BOT M8 LLC v. SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LLC
Before Prost, Reyna, and Cunningham. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: A party challenging the Board’s decision by alleging claim construction errors must demonstrate the harmfulness of the alleged errors for the Board’s decision to be reversed.
UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION V. PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.
Before Lourie, Cunningham, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
Summary: The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s refusal to award attorneys’ fees based on alleged inequitable conduct where the party seeking fees had stipulated to the dismissal of its inequitable-conduct counterclaim.
On April 26, 2023, Security Defense Systems, LLC sued Athenahealth, Inc. in the Western District of Texas. The lawsuit alleges that Athenahealth’s Epocrates application and epocrates.com website infringe U.S. Patent No. 8,155,887, titled “Computer Visualized Drug Interaction Information Retrieval,” which issued in 2012.
HIP, INC v. HORMEL FOODS CORPORATION
Before Lourie, Clevenger, and Taranto. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
Summary: To prove a claim of joint inventorship, an party must prove that the individual contributed in a significant manner, that the claimed contribution was not insignificant in quality when measured against the full invention, and that the individual did more than explain known concepts.
UCB, INC. v. ACTAVIS LABORATORIES UT, INC.
Before Moore, Chen, and Stoll. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Summary: District court legally erred by applying incorrect anticipation framework but correctly found that patent claiming a ratio range was obvious over prior art disclosing overlapping range.
SANDERLING MANAGEMENT LTD. v. SNAP INC.
Before Chen, Cunningham, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Summary: The district court properly found that digital imaging processing method claims were patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §101.
HEALTHIER CHOICES MANAGEMENT CORP. V. PHILIP MORRIS USA, INC.
Before Taranto, Stoll, and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Summary: A plaintiff can sufficiently disavow statements contained in attachments to a complaint by making specific, targeted contentions in the complaint to contradict such statements.
On April 21, 2023, the Supreme Court granted a stay in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, a case concerning the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of and access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone. The stay preserves access to mifepristone as the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the drug’s manufacturer, appeal a lower court ruling that would greatly limit the availability of the drug.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare has been growing rapidly in recent years, and AI-enabled medical devices are playing a larger role in patient care. Such devices may use machine learning algorithms to analyze vast amounts of patient data and provide diagnoses as well as personalized treatment recommendations. In recent years, the FDA has approved various AI-enabled medical devices, some of which are discussed below.
The “Orange Book”, more formally known as Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, identifies U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug products as well as any related patent and exclusivity information. After FDA approval of a New Drug Application (NDA) filed on a drug, pharmaceutical patents are only listable in the Orange Book if they claim either a method of using the drug or the drug product itself. Once a patent is listed in the Orange Book, the NDA filer can gain a number of regulatory benefits under the Hatch-Waxman Act, including the possibility of preventing FDA approval of potentially infringing products by generic manufacturers.
