DATA ENGINE TECHNOLOGIES LLC v. GOOGLE LLC
Before Reyna, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.

Summary: A patentee that relies on language in the preamble to successfully argue that its claims are directed to patent eligible subject matter cannot later assert that this preamble language has no limiting effect for the purposes of determining infringement.

UNIVERSAL SECURE REGISTRY LLC v. APPLE INC.
Before Taranto, Wallach, and Stoll. Appeal from U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Summary: A patentee’s reference to existing known methods and techniques in a specification, without providing technical details or unexpected results, may present patentable subject matter vulnerabilities during litigation.

COMMSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES LLC v. DALI WIRELESS INC.

Before Stoll, Reyna, and Schall. Appeal from U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Summary: When a party distinguishes technology in the prior art to preserve validity, that same technology may not simultaneously be grounds for infringement when in an accused product.

CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY V. GAMON PLUS, INC.

Before Moore, Prost, and Stoll. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The standards for establishing a presumption of nexus or a nexus-in-fact between objective indicia of nonobviousness and patent claims are the same for design and utility patents.

HYATT v. HIRSHFELD

Before Moore, Reyna, and Hughes. Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Summary: The phrase “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings” in 35 U.S.C. § 145 does not invoke expert witness fees with the clarity required to overcome the American Rule’s presumption against fee-shifting.

VALVE CORPORATION v. IRONBURG INVENTIONS LTD.

Before Newman, Lourie, and Dyk. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: For purposes of authenticating a prior art reference in IPR proceedings, the Board had an obligation to compare the reference to nearly identical copies in the prosecution histories of the challenged patents.

ELI LILLY AND COMPANY v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS

Before Lourie, Bryson and O’Malley. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: In claims for methods of using apparatuses or compositions, statements of intended purpose in a preamble tend to be limiting.

TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS v. ELI LILLY AND COMPANY

Before LOURIE, BRYSON, and O’MALLEY. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The presumption of nexus analysis requires the fact finder to consider the unclaimed features of the stated products to determine their level of significance and their impact on the correspondence between the claim and the products.

According to an article published in Nature Biotechnology, Harvard and MIT researchers invented a face mask for detecting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, via a user’s breath. Instead of relying on a lab, the personal device uses sensors that use wearable freeze-dried cell-free (wFDCF) technology. This technology contains the same molecules that cells use to recognize and manipulate nucleic acids and proteins. According to MedGadget, unlike previous iterations of this technology which store living cells in “tiny aquariums”, wFDCF technology prevents any issues with leakage due to breakage.

In Re PERSONALWEB TECHNOLOGIES LLC

Before Prost, Lourie, and Reyna. Appeal from the District Court for the Northern District of California.

Summary: A patent directed to a medley of mental processes with no inventive concept is patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.