application” that is being used as prior art is also described in the priority document.

(d) Patents and Published Applications Effective as Prior Art.—For purposes of determining whether a patent or application for patent is prior art to a claimed invention under subsection (a)(2), such patent or application shall be considered to have been effectively filed, with respect to any subject matter described in the patent or application … (2) if the patent or application for patent is entitled to claim a right of priority … or to claim the benefit of an earlier filing date …, as of the filing date of the earliest such application that describes the subject matter.

35 U.S.C. 102(d).  Thus, for a U.S. patent or published application to be considered effectively filed as of the filing date of an earlier priority application under Section 102(d), (1) the patent or published application must be entitled to claim priority to the earlier application, and (2) the earlier priority application must describe the particular subject matter relied upon in the patent or published application being used as prior art against the claimed invention.  I term these two requirements as “entitlement” and “description” respectively.  As you’ll learn below, the USPTO recently adopted this approach — further delineating the entitlement portion as “ministerial entitlement.”

102(a)(2) serves an important role in post-AIA law because it codifies the rules of the first-inventor-to-file regime.  This was an important change from pre-AIA that, at times, allowed patentees to claim priority back to their provable date of invention. At the same time, 102(a)(2) prior art smarts of some fundamental unfairness because the references are kept secret for (typically) 18 months only to spring forth with a back-dating to the filing date.  Even the most careful and contentious inventors and applicants have no way of organizing their affairs to avoid unintentional duplication or minor extension because the references are kept secret.  This is one reason why in Europe, the parallel prior art is only available for novelty purposes, not for obviousness.

A key question post-AIA has been the extent that this new law changes the rules developed under the old parallel statute previously codified at 35 U.S.C. 102(e).  The main point of contention is the interpretation of the the two requirements  of entitlement and description.

The Federal Circuit faced a parallel issue in its Dynamic Drinkware case, albeit under pre-AIA law. Dynamic Drinkware, LLC v. National Graphics, Inc., 800 F.3d 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2015).  In Dynamic Drinkware, the Federal Circuit held that for a reference patent to receive the earlier filing date of its provisional application under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C § 102(e), the disclosure of the provisional “must provide adequate written description support for at least one claim of the issued [reference] patent” under 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 1 (2006). In other words, it was not sufficient under the pre-AIA framework for the provisional application to merely disclose the subject matter relied upon in the reference patent to show obviousness of the claimed invention. Instead, Dynamic Drinkware required that the claims in the reference patent itself must also be fully supported by the written description of the priority provisional application under § 112, ¶ 1 in order to reach back to its earlier filing date for prior art purposes.  Without full written description support, the priority filing does not serve as a proper anchor sufficient to justify the priority prior art date.

But, Dynamic Drinkware struck some folks as wrong because it focuses on what was claimed rather than what was disclosed. As I wrote back then:

Anyone who works with prior art knows that this setup is an oddball way to address the situation.  A patent’s disclosure for prior art purposes should not depend upon what was claimed or not claimed but instead should focus on what was disclosed. . . .

Raymond came up with idea at issue first and disclosed it in a provisional patent application that eventually resulted in an issued patent.  But, since Raymond’s non-provisional application included [and claimed] additional subject matter, the provisional disclosure no longer counts as effective prior art.

Crouch, Federal Circuit Backtracks (A bit) on Prior Art Status of Provisional Applications and Gives us a Disturbing Result, Patently-O (Sept. 8, 2015).   I went on

Here comes the new decision.  The USPTO recently designated a PTAB decision as precedential that rejects Dynamic Drinkware as applied to post-AIA patents. Penumbra, Inc. v. RapidPulse, Inc., IPR2021-01466, Paper 34 (March 10, 2023) (made precedential as to section II.E.3 on November 15, 2023).  Although the USPTO does not have authority to overrule Federal Circuit decisions regarding the law of patents and what counts as prior art, it skirted the issue here by noting that the statute was substantially rewritten in the AIA.

IPR2021-01466 involves RapidPulse’s U.S. Patent No. 10,531,883 B1 which relates to an aspiration thrombectomy system used to treat ischemic strokes by removing blood clots. The petitioner, Penumbra, challenged the validity of claims 1-18 of the ’883 patent as obvious over prior art references including Teigen et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,096,712).

