MAXELL, LTD., V. AMPEREX TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
Before Prost, Taranto, and Chen. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Summary: Two claim limitations are not contradictory if they can be satisfied simultaneously.
K-FEE SYSTEM GMBH v. NESPRESSO USA, INC.
Before Taranto, Clevenger, and Stoll. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Summary: The Federal Circuit did not need to decide whether statements to the European Patent Office (EPO) can disavow claim scope in a U.S. patent because the statements in this case were too ambiguous to constitute disavowal.
NETFLIX, INC. V. DIVX, LLC
Before Dyk, Linn, and Chen. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: The PTAB did not abuse its discretion by declining to address arguments that an IPR petitioner failed to clearly raise in its petitions.
As we recently discussed recently discussed, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) sent warning letters to certain drug manufacturers regarding their purportedly improper listing of device patents in the Food and Drug Administration’s (“FDA”) Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (“Orange Book”). Rahul Rao, the deputy director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition and the person who signed the warning letters, recently explained the FTC’s position in unequivocal terms: “The Orange Book is only supposed to list patents covering active drug ingredients. So, we focused on device patents that have nothing to do with the active drug.”
(February 22, 2024) Dario health announced on February 21, 2024 that it has acquired digital health company Twill. DarioHealth Corp. is a leading digital health company, shaping how people with chronic conditions manage their health through a user-centric, multi-chronic condition digital therapeutics platform. Twill is a digital-led care leader. DarioHealth says its acquisition of Twill will enable DarioHealth to create a comprehensive digital platform for chronic conditions. DarioHealth plans to leverage Twill’s innovation in well-being and navigation to enhance DarioHealth’s end-to-end member journey for optimization across solutions.
In this episode of the Knobbe IP+ podcast, Knobbe Martens partner Mauricio A. Uribe speaks with author, technology disruptor, strategist and CEO Linda Bernardi on the role of patent strategies…
The inaugural AAMI/FDA neXus medical device standards conference was held February 20-23, 2024 in Washington DC. The conference was hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). Additional information regarding the conference can be found here.
The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on Florida-based EXOTOUSA LLC d/b/a Old Southern Brass and its owner (collectively, “OSB”) for deceptive claims regarding the origin of its products and its alleged financial donations to military causes. OSB advertised that its products, including glassware, mugs, pens, and other novelty items, were made entirely in the U.S. by displaying statements on its product listings such as “100% American made,” “made right here in the United States of America,” and “100% USA made.” OSB also purported to be veteran-operated and pledged to donate 10% of its sales to military charities. The FTC’s order, finalized in January 2024, found those claims inaccurate, halted the deceptive practices, and imposed a monetary judgment against OSB.
On June 6, 2023, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property introduced a Bill entitled “Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023” (PERA) aiming to amend the law relating to patent subject matter eligibility. The bill seeks to eliminate the so-called “judicial exceptions” to patent eligibility that have led to a significant number of “inventions” being deemed ineligible for patent protection. Additionally, this legislation seeks to clarify the confusion and inconsistency brought about by the Alice/Mayo framework, which has been criticized for its failure to provide a clear and consistent standard for patent eligibility, negatively impacting the protection of innovations in various fields.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a Letter to Industry warning medical device manufacturers and device study sponsors (“device firms”) of a source of “fraudulent and unreliable laboratory testing data in premarket submissions.” According to the Letter, this suspect testing data can come from “entities that contract with device firms to conduct testing on medical devices (‘third-party test labs’).”
