Posts Tagged: "patentable subject matter"

On October 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision in HZNP Medicines LLC v. Actavis Laboratories UT, Inc. affirming the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey’s findings of invalidity and noninfringement of certain claims of some of the asserted HZNP (Horizon) patents, as well as the district court’s finding of nonobviousness of one claim of another Horizon patent. The finding of nonobviousness means that Actavis, owned by generic drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals, is enjoined from engaging in the commercial use, offer for sale, or sale of its product covered in its Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) until the expiration of U.S. Patent No. 9,066,913 (the ‘913 patent) in 2027.

Recently, IPWatchdog published an excellent article by Wen Xie outlining the legal inconsistencies of the Chamberlain v. Techtronic Industries opinion, penned by Judge Chen. Unfortunately, describing the latest inconsistencies in the garbage pile of contradictions that is the Federal Circuit’s Alice/Mayo doctrine provides no surprise to anyone. The Alice/Mayo decisions issued by the CAFC are self-contradictory and cannot be reconciled with the Constitution, 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103, and 112, and at least a dozen Supreme Court cases. Indeed, the only surprises from the Federal Circuit these days come in the form of the odd holding for patent eligibility. However, Wen Xie’s article did cause me to realize that I’d overlooked Judge Chen’s distortions of fact. “Distortions,” however, is too mild a term for the outrageous misrepresentations made in Chamberlain.

This past week in Other Barks & Bites: the USPTO delays the effective date for mandating electronic trademark application submissions and issues a proposed rulemaking on Patent Term Adjustments in light of Supernus; UKIPO report shows that women inventors represent only 12.7 percent of inventors worldwide; trademark dispute leads street artist Banksy to open a retail store; the Federal Circuit upholds the invalidation of method of manufacture claims as being directed to a natural law over a dissent from Judge Moore; the screenwriter of The Terminator files a copyright termination notice; Tesla stock drops after missing analyst expectations on car sales; Seinfeld beats copyright case over Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee; and the Department of Justice tells the Supreme Court not to review Google’s appeal over the ability to copyright Java code.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential opinion on October 3 involving a patent infringement suit brought by American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc. (AAM) against Neapco Drivelines LLC (Neapco) in 2015. The suit involved alleged infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,774,911 (the ‘911 patent). The opinion, authored by Judge Dyk, affirmed the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware’s finding that the asserted claims are ineligible under Section 101. Judge Moore dissented, saying that “the majority’s decision expands § 101 well beyond its statutory gate-keeping function and the role of this appellate court well beyond its authority.” The ‘911 patent teaches a method for manufacturing driveline propeller shafts that are designed to attenuate vibrations transmitted through a shaft assembly.After a thorough analysis of the first prong of the Alice and Mayo two-step process, the CAFC turned to the second prong and found that no inventive concept existed that could transform the claims into patent eligible subject matter. Judge Kimberly Moore filed a scathing dissent in which she said the majority opinion “deeply trouble[s]” her and that the Court’s opinion conflates Section 101 with Section 112.

As expected, Athena Diagnostics last night filed its petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to fix the United States’ patent eligibility law problem. Adam Gahtan and Eric Majchrzak of Fenwick & West and Seth Waxman, Thomas Saunders, Joshua Koppel and Claire Chung of WilmerHale filed the petition for Athena. The specific question Athena is presenting is: “Whether a new and specific method of diagnosing a medical condition is patent-eligible subject matter, where the method detects a molecule never previously linked to the condition using novel man-made molecules and a series of specific chemical steps never previously performed.” Athena urged the Court to take the case considering the Federal Circuit’s eight separate opinions in which the court divided 7-5 on denying en banc review—evidence of “much-needed guidance on the proper application of the judicially-created exceptions to Section 101 of the Patent Act.”

In May, the USPTO held the first of three hearings prompted by the Study of Underrepresented Classes Chasing Engineering and Science (SUCCESS) Act, which requires the USPTO Director to provide Congress with a report on publicly available patent data on women, minorities, and veterans, and to provide recommendations on how to promote their participation in the patent system. The hearing featured emotional testimony from five inventors, one of whom said she had joined Debtors Anonymous as a result of her patent being invalidated in the Southern District of New York.Responses to the USPTO’s request for written comment on 11 questions the Office had posed have now been published. Eleven organizations and 58 individuals submitted comments, underscoring a range of concerns. While many organizations focused on the need to collect demographic information and increase exposure to STEM education at the K-12 level, a number of other organizations and individuals emphasized the broader issue that was addressed during the hearing in May—that the current patent system is stacked against the individual inventor across demographics.

The “Support Technology and Research for Our Nation’s Growth and Economic Resilience Patents Act of 2019” or the “STRONGER Patents Act of 2019,” currently under consideration as Senate Bill 2082 and House Resolution 3666, poses questions about the types of decisions that would operate to bar inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) of patent claims. The STRONGER Patents Act is an effort to cure some of the perceived infirmities in the U.S. patent system. While prior versions—introduced in 2015 and 2017—were more wide-ranging, the STRONGER Patents Act of 2019 primarily focuses on the availability of injunctive relief and the susceptibility of patents to IPR and PGR. Among other changes, the bill would effectively overrule the Supreme Court’s eBay v. MercExchange decision, require inter partes and post-grant review petitioners to prove invalidity by clear and convincing evidence, permit only one such review of any given patent claim, and purport to finally end the occasional practice of diverting some the USPTO fees from its operations. While much can (and has) been written about the merits of such reforms, the present comment specifically considers the proposed “Priority of Federal Court Validity Determinations.”

Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“the Federal Circuit”) issued its opinion in Solutran, Inc. v. Elavon, Inc., 2019-1345, 2019-1460 (Fed. Cir., July 30, 2019) in which the Court held claims 1-5 of Solutran’s U.S. Patent No. 8,311,945 invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for failing to recite patent eligible subject matter. In reversing the District Court, the Federal Circuit found that the claims of the patent recited an abstract idea (electronically processing paper checks) and that the claims failed to transform that abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter. More importantly, the Federal Circuit dismissed Solutran’s argument that the claims were patent eligible simply because they were novel and non-obvious, noting that: “We have previously explained that merely reciting an abstract idea by itself in a claim—even if the idea is novel and non-obvious—is not enough to save it from ineligibility.” The Solutran decision is not the first time the Federal Circuit has held that novelty/non-obviousness does not bear on the question of patent eligibility.

On September 12, a jury verdict form  entered in an Eastern District of Texas patent infringement case found in favor of defendant Jack Henry & Associates on its defenses of noninfringement and invalidity regarding patent claims asserted by plaintiff PPS Data. According to information provided to IPWatchdog, the verdict marks the first time that a jury has invalidated a patent under Section 101 since the February 2018 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Berkheimer v. HP Inc., where the appellate court held that factual questions underlie the Section 101 inquiry.

Something has happened at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over the past six months. After inching forward in a positive direction on patent eligibility, the entire court, including those judges who had been on the pro-patent eligibility wing of the court, have fallen, slipped, or just given up. The precisely correct characterization remains elusive given the traditional, characteristic and appropriate secrecy that surrounds judicial tribunals. As constitutional officers charged with independently deciding cases, judges take few speaking engagements. Even when they do, they generally speak off the record, and never speak about specific issues or cases that may at some point come before them. In this industry, that means little discussion is had between the bench and bar relating to matters of patent eligibility outside the record, which is itself unfortunate. If the judges of the Federal Circuit would sit through a conference exploring patent eligibility as it applies to the software and biotechnology industries, they would learn much about the uncertainty their decisions are causing. Still, something undeniably has changed.

The Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision on Wednesday reversing-in-part, vacating and remanding a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that had found certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,908,842 (the ’842 patent) subject to covered business method review, patent ineligible and unpatentable for obviousness. SIPCO LLC v. Emerson Electric (Fed. Cir., Sept. 25, 2019). Judge Reyna dissented in part. In a footnote, the Court distinguished its reasoning from its finding in the garage door-opener case, Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Techtronic Industries Co., in which the Court found claims reciting wireless communication of status information about a movable barrier operator to be directed to an abstract idea. “Unlike in Chamberlain, SIPCO’s claimed invention does not simply use “well understood,” off-the-shelf wireless technology for its intended purpose of communicating information,” said the Court.

It is time to recognize the elephant in the room. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is broken. And, if we want to be perfectly fair and reasonable in our assessment of the reasons that the PTAB is failing, the blame must trace all the way back to Congress. The creation of three new ways to invalidate patent rights was at best ill-conceived. The manner in which it was done clearly put the finger of infringers on the scale of justice. The creation of an open-ended second window for patents to endlessly be challenged without title ever quieting and ownership ever settling is making a mockery of patent ownership.

The present U.S. eligibility jurisprudence, and especially that of the Federal Circuit, not only creates serious issues of U.S. domestic law but also arguably places the U.S. in violation of its obligations under the TRIPS treaty with respect to inventions at both ends of the subject-matter spectrum. Acts of Congress, including Section 101, where fairly possible, ought to be construed so as not to conflict with international law or with an international agreement with the United States, particularly where, as with TRIPS, the United States was the moving spirit behind the treaty. See Murray v. The Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118 (1804). Although there may have been room for doubt prior to the en banc refusal in Athena and the Australian decision in Ariosa, it is submitted following Judge Moore’s dissent that the situation has become a virtual certainty.

USPTO Director Andrei Iancu said “something has to be done about” Section 101, as it has been thrown into flux following various U.S. Supreme Court cases, in comments made at the AIPPI Congress in London, United Kingdom last week. Iancu took part in an hour-long discussion with AIPPI Reporter General John Osha, and also took questions from the audience last Monday. He addressed topics including AI, anti-IP sentiment, litigation costs, bad faith trademark filings and gender parity. But it was issues of patent eligibility that were chief on his mind. Iancu said the Administration “has tried to bring consistency and predictability” to Section 101 with its January 2019 guidance, but added: “Courts are independent. They don’t have to follow our guidance. And so far, I have seen no evidence that they want to.”

The patent process actually starts well before you file a patent application or seek assistance from a patent attorney. Every patent application starts with an invention, and every invention starts with an idea. While ideas are not patentable, there will be a point in time when the idea you are working on comes so into focus  with enough detail that it will cross the idea / invention boundary.  It is when an idea matures to the point of being concrete and tangible enough to be described to another that the idea has become an invention, at least in general terms.