But, Teigen only counts as prior art if it can reach back to its provisional application under 102(d).  RapidPulse argued that Teigen did not qualify as prior art because the petitioner failed to establish written description support in Teigen’s provisional applications for claimed subject matter as required under Dynamic Drinkware.

In the precedential section of the Penumbra decision, the PTAB rejected the application of Dynamic Drinkware for determining whether a patent is entitled to claim priority to provisional applications for prior art purposes under §§ 102(a)(2)/(d) of the AIA.  Under Penumbra, the PTAB identified the two  statutory requiements:

1. Entitlement: The patent or published application must meet the ministerial/procedural requirements to be entitled to claim priority to the provisional application under 35 U.S.C. §119 or §120. This does not require actually showing the claims are fully supported under §112, but only that the patent document need meets the “‘ministerial requirements’ of §§119 and 120.”
2. Disclosure: The provisional application must describe the particular subject matter from the patent or published application that is relied upon as prior art against the challenged patent claims.

In other words, under the  AIA statutory framework, a petitioner must show: (1) the reference patent meets certain formalities to claim priority to the provisional, and (2) the provisional application describes the specific portions of the reference patent that are asserted as prior art, even if other portions are not described in the provisional and even if no claims in the prior art patent are fully supported by the provisional.

The PTAB expressly rejects “extending” pre-AIA law, including the Federal Circuit’s Dynamic Drinkware decision, to require establishing §112 support for the claims of the reference patent itself. Only the subject matter relied upon to show obviousness needs written description support in the priority application to reach back to its earlier filing date.

This precedential PTAB decision thus begins to settle the question of whether Dynamic Drinkware applies under the AIA for the effective date of prior art patents and published applications.  The holding particularly lowers the burden for petitioners seeking to rely on provisional and foreign filing dates for asserted references because the challenger no longer needs to show § 112 support for a reference patent’s claim, but rather only needs to show that the subject matter at issue is described in the provisional.

This case will certainly be appealed, and it is not entirely clear that the Federal Circuit will agree with the USPTO’s rejection of its precedent. Although the statutory framework is different, the statutory differences do not clearly indicate a shift in precedent. Thus, there is a good chance that this case will also be reversed on appeal.

The ultimate questions here may focus on the purposes and policy goals of the 102(a)(2) prior art provision and the recognition of the provision’s potential unfairness. Namely, is the provision primarily focused on enforcing the first-inventor-to-file aspects of the law? Or, is the provision’s primary purpose simply to expand the scope of invalidating prior art references?

If the main thrust of 102(a)(2) is to codify a first-inventor-to-file system, then the Dynamic Drinkware approach of requiring full written description support for the claims of a reference patent makes more sense. The claims dictate what has been invented first and claimed first. Provisional support for subject matter disclosed but unclaimed in the prior art patent does not establish first-inventor status.

However, if 102(a)(2) is intended principally to expand prior art, then the PTAB’s focus on merely requiring that the provisional describe the relied upon subject matter is more in line with that goal. Expansion of invalidating art takes priority over only allowing first-claiming inventors to rely on early priority dates.

= = = =

I would be remiss to post this without harping on one of my pet notions that provisional patent applications should all be considered prior art as soon as their file is open to the public.  The USPTO needs to do a better job of making provisional applications publicly available — many include details and descriptions that are not found in the later non-provisional. But, as far as I am aware, there is no searchable database of US provisional applications.

Guest post by Camilla A. Hrdy, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University of Akron School of Law, and Daniel H. Brean, Senior In-House Intellectual Property Counsel, Respiratory Care, Philips.

Are inventions described in works of science fiction patentable? The answer is usually no, and for good reason. Some of the most beloved fixtures of the genre—time machines, faster-than-light space travel, teleportation, downloading memories, copying a consciousness, etcetera—are impossible or not yet possible when described by the author. This sort of science fiction is not patentable because it cannot logically be enabled or have credible utility when the patent is filed.

