Before Moore, Reyna, and Stoll. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: Written description support for a claimed genus depends on the criticality or importance of the expressly disclosed species and the predictability of the relevant technology.
Global IP Holdings, LLC (Global) owns U.S. Patent No. 8,690,233 directed to carpeted automotive vehicle load floors. The ’233 patent claims a load floor with thermoplastic skins and a thermoplastic cellular core. Global filed a reissue application seeking to broaden the claims, replacing the term “thermoplastic” with “plastic.” Global submitted a declaration stating that use of plastic other than thermoplastic for vehicle load floors was known in the art at the time of the invention.
ATHENA DIAGNOSTICS, INC. v. MAYO COLLABORATIVE SERVICES, LLC
Before Prost, Newman, Lourie, Dyk, Moore, O’Malley, Reyna, Wallach, Taranto, Chen, Hughes, and Stoll. Petition for Rehearing En Banc.
Summary: The Federal Circuit voted 7-5 not to review en banc the issue of whether diagnostic claims are eligible for patent protection under § 101. The Federal Circuit’s denial of en banc review included eight different opinions, all of which indicate that the Supreme Court and/or Congress should intervene to clarify or modify the patent eligibility standards for medical diagnostic claims. Each of these opinions is summarized below:
KOLCRAFT ENTERPRISES, INC. V. GRACO CHILDREN’S PRODUCTS, INC.
Before Moore, Reyna, and Chen. Appeals from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: Inventor testimony of prior conception must be independently corroborated.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in SAS v. Iancu, which held that an IPR institution is an “all-or-nothing” proposition, the PTAB lost its ability to rely on “partial institutions” as a case management tool (e.g., by denying institution of so-called redundant grounds). In recent months, however, we have observed a variety of ways in which the PTAB has applied its discretionary authority under § 314(a) to deny institution of IPRs, including for case management purposes. A broad application of the PTAB’s authority for case management is illustrated in Comcast Cable Communications, LLC v. Rovi Guides, Inc., IPR2019-00225, IPR2019-00226, IPR2019-00227, IPR2019-00228, IPR2019-00229.
On June 11, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted inter partes review (IPR) of U.S. Patent No. 6,306,141, assigned to Medtronic Vascular, Inc. The Decision instituted the IPR based on two obviousness grounds, including that “Petitioner has made an adequate showing at this stage that at least claim 1 would have been obvious over Cragg, Pops, and Tanaka.”
In July 2018, Citroën, the French car manufacturer, unveiled glasses that aid in alleviating motion sickness. The “Seetoën” glasses, developed by Boarding Ring, purports to eliminate motion sickness symptoms within about 10 minutes of putting them on. According to Boarding Ring, the Boarding Ring technology includes four rings filled with blue liquid.
ELBIT SYSTEMS LAND AND C4I LTD. v. HUGHES NETWORK SYSTEMS, LLC
Before Taranto, Mayer, and Chen. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Summary: Neither 28 U.S.C. § 1295 nor 28 U.S.C. § 1292(c)(2) provide appellate jurisdiction to review an attorney fees award if the amount of attorney fees has not yet been quantified.
CELLSPIN SOFT, INC. V. FITBIT, INC. ET AL.
Before Lourie, O’Malley, and Taranto. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Summary: While not all factual allegations that are wholly divorced from the patent claims or specification would defeat a motion to dismiss under Section 101, plausible and specific allegations that certain aspects of the claims are inventive are sufficient. Additionally, a patent’s presumption of validity is also a presumption of eligibility under § 101.
UCB, INC. v. WATSON LABORATORIES INC.
Before Taranto, Schall, and Chen. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
Summary: Application of the doctrine of equivalents may not be barred by: (1) prosecution history estoppel where an election in response to a restriction requirement does not constitute a surrender of an asserted equivalent or (2) intentional narrow claiming where there is insufficient evidence that the asserted equivalent was foreseeable.
FOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE V. ARGUS LEADER MEDIA.
Before the Supreme Court with J. Gorsuch delivering the majority opinion.
Summary: Commercial or financial information is confidential under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) when it is (1) both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and (2) provided to the government under an assurance of privacy.
