The America Invents Act of 2011 was designed to provide a durable overhaul of the U.S. patent system, but the inter partes review process has drawn fire from inventors as a patent-killing machine.
The America Invents Act of 2011 was designed to provide a durable overhaul of the U.S. patent system, but the inter partes review process has drawn fire from inventors as a patent-killing machine. The Senate is considering a new bill to address some of these concerns, but witnesses at a hearing this week were anything but united in their assessment of the status quo, making it difficult to forecast the fate of this latest effort at patent reform.
The America Invents Act of 2011 was designed to provide a durable overhaul of the U.S. patent system, but the inter partes review (IPR) process has drawn fire from inventors as a patent-killing machine. The Senate is considering a new bill to address some of these concerns, but witnesses at a hearing this week were anything but united in their assessment of the status quo, making it difficult to forecast the fate of this latest effort at patent reform.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has once again ruled on a patent dispute between Masimo Corp., of Irvine, Calif., and a rival firm, this time with Sotera Wireless Inc., of San Diego serving as the adversary. The Federal Circuit sided with Sotera in decreeing that 17 claims in Masimo’s RE47,218 (the ’218 patent) are invalidated due to the existence of prior art that rendered the claims obvious, but the irony in this litigation is that one of the patents cited by Sotera as prior art, the 6,597,933 patent, was authored in part by Joe Kiani, the founder, CEO and board chairman of Masimo.
Patent challenges for radiotherapy equipment might not make the splash that in vitro diagnostic patents have, but Elekta AB and Zap Surgical Inc., have been locked in a dispute over an Elekta patent for the past four years.
Apple Inc., of Cupertino, Calif., has prevailed over Masimo Corp., in a ruling at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, an outcome that invalidated several Masimo patents for physiological monitoring. However, the two companies are not finished with each other yet as the International Trade Commission has yet to rule on a similar case that could foreclose importation of Apple devices on grounds of patent infringement.
“Show us your work” is basically the message the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sent to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) when it vacated a decision by the board in an ex parte review of rejected patent claims submitted by Theripion Inc. While the Aug. 10 Federal Circuit opinion that remanded the case is nonprecedential, the appellate court made it clear that the PTAB must explain its reasoning for whatever conclusions it reaches.
Much of U.S. patent law jurisprudence still revolves around subject matter eligibility, but a new decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revisits the question of what constitutes obviousness in patent applications. The court remanded the case between Irvine, Calif.-based Axonics Inc. and Dublin-based Medtronic plc to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) after determining that the PTAB judge’s understanding of obviousness is “doubly infected by error” in a decision that seems to offer some much-needed clarity where obviousness is concerned.
Patent disputes over medical technology exert a significant influence on a company’s fortunes in the marketplace, and a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reinforces yet again the importance of patent protection for device manufacturers. In a decision filed May 24, the Federal Circuit decreed that patents for catheters held by Teleflex Innovations were not rendered ineligible by what Dublin-based Medtronic plc had asserted was prior art, thus dealing Medtronic a blow in its efforts to have the five Teleflex patents in question rendered null.
Some patent litigation cases don’t require a deep effort to interpret claims, but the litigation between Agilent Technologies Inc., and Dionex Softron GmbH, forced the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to determine whether a written description adequately captures the use of a piston in a liquid chromatograph to avoid nullification of the claim.