For similar reasons, science fiction is rarely cited as prior art against later patent filings. Science fiction can qualify as prior art under § 102(a) as a “printed publication” or as “otherwise available to the public.” It can be especially useful as “obviousness” prior art because, to quote the Federal Circuit, a “reference that does not provide an enabling disclosure for a particular claim limitation may nonetheless furnish the motivation to combine, and be combined with, another reference in which that limitation is enabled.” Raytheon Techs. Corp. v. General Electric Company, 993 F.3d 1374 (2021). However, science fiction is unlikely to be cited during examination.[1] Examiners lack the time and energy to search for on-point science fiction where there is so much more (and better catalogued) prior art among patents and scientific publications. Applicants, for their part, are not required to disclose prior art that is not material to patentability or that is cumulative of other prior art they’ve already provided. See https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2001.html.

It may surprise you, then, to learn that the genre of science fiction is deeply indebted to patent law and patent theory. In our new paper, The Patent Law Origins of Science Fiction, available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4291271, we show that science fiction as a literary form was originally premised on the idea that works of science fiction are like patents. They disclose useful technical information that can give readers a “stimulus” to perfect the invention and figure out how to make it work.

The person responsible for this comparison was the so-called “father” of science fiction, Hugo Gernsback. He started the first exclusively-science fiction magazine, called Amazing Stories, in 1926. The Hugo awards, given to the best works of science fiction and fantasy writing, are named after him.

Gernsback was also an inventor and serious scientific thinker in his own right. He died with over thirty patents to his name. In the early 1900s, he started a radio and electronics equipment company in New York. To support his business, he initially published catalogs for mail-order electrical components, but the catalogs soon morphed into full-sized magazines with titles like “Modern Electrics,” marketed to inventors and amateur “tinkerers.” Hugo Gernsback, The Perversity of Things, Grant Wythoff ed. (University of Minnesota Press 2016). His magazines were full of information about patents and advice on patenting—which Gernsback deemed an essential step in the commercial success of any new invention.

At first, Gernsback started publishing science fiction stories—which he then called “scientifiction”—to fill space in his electrical magazines. These stories were sometimes little more than a few paragraphs of exposition about some speculative new device that might be used in the future, plugged into a generic adventure plot. For example, one story featured a genius from the future using (what we now call) “radar” to track down a Martian who had kidnapped the protagonist’s love interest in a Space Flyer. Despite the fictional elements, science and scientific plausibility were still all-important. Gernsback was fond of saying the recipe for good scientifiction was 25% science and 75% literature.

Readers loved it, and Amazing Stories was born. Gernsback knew he was on to something, and he frequently published editorials expounding on the virtues of scientifiction. These editorials, along with his unpublished manuscripts, reveal Gernsback’s theory that a good science fiction story is like a patent, but a much more “palatable” read. Although he did not articulate it in precisely the same terms, Gernsback’s justification for scientifiction echoes the language of patent law’s disclosure theory. Scientifiction, he wrote, provides both knowledge and “stimulus.”[2] It inspires “seriously-minded” readers to learn about science and technology, and it supplies the “inventor or inventor-to-be who reads the story” with “an incentive” to “realiz[e] the author’s ambition” by perfecting the author’s science fictional inventions in the real world. Gernsback often drew the analogy to patents quite explicitly. The science fiction author, in his framework, was “an original inventor,” like the named inventor on a patent. The readers who got the author’s invention to work were like “manufacturers” who buy patents and commercialize the inventions therein “with but a few changes.” They were just there to profit from the author’s grand ambitions.

Over time, Gernsback developed a crazy idea. If science fiction authors are “inventors” who inspire others to reduce their inventions to practice, then shouldn’t science fiction authors be able to get patents for their prescient descriptions of future inventions? And shouldn’t science fiction serve as prior art against other peoples’ patents? In 1952, just after Congress had modernized the Patent Act, Gernsback made these ideas public. In a speech he gave to the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, he proposed that Congress should reform patent law (again) to give science fiction authors the ability to apply for “Provisional Patents.”

