Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

For many intellectual property lawyers, the search for a local associate to assist with IP filings around the world begins and ends with a quick email to colleagues asking who knows someone in a particular country. And while personal connections are important, this method probably won’t lead to the best legal services for your clients. As we emerge from the pandemic and return to face-to-face meetings, here are several tips for vetting foreign associates. This process ideally starts overseas and leads to in-person conversations, but text chats and video calls still have value.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on two mixed inter partes review (IPR) decisions involving American National Manufacturing and Sleep Number Corp. that found some, but not all, of the challenged claims not unpatentable. The IPRs on appeal involve U.S. Patent Nos. 8,769,747 and 9,737,154. They “describe systems and methods that purport to adjust the pressure in an air mattress ‘in less time and with greater accuracy’ than previously known.” American National filed IPR petitions challenging many claims of both patents and asserting that most of the challenged claims would have been obvious over various prior art references.

Today, the Federal Register published a final interim rule submitted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that will eliminate provisions within the agency’s rules of practice establishing a voluntary program for certifying the completion of continuing legal education (CLE) credits by registered patent practitioners and those granted limited recognition to practice in patent matters before the USPTO. The elimination of the voluntary CLE program follows a series of criticisms raised over the agency’s lack of compliance with federal administrative law statutes meant to objectively quantify the burden of agency rulemaking on stakeholders.

In the United States, claims directed to methods of treating/diagnosing human disease are patentable. On the other hand, in Japan, such claims are unpatentable. Therefore, the applicant is required to rewrite or delete the claims when a patent application (e.g., Patent Cooperation Treaty application) containing such claims enters the Japanese national phase and is examined. In this article, I offer my personal views on how to rewrite method-of-treatment claims for Japanese examination. I will particularly focus on claims that may or may not conform to Japanese patent practice while past Japanese patent cases and the current patent system are taken into account.

This week in Washington IP news, the House Space Subcommittee takes a look at the first few images and scientific measurements that have been captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, while the Senate Judiciary Committee vets several nominees to federal judgeships including a couple of judges chosen for appellate courts seeing much of the country’s IP appeals. Elsewhere, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation releases the findings of a joint study on competitiveness and innovation in North America and Europe, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office hosts the latest regular meeting of the Patent Public Advisory Committee, and Brookings Institution discusses the role of state and local regulators in regulating digital assets and cryptocurrency.

On November 4, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Amgen’s petition for certiorari against the advice of the U.S. government – taking up Amgen’s challenge to the Federal Circuit’s enablement review of its PCSK9 antibody patents covering evolocumab (Repatha®). In its petition, Amgen asserts that the Federal Circuit has gone too far in invalidating its PCSK9 antibody patents by imposing a disclosure burden beyond the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112. Notably, the Supreme Court, albeit with a different composition, recently declined to hear several other similar cases raising issues with the Federal Circuit’s enablement precedent.

In a recent webinar moderated by Gene Quinn, President & CEO of IPWatchdog, Ludwig APC founder, Eric Ludwig, and Pattric Rawlins, partner at Procopio Cory Hargreaves & Savitch, discussed the topic of inventorship, including subjects such as naming inventor(s) on a patent and the implications of amending and contesting Inventorship. “Matters of inventorship and patent ownership are easy until they’re not—until there’s a fight or a disagreement over co-inventorship,” Ludwig explained. “If the parties have a good relationship and there is an amicable decision to correct an error or omission as to who is named as an inventor, then that’s an easy process. If it’s contested, that’s when problems arise.”

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the European Patent Office issues the results of a study showing that 13.2% of European inventors between 1978 and 2019 were women; the Supreme Court disappoints the life sciences community by dismissing the cert petition in Juno Therapeutics, but grants cert in Amgen v. Sanofi and Abitron Austria v. Hetronic International; the Federal Trade Commission files an amicus brief in the District of Delaware arguing that Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ patents covering a method of distributing Xyrem should not be listed in the Orange Book; and more.

