On March 5, 2018, Boston Scientific announced its acquisition of EMcision, a privately held company in the United Kingdom and Canada. According to Boston Scientific, this acquisition will expand its range of medical devices in the field of minimally invasive endoluminal procedures as alternatives to conventional surgery.
Before Newman, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Summary: General disclosures in the specification and statements that describe the embodiments as non-limiting do not broaden claims that were narrowly drafted and prosecuted.
In Polygroup Limited v. Willis Electric Co., Ltd., IPR2016-01613, Paper 118 (Feb. 26, 2018), the PTAB granted the patent owner Willis Electric’s motion to amend a claim directed to lighted artificial trees. This decision follows the Federal Circuit’s October 2017 decision in Aqua Products Inc. v. Matal, which overturned the PTAB’s implementation of the IPR statutory provision allowing patent owners to file motions to amend by requiring patent owners to demonstrate the patentability of the amended claims. This decision is noteworthy because even after Aqua Products, the PTAB has granted very few motions to amend.
The PTAB dismissed the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s attempt to avoid IPR of patents covering Restasis®, which Allergan transferred to the Tribe in a highly publicized patent deal. [LINK TO PRIOR BLOG POST FROM 9/12/2017] After Allergan assigned the Restasis® patents to the Tribe, the Tribe filed a motion to dismiss the then-pending IPRs. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, IPR2016-01127, IPR2016-01128, IPR2016-01129, IPR2016-01130, IPR2016-01131, IPR2016-01132, at Paper 78 (PTAB Sept. 22, 2017).
On February 14, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Janssen Therapeutics’ Erleada (apalutamide), a non-steroidal antiandrogen for the treatment of castration-resistant non-metastatic prostate cancer.
On February 20, 2018, Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies announced the acquisition of Orthotaxy, a privately-held developer of software-enabled surgery technologies, including a differentiated robotic-assisted surgery solution.
Successful brands from the United States, and particularly those branded by U.S. celebrities, are often received with similar enthusiasm in other parts of the world. Recently, YEEZY shoes designed by Kanye West made their much anticipated debut to sneaker-heads in China. These consumers were delighted when a physical YEEZY store opened in Wenzhou. There was one problem – all the shoes in the store appeared to be knockoffs, replicas, or complete counterfeits of the genuine YEEZY products.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) quietly increased the examiners’ arsenal by slipping a new rejection into the latest revision of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) released last month. One of the changes made in this revision is the addition of a new “improper Markush grouping” section, MPEP § 706.03(y), which authorizes patent examiners to reject a claim on the basis that it contains an improper listing of alternative elements.
Before Newman, Wallach, and Chen. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
Summary: The Federal Circuit upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s claim construction in an inter partes reexamination, where the Board applied the broadest reasonable interpretation standard and the Board did not depart from a prior Federal Circuit construction.
Before Moore, Schall, and O’Malley. Appeal from the Northern District of Illinois.
Summary: A plaintiff need not prove its case of patent infringement at the pleading stage. To the extent a defendant disputes the pleaded allegations or claim scope, these inquiries are not suitable for resolution on a motion to dismiss.
