On February 8, 2018, Judge Andrew Guilford of the District Court for Central District of California increased a jury award against Custom Blinds and Components Inc. (“CBC”) for patent infringement from just over $1 Million to $3 Million.
Before Lourie, Reyna, and Chen. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap.
Summary: Filing a terminal disclaimer to overcome an obviousness-type double patenting rejection is not an admission that the continuation claims are patentably indistinct over the parent.
Jasmin Larian, the owner of Cult Gaia, started selling the “Ark” bag in 2013. Since then the Ark bag has been seen on celebrities including Jessica Alba and was even touted as 2017’s “IT” bag.
The PTAB held that all of Genentech’s challenged antibody purification claims were unpatentable as being anticipated, obvious, or both, in an IPR filed by Hospira and Pfizer, Hospira, Inc., v. Genentech, Inc., IPR2016-01837, Paper 40 (P.T.A.B. March 6, 2018).
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.
