Orthobond received on April 5th de novo approval for the company’s spinal fusion device with quaternary ammonium compound coating.

Orthobond’s antibacterial treatment, Ostaguard™, covalently bonds its antimicrobial, polycationic molecules to the surface of an implant before packaging and sterilization. Orthobond claims that its patented approach requires dunking a medical implant such as a screw or replacement part in a chemical bath and then heating the device.

Chewy, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation

Before Moore, Chief Judge, Stoll and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Summary: A feature in the specification limits the claims if the patent uniformly describes it as an aspect of the invention as a whole. And a patentee cannot transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible, specific implementation of that abstract idea merely by reciting conventional techniques.

PFIZER INC. v. SANOFI PASTEUR INC.

Before Lourie, Bryson, and Stark. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: Evidence that a claimed parameter is recognized as a result-effective variable can overcome the lack of explicit disclosure of the exact parameter in the prior art.

3M recently completed the spinoff of its healthcare technology business as the new standalone public company, Solventum Corporation. Solventum has an IP portfolio with over 7,300 patents globally.

Titan Medical Inc. (“Titan”) announced on March 18, 2024, that it is merging with Conavi Medical Inc. (“Conavi”).

Titan is a medical technology licensing company based in Toronto with an extensive patent portfolio focusing on robotic assisted surgery. Conavi is a medical device company specializing in minimally invasive image-guidance technology for cardiovascular procedures.

INLINE PLASTICS CORP V. LACERTA GROUP, LLC

Before Taranto, Chen, and Hughes. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Summary: Jury instructions must instruct the jury to consider all relevant objective indicia of non-obviousness.

VIRTEK VISION INTERNATIONAL ULC, v. ASSEMBLY GUIDANCE SYSTEMS, INC., DBA ALIGNED VISION

Before Moore, Hughes, and Stark. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”).

Summary: Merely showing that prior art elements were known to a person skilled in the art without providing a reason to combine the references does not prove obviousness.

On March 20, 2024, The USPTO issued an alert, notifying practitioners that the USPTO had developed training materials for patent examiners regarding searching for prior art in FDA and NIH databases. The new training materials were presented to the public at the Biotechnology, Chemical, and Pharmaceutical Partnership Meeting, held in person at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, and at the USPTO Silicon Valley Regional Office in San Jose, California, on March 19, 2020.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new regulations to reduce ethylene oxide emissions. According to the EPA’s press release, the new regulations are “the strongest measures in U.S. history to reduce emissions of [ethylene oxide], one of the most potent cancer-causing chemicals.” The new regulations can be found here. The press release states that the regulations will affect “nearly 90 commercial sterilization facilities . . . owned and operated by approximately 50 companies.” The regulations require installation of air pollution controls to reduce emissions by more than 90%. The regulations are intended to reduce lifetime cancer risk for those living nearby sterilization facilities.

In this episode of the Knobbe IP+ podcast, Knobbe Martens partner Mauricio A. Uribe speaks with European Patent Attorney and Ph. D. Hanane Fathi Roswall on the recently adopted EU…