Gernsback’s Provisional Patents were not at all like today’s provisional patent applications. Compare 35 U.S.C. § 111. His Provisional Patents would have given science fiction authors thirty extra years in which to demonstrate their science fictional inventions worked. If they could do so, the Provisional Patent would be converted into a normal patent, presumably in force for the full patent term (which at that time meant 17 years). Otherwise, it would be abandoned. This proposal was not adopted and, we presume, was never seriously considered.

In the same speech, Gernsback also proposed that authors and publishers should start identifying works of science fiction that contained “new and feasible” inventions, so that they could send these selected works to the patent office. Gernsback’s hope was that the patent office would be deluged with science fiction and have no choice but to start reviewing and citing science fiction more often as prior art. This idea had more grounding in current law than Gernsback’s Provisional Patents, but it was not adopted either. Mechanisms for getting prior art to the patent office have certainly improved since Gernsback’s time. But we still don’t send the patent office curated collections of science fiction.

Gernsback’s ideas were iconoclastic, and his proposal to make Provisional Patents available for inventions that are not yet reduced to practice is deeply troubling from a policy perspective. Science fiction authors who make reasonably accurate predictions about future technological developments would gain the ability to sue the very people who figure out how to make those technologies. Imagine the effect on the computer industry if a science fiction author had been able to reserve the right to patent a supercomputer in the early 1920s, and then converted this into a full patent in the 1950s…

But taking Gernsback’s ideas seriously generates some surprising insights. Science fiction—of the type that Gernsback and “hard sf” writers like Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov wrote—has more in common with patents than it might seem. Publishing a work of science fiction confers no exclusive rights on the inventions it contains. But, like patents, works of science fiction are documents that disclose potentially useful information about science and technology. Like patents, science fiction stories can describe inventions that have not literally been reduced to practice; they can leave many details to skilled artisans to figure out. Both science fiction readers and patent examiners are also supposed to suspend disbelief, presuming the inventions described on the page are based on plausible scientific principles. See, e.g. In re Cortright, 165 F.3d 1353 (1999). If we think patents are an important part of the innovation ecosystem because they disseminate useful technological teachings and insights, then science fiction might be too.

How often science fiction influences innovation is an extremely interesting question. Ironically, the patent record itself is a great source of data with which to test Gernsback’s theories. In fact, one of Gernsback’s more questionable assumptions was that profit-hungry readers are “continuously” filing patents on inventions they learned about in science fiction. They remember the idea, “lard it with a few of [their] own, patent it and start a new billion dollar industry on it.” Regardless of whether that is true, if someone is inspired by science fiction to make an invention in the real world, then we should sometimes see evidence of this in the patent record.

Formal prior art citations to science fiction are rare for the reasons we said above. But we can find circumstantial evidence of science fiction’s influence by searching patents. For example, specifications sometimes reference science fiction in the body, even if they don’t formally cite to science fiction as prior art. Search the patent record for “Asimov, “Three Laws of Robotics,” or “Star Trek,” and you’ll see what we mean. We can also find more direct evidence of influence—situations where inventors expressly state that they got their inspiration from science fiction. For this, though, we usually have to look outside the patent record. Inventors’ autobiographies, interviews, speeches, and marketing efforts can reveal clues. For example, Neil Stephenson’s 1992 book Snow Crash features a virtual world called the Metaverse. Facebook and other tech companies are making their own virtual worlds and calling them by the same name. That, along with direct statements from employees that Stephenson is “our inspiration,” helps support that there was some degree of influence. Steven Levy, Neal Stephenson Named the Metaverse. Now, He’s Building It, Wired (Sept. 16, 2022).

This is surely sometimes independent invention, the result of multiple inventors responding to the same technological developments and contemporary trends. Mark A. Lemley, The Myth of the Sole Inventor, 110 Mich. L. Rev. 709 (2012). But sometimes it is not. Despite all the legal and practical barriers, science fiction appears in the patent record. It was important enough to play some small part in the journey that culminated in the invention. At the end of the day, there is only one explanation for this: Some inventors read science fiction, and some science fiction matters to those people. Its ideas inspire them in ways that traditional sources (including patents) do not. Gernsback put it best. Science fiction “fires the reader’s imagination more perhaps than anything else of which we know,” leaving readers “deeply thrilled[,]” as their “imagination is fired to the nth degree[.]” Few people would ever say that about reading patents.