On November 10, a group of Democratic members of congress sent a letter to United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai expressing concerns about extending a waiver of intellectual property rights under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to therapeutics and diagnostics for the treatment of COVID-19. The letter comes as talks are heating up at the World Trade Organization (WTO) about such an extension, with the technical deadline for a decision being December 19. The letter poses seven questions for Tai to consider and respond to as she formulates the U.S. position on waiver extension, including whether the current waiver of IP rights for vaccine-related technology has been effective, how “diagnostics” and “therapeutics” will be defined, and that she provide a list of countries that have expressed interest in gaining access to American IP for COVID-related diagnostics and therapeutics.

“Mathematical Formulas and Relationships” fall under the “Abstract Idea” exception to the categories of patentable subject matter. Characterizing the “Mathematical Formulas and Relationships” as “Abstract Ideas” has led to misrepresentation of mathematical concepts in patent law. A “Mathematical Formula or Relationship” is a means of expression and should be inspected to extract what it expresses. Next, the content that is being expressed may be evaluated to determine whether the “Mathematical Formula or Relationship” is expressing a “Tool” or a “Model,” both of which are used for building machines and devising technological processes and neither of which needs to be categorically excepted from patentability.

Over the last 15 years, the United States Supreme Court has mutated patent eligibility into an impossibly complex and confusing mess. The Court’s current eligibility test strays far from Congress’s original intent, erodes trust in predictability, and has left many remarking that innovation in the United States is falling behind due to uncertainty of patent eligibility law. Even more troubling, the resulting uncertainty of patent ineligibility for large swaths of innovation in critical technology areas, including artificial intelligence, poses significant risks to U.S. competitiveness, economic growth and national security. The Court has had opportunities to rectify its patent sinkhole but recently declined another chance to mend the chaos. When the Court denied certiorari in American Axle v. Neapco—despite the Solicitor General’s plea to hear the case—it became clear that Congress must step in to rescue U.S. innovation.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed the dismissal of Metamorfoza’s trademark infringement and unfair competition claims against Big Funny over a trademark that included the disclaimed phrase “Museum of Illusions.” Big Funny also cross-appealed the district court’s denial of its motion for attorneys’ fees, but the Court of Appeals agreed with the district court, finding that it had acted within its discretion in denying fees under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a) because the case was not “exceptional.” Big Funny and Metamorfoza both operate multiple museums called “Museum of Illusions” in the United States. Big Funny operates museums in California and Florida, while Metamorfoza has museums in New York, Missouri and Texas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision affirming the grant of a narrowly-tailored preliminary injunction to SoClean, Inc., a medical device company that makes CPAP machines, based on trademark infringement claims against Sunset Healthcare Solutions, Inc. SoClean alleged in 2021 that Sunset infringed its U.S. Trademark Registration No. 6,080,195. The registration covers the configuration of replacement filters for its sanitizing devices.

Challenging established processes is a commonly recognized leadership principle. In recent weeks, the emphasis by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on reconsidering and reforming patent bar eligibility, especially with regard to a potential design patent bar, represents a significant challenge to well-established Patent Office procedures. If the health and viability of an organization can be defined in terms of its ability to revisit, revamp and evolve existing rules and procedures, then this initiative, led by Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Kathi Vidal, represents a healthy and viable intellectual property community.

Much has been written about patent quality. But many authors approach this problem with a bias against the very idea of a patent system. These critics would “solve” the patent quality problem by cutting down the total number of issued patents rather than focusing on problem patents. They suggest increasing examiners and examination time will weed out bad quality patents. And this might throw up additional roadblocks to inventors obtaining a patent by increasing the time and cost of securing an allowance. But this does not necessarily improve patent quality. Instead, it merely reduces the total number of patents issued. Rather than “more examination,” solutions to the patent quality problem need to focus on “better examination.” In theory, “better examination” should stop invalid claims from ever getting issued while simultaneously streamlining allowance for valid claims.