Tag Archives: paid

New Amendment to FRCP Could Help Streamline Privilege Management in Patent Cases

Patent

by Dennis Crouch

On August 15, 2023, the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules published proposed amendments to Rules 16 and 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. One of the goals of these amendments is to encourage parties to address issues relating to claims of privilege and work product protection early in litigation. This could be particularly impactful for patent cases, which frequently involve extensive disputes over these very issues.  The proposal would also retitle Rule 16(b) to include both scheduling and case management (the current version just focuses on scheduling).

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Meta Claim Construction: Finding Meaning in the Meaning

Patent,

by Dennis Crouch

One-E-Way, Inc. v. Apple Inc., 22-2020 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 14, 2023) (nonprecedential) (Opinion by Chief Judge Moore, joined by Judges Lourie and Stoll).

The district court sided with Apple on summary judgment, finding no infringement. On appeal, the Federal Circuit has affirmed, holding that Apple's accused Bluetooth products do not infringe One-E-Way's patents.  Although the parties had agreed to the construction of the "unique user code" term, they disagreed over the construction-of-the-construction.  On appeal, the court treated this meta-construction effectively as a form of claim construction -- looking for the ordinary meaning rather than a contract-like interpretation that would have looked more toward discerning the intent of the parties.

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ApoA1-Fc Fusion Proteins: Federal Circuit keeps Patent Hopes Alive, Holding that the USPTO Must Explain its Decisions

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In re Theripion, Inc., 2022-1346 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 10, 2023) (nonprecedential) (Opinion by Judge Stark, joined by Judges Hughes and Cunningham).

ApoA1 is a key component of HDL, also known as "good cholesterol." The founders of Therapin created a synthetic "fusion protean" of ApoA1 linked to the Fc portion of an antibody (the stem).  That fusion extends the half-life of injected HDL and allows it to be a better potential drug treatment. The claims require a specific linker protein of 10-40 amino acids between the ApoA1 and Fc portions. Theripion discovered that this longer linker improved cholesterol efflux activity compared to fusion proteins having shorter 2 amino acid linkers or no linker.  So the essence of the invention as claimed is an ApoA1-Fc fusion protein with an optimized 10-40 amino acid linker that enhances the fusion protein's ability to remove cholesterol from cells as compared to a much shorter or absent amino acid linker.  To be clear, the prior art (including some work by the inventors here) had created ApoA1-Fc fusions, but with a short linkage. And, various types of connectors of the claimed length were also known.

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