Even if science fiction does not directly influence someone to make the precise inventions it discloses, it can impact peoples’ career choices, inspiring them to go into science or pursue a general line of inquiry. It can inspire them to go to space. Kristen Houser, Science fiction doesn’t predict the future. It inspires it, BigThink (Oct. 23, 2021). Arthur C. Clarke went so far as to say that “by writing about space flight we have brought its realization nearer by decades.” In Clarke’s view, science fiction both imparted useful technical information and acclimated readers to the possibility of space flight, priming them to support and accept the novel technology when it arrived.

Gernsback’s science fiction-as-patent theory also contains some wisdom for science fiction writers. A little more patent-style “enablement” in science fiction might do more for innovation than science fiction writers want to believe. There is nothing wrong with fantasy and so-called speculative fiction. It is often tremendously entertaining. But we call it science fiction (and thankfully not scientifiction) for a reason: it is based on kernels of real science. To quote Gernsback, what makes science fiction different from romance and adventure stories is that it is grounded in “scientific fact” and has the potential to be “prophetic.” It might one day come to pass. Science fiction authors who work to “enable” their stories, even just a bit, have a better chance to give a stimulus to readers to reduce their inventions to practice. There are many, many authors who already do this, and do so without compromising the quality of the narrative. They might literally affect the future in the way we imagine all inventors hope their patents will. See https://gamerant.com/best-hard-sci-fi-novels-newcomers/#the-three-body-problem-mdash-liu-cixin; https://upjourney.com/best-hard-science-fiction-novels.

For more about Gernsback’s ideas on patents and for more examples of science fiction’s impact on innovation, check out our paper here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4291271

[1] This is not to say it does not happen. In litigation, defendants have stronger incentives to find science fiction prior art and use it to build a case for invalidity. For example, in 2011, during the “smart phone wars,” Samsung argued Apple’s iPad design patent was anticipated by what appear to be “tablet” computers in scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/08/samsung-cites-stanley-kubricks-2001.html

[2] These quotes come from Gernsback’s editorials in Amazing Stories. The full quotes and citations can be found in the paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4291271

The Thompson decision was released on January 1, 1826 and penned by Judge Van Ness who died later that year.  Van Ness was perhaps most famous for being Aaron Burr’s second at Burr’s duel with Alexander Hamilton, but this opinion shows further sign of his character.  Van Ness argues that the U.S. patent system at the time was being overrun by large numbers of trivial inventions. Although it required invention in name, it was really just becoming a replacement to monopolies barred by the Statute of Monopolies (1624). 

Van Ness further explains that the plethora of low quality patents harms the genuine inventors, because all patents are suspect.

It is unnecessary to look farther than to see the fate of Whitney, Evans, and above all, Fulton, or those who represent him. Instead of deriving peace, honour, and affluence from their incessant labour and incomparable skill, they have sunk under vexation and the pressure of litigation. Patent upon patent and privilege upon privilege have been granted, infringing the original rights, until their hopes and anticipated rewards were converted into despair and poverty. In the degrading conflict, even the laurels they had fairly won withered amidst the wreck of their fame and their fortunes.

Id. Van Ness called for a rigorous examination system and, once examined, patents should then be deemed secured:

They should only be granted, as I conceive, upon due examination into the merits of the application, and then the rights granted should be well secured, and well protected.

Id.  (more…)

I enjoy reading competitive questions-presented in Supreme Court petitions.  Although I don’t have evidence to support this, my contention is that respondents have become much more aggressive at recharacterizing the questions from the way they were presented in the original petition.  As that aggression grows, so does the propensity of petitioners to write even more biased questions.

Briefing in Collabo Innovations, Inc. v. Sony Corp., Docket No. 19-601 (Supreme Court 2020), shows how the U.S. Solicitor’s office has gotten on-board the ‘game.’

