Last Friday, ImmunoGen won an appeal at the Federal Circuit in ImmunoGen, Inc. v. Hirshfeld. The lawsuit is a civil action to order the granting of U.S. Application No. 14/509,809 (‘809), titled “Anti-FOLR Immunoconjugate Dosing Regimens”:

Rasmussen Instruments, LLC (“Rasmussen”) won a $20M jury verdict against DePuy Synthes (“Depuy”), a part of Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies. Rasmussen asserted Patent Nos. US 9,492,180 (‘180 patent) and US 10,517,583 (‘583 patent), both titled “Arthroplasty systems and methods for optimally aligning and tensioning a knee prosthesis,” against DePuy’s “Balanced Sizer” product for its Attune® Knee System.

ALMIRALL, LLC v. AMNEAL PHARMACEUTICALS LLC

Before Lourie, Chen, and Cunningham. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: Presumption of obviousness based on overlapping ranges applied where a prior-art reference disclosed an element in the claimed range that was similar but not identical to the claimed element.

APPLE INC. v. MPH TECHNOLOGIES OY

Before Moore, Prost, and Taranto. Appeal from Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The proximity of concepts in a claim may link the concepts together and affect the plain meaning of the claim.

HOYT AUGUSTUS FLEMING V. CIRRUS DESIGN CORPORATION

Before Lourie, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: A claim is obvious where “the proposed combination of [the references]—rather than one of the individual references—discloses the disputed claim limitations.” A motion to amend under the Administrative Procedure Act may be denied where proposed amended claims lack written description support.

On February 10, 2022, in Junker v. Medical Components, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s grant of summary judgment of no invalidity under the “on-sale bar” of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (pre-AIA). Mr. Junker’s lawsuit alleged that Medical Components, Inc. and Martech Medical Products, Inc. (collectively, “MedComp”) infringed the claimed design of U.S. Design Patent No. D450,839 (the “D’839 patent”), entitled “Handle for Introducer Sheath.”

The University of Washington announced that a team of researchers has developed a prothrombin time/international normalized ratio (PT/INR) blood clotting test that requires only a single drop of blood and a smartphone. According to the team’s February 11, 2022 paper published in Nature Communications, the test uses a tiny cup containing copper, and a blood clotting agent that is attached to the smartphone below the camera, as shown in the figure below from the paper.

ALARM.COM INC. v. HIRSHFELD

Before Taranto, Chen, and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Summary: The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) permits judicial review of a Patent Office decision vacating an ex parte reexamination based on estoppel.

IN RE STEVE ELSTER

Before Dyk, Taranto, and Chen. Appeal from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The Patent and Trademark Office violated the First Amendment by refusing to register the trademark TRUMP TOO SMALL absent consent from former president Donald Trump.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published on February 23rd, 2022, a rule proposal to overhaul medical device quality control regulation. According to the FDA, the proposed rule change would “amend the device current good manufacturing practice requirements of the Quality System Regulation to align more closely with the international consensus standard for devices by converging with the quality management system requirements used by other jurisdictions.”