Posts Tagged: "nonobviousness"

CAFC Affirms District Court Finding that Naloxone Patents are Obvious; Newman Dissents

On February 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, explaining that the district court did not err in finding several Adapt Pharma patents obvious. The asserted claims relate to U.S. Patent Nos. 9,468,747; 9,561,177; 9,629,965; and 9,775,838 (collectively, the “patents-in-suit”). The patents-in-suit claim methods of treating opioid overdose by intranasal administration of a naloxone formulation, as well as devices for intranasal administration. Naloxone is the active ingredient in Adapt’s NARCANâ Nasal Spray and is an opioid receptor antagonist, thus helping reverse the effects of opioid overdose. The opinion was authored by Judge Kara Stoll; Judge Pauline Newman dissented.

When Commercial Success Can Prove Non-Obviousness

Imagine, as a patentee, that you assert your broadly claimed patent(s) against an alleged infringer, and your opponent takes you to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) via an inter partes review (IPR) petition, where they present sufficient evidence of obviousness such that you have to resort to (gulp) secondary considerations. While no dream situation for patentees, it is important to understand the patent owner’s evidentiary burden when confronting obviousness challenges using secondary considerations, such as commercial success, long-felt but unsolved needs, failure of others and unexpected results. Here are three recent Federal Circuit decisions that are informative with respect to successfully (or unsuccessfully) utilizing evidence of commercial success in countering an obviousness attack.

CAFC Upholds PTAB Ruling that Patents on Autonomous Driving Tech Are Not Obvious

On February 4, 2022, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed two decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on related inter partes reviews (IPRs) brought by Quanergy against Velodyne, explaining that the Board’s decision to uphold the validity of the disputed claims was correct considering the objective evidence provided by Velodyne. Quanergy challenged multiple claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,969,558, covering a lidar-based 3-D point cloud measuring system best known for helping autonomous cars sense their surroundings. In its decisions, the PTAB held that several claims of the ’558 patent are not unpatentable as obvious.

Federal Circuit Vacates PTAB Holding that Raytheon Patent is Non-Obvious

On December 23, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated a decision of the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB), holding that the PTAB’s conclusion that Raytheon Technology Corp.’s (Raytheon’s) patent was non-obvious lacked substantial evidence. See General Electric Company v. Raytheon Technologies Corporation. The CAFC also found that General Electric Company (GE) had alleged sufficient facts to establish that it was engaging in activity that created a substantial risk of future infringement, and therefore had standing to bring the appeal.

The Search for the ‘Inventive Concept’ and Other Snipe Hunts

Everybody in the patent world is talking about the latest atrocity from the Federal Circuit known as the American Axle decision, but few actually appreciate the true level of absurdity. Yes, 35 U.S.C. § 101 swallowed §§ 112(a), 112(f), 102, and 103 in a single decision (a new feat of judicial acrobatics), and Judges Taranto and Dyk displayed their technical ignorance. For example, in citing the Flook decision Judges Dyk and Taranto assert that Flook’s mathematical formula (known to a million-plus engineers as the steepest-descent algorithm) is a “natural law.” American Axle, slip op. at p. 19. Seriously? Are Federal Circuit judges so technically ignorant that the entirety of the country is doomed to believe such an idiotic fantasy that a particular adaptive mathematical algorithm associated with no natural law must be a natural law?