Compare below:

Notice the competing preambles that talk-past each other without addressing the same key points; The US Gov’t then reordered and rewrote the questions.  On the takings question — petitioner uses the trigger keyword “retroactive application” of IPR while the Gov’t refers to the more neutral “cancellation.”  Cancellation is an important term here because cancellation was already allowed pre-AIA under the reexamination statutes. On the due process question, the Gov’t flips the “rational basis” test to ask instead whether the AIA is “irrational.”  The Gov’t approach on this second question incorrectly suggests that Congressional irrationality is the test or perhaps the issue raised by the petition.  It turns out that neither are true because due process is also concerned with arbitrary government action (as indicated in Collabo’s briefing).

What is most interesting to me here is that these shifts and tilts of the question are all transparent to the Supreme Court justices and their law clerks. Still I expect that the alternate narratives trigger an emotional response; and those emotions are typically the root of decision making even for the highly rational.

by Dennis Crouch

The new petition for certiorari filed by Liquidia raises some interesting questions about the ongoing race between inter partes review proceedings and district court litigation.  Liquidia Techs v. United Therapeutics Corp., 23-804 (US), on petition for writ of certiorari from United Therapeutics Corp. v. Liquidia Techs., Inc., 74 F.4th 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2023).

UTC won its infringement suit against Liquidia with a holding that its patent covering treprostinil administration by inhalation were valid and infringed. (US10716793).  While the appeal was pending, the PTAB sided against the patentee and found the claims unpatentable as obvious.  In the appeal, however, the Federal Circuit refused to give credence to the PTAB decision – finding that litigation was still “pending” and “non-final.” The claims had not actually been cancelled yet – since the Director only issues the certificate confirming unpatentability after any appeal. Further, the Federal Circuit concluded that IPR decisions do not have issue-preclusive (collateral estoppel) effect until the decision is affirmed on appeal, or the parties waive their right to appeal. Citing XY, LLC v. Trans Ova Genetics, L.C., 890 F.3d 1282, 1294 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

Liquidia’s petition argues that the PTAB’s final-written decision should be given preclusive effect in parallel litigation even if an appeal is pending, just like would be done for a district court opinion. (more…)

by Dennis Crouch

Ficep begins its petition for certiorari with a brilliant statement of how its patented steel manufacturing method has won numerous awards and complements for its innovative approach, been copied by competitors, and led to numerous successful sales. Despite these clear indicia of patentability, the Federal Circuit invalidated claims — affirming the lower court’s judgment on appeal.

That the invention was an important real-world manufacturing innovation was, as a factual matter, thoroughly established. The improvement was touted as enabling vastly more efficient and superior manufacture of components – not just by Petitioner’s experts, but also in the defendant’s advertising. There was industry recognition applauding the “innovation.” There was copying by competitors. There was successful litigation and licensing. And there was specific customer demand for the improvement to the manufacturing process. That is, every objective indicium of inventiveness that this Court has identified was present in the technological, traditionally patent-eligible, setting of manufacturing lines.

Ficep petition for certiorari.  But, in the Federal Circuit’s view, facts are confined to the obviousness analysis, and Ficep’s patent is invalid because it is directed to an abstract idea. Ficep Corp. v. Peddinghaus Corp., No. 2022-1590, 2023 WL 5346043 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 21, 2023).  The petition goes on to ask three questions:

1. Does a claim directed to patent-eligible subject matter (here, manufacturing) nevertheless become ineligible as “abstract” if the process is improved using automation? (and should an “abstract-idea” behind a claim to a patent-eligible process be identified and, if so, how and at what level of abstraction?)
2. What is the appropriate standard for determining whether a claim is “inventive,” conferring eligibility under Alice Step 2, including whether objective evidence of inventiveness and technological improvement is relevant?
3. Is either what a claim is “directed to” and whether that is abstract, or whether a claim is “inventive” as articulated in Alice step 2, only for a judge to decide as a legal matter or does it include fact issues and, if the latter, are they for a jury?

SCT No. 23-796.  This case again highlights the need for clearer guidance from the Supreme Court on when a patent claim directed to an industrial process should be considered an abstract idea and therefore patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

• Ficep Cert Petition
• Ficep FedCir Decision

For its part, the Federal Circuit applied the two-step test for patent eligibility established in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). At step one, the court determines whether the patent is “directed to” a patent-ineligible concept like an abstract idea. If so, then at step two the court searches for an “inventive concept” beyond the ineligible concept.

Here, the Federal Circuit held Ficep’s patent claims to be directed to the abstract idea of “extracting and transferring information from a design file to a manufacturing machine.” The court characterized the focus of the claims as “automating a previously manual process” that a human operator used to perform. Further finding no inventive concept at step two, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that the claims were patent ineligible under § 101.

In its cert petition, Ficep contends that the Federal Circuit misapplied Alice in a way that conflicts with precedent and casts doubt on patents for industrial innovations. Ficep argues that its claims are directed to an eligible manufacturing process under Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981), which held that a rubber curing method did not become patent ineligible simply because one step used the Arrhenius equation to automate timing of when to open the presses. According to Ficep, the Federal Circuit improperly focused on one aspect of its claims—data extraction and transfer—rather than evaluating the claims as a whole, which require physical manufacture of components. Ficep also presented extensive evidence of its patented system’s superiority over prior manufacturing methods, which it contends demonstrates a technological advance under step two of Alice that the Federal Circuit wrongly dismissed.

Lets look at the claim at issue for just a moment. Claim 7 below claims an “apparatus for automatic manufacture of an object” and requires, among other things, “at least one manufacturing machine [that] manufactures the components” after receiving dimensions from a computing device.  Although the court agreed that the claim requires hardware, the court noted that the actual advance here is simply automating the previously manual process of transferring information from a CAD design model to a manufacturing machine.  The court found that, in a general sense, that automation process is an abstract idea.  And, that the patent claims offer no specific technological improvement that would transform the ineligible idea into a patent eligible.  But, the patentee here argues that the closest Supreme Court case on point is not Alice, but rather Diehr, which would favor eligibility.

7. An apparatus for automatic manufacture of an object, comprising:

a computing device adapted to create a design model of an object having multiple individual components, at least two of the individual components defining an intersection at which the two components are in contact with one another;

at least one programmable logic controller in communication with the computing device and with at least one manufacturing machine;

a receiver associated with the programmable logic controller for receiving the design model of the object;

a database unit adapted to store the design model received at the receiver;

a processor which is associated with the programmable logic controller and extracts from the design model a plurality of dimensions of components which define a plurality of components of the object;

wherein the processor identifies a plurality of intersection parameters which define the intersection of the two components;

wherein the processor extracts from the design model the intersection parameters;

a transmitter associated with the processor for transmitting the intersection and machining parameters and the component dimensions from the programmable logic controller to the at least one manufacturing machine; and

wherein the at least one manufacturing machine manufactures the components based at least in part on the transmitted component dimensions and on the transmitted intersection and manufacturing parameters.

In focusing on Diehr, the patentee here is raising a difficult issue that the the  Supreme Court’s landmark 1980 decision is effectively dead, even though it has not been rejected or repudiated by the Supreme Court. Rather, it was favorably cited in the Supreme Court’s recent trio of Bilksi, Mayo, and Alice.

Zombie Precedent: Ficep contends that its claims are analogous to the patent-eligible claims in Diamond v. Diehr for a rubber curing method that used the Arrhenius equation to calculate when to automatically open the presses. Ficep argues that like Diehr, its claims as a whole are directed to an eligible manufacturing process—namely manufacturing steel building components—even if one aspect involves automation based on extracting data like intersection parameters. But, the lower courts are not applying Diehr because they see that case as in conflict with the more recent trio. In its petition, Ficep asks the Supreme Court to make a statement on this issue — either confirm or overrule Diehr.

On the inventiveness issue that I started with in this post, the patentee here asks for guidance on Step-2 of Alice/Mayo and for a recognition that technological advance is a fact question for a jury to decide alongside parallel questions in obviousness and anticipation analysis.

= = =

The patentee-petitioner is represented by Matthew Lowrie and his team from Foley & Lardner.  Peddinghaus’s responsive brief is due Feb 23, 2024.  Their attorneys have not filed an appearance, but I expect they will still be represented by Nathaniel Love and his Sidley Austin team that includes Stephanie Koh and Leif Peterson.