When Life Hands you Lemons, Make CoQ10 In the Federal Circuit Decision of Soft Gel Technologies, Inc. v. Jarrow Formulas, Inc., the Court found three related Soft-Gel patents invalid for obviousness. The three patents describe a way to dissolve CoQ10 in monoterpenes for enhanced delivery to the body. The patents disclosed two suitable examples, limonene and carvone and derivatives thereof. However, prior […] Continue Reading →
Netlist v. Diablo Continues On July 25, 2017, the Federal Circuit released a nonprecedential opinion vacating the Board’s decisions and remanding for further proceedings because of erroneous construction of certain language. The Board had previously deemed claims 15-17, 22, 24, 26 and 31-33 of U.S. Patent No. 7,881,150 and claims 1, 16, 17, 24 and 30-31 of U.S. […] Continue Reading →
Surge in Patent Applications Related to 3D Printing: Is Yours One of Them? The USPTO recently released statistics that over 8,000 patent applications were filed in 2016 related to 3D printing (additive manufacturing). Some of the interesting 3D printing inventions that have been subject to publicity include,prosthetic hands and fingers for children without fingers, three-dimensional bioprinting of human-compatible vascularized tissue developed by graduate students at Harvard, and a […] Continue Reading →
Inevitable Does Not Equal Obvious Earlier this week, the Unites States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) held that the United States District Court for the District of Delaware clearly erred in its obviousness analysis in Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc, reversing the lower court’s decision and entering judgment in favor of Millennium. Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Millennium”) […] Continue Reading →
Ninth Circuit Reiterates Role of Online Commerce in Likelihood of Confusion Analysis The Ninth Circuit issued a ruling on Tuesday clarifying the role of marketing channels in trademark infringement lawsuits. The case at issue involved two furniture manufacturers—Stone Creek Inc. and Omnia Italian Design Inc. Stone Creek manufactures furniture it sells directly to customers. In doing so, it uses a trademark consisting of the words “Stone Creek” […] Continue Reading →
Court of Appeals Gets Specific with Enablement In Storer v. Clark, the Court of Appeals explored whether a provisional application had sufficiently enabled interference subject matter. In order to prove enablement it must be shown that “one skilled in the art, having read the specification, could practice the invention without ‘undue experimentation.’” ALZA Corp. v. Andrx Pharm., LLC, 603 F.3d 935, 940 […] Continue Reading →
STRONGER PATENTS ACT On June 21, 2017, U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) introduced the STRONGER Patents Act of 2017 with the goal of strengthening the U.S. patent system by making it easier and cheaper for patent holders to enforce their patents. STRONGER (Support Technology and Research for Our […] Continue Reading →
When a printer is not like a molecule – sales of biologicals and a recent Supreme Court decision A month ago, we reported to you that a US Supreme Court decision reversed prior law and said that once a patented item is sold, the patent holder can no longer sue the legitimate purchaser of the patented product. Up until that decision, the Federal Circuit had held a patent owner could sell some but […] Continue Reading →
Attorneys’ Fees included under “All the Expenses” On June 23, 2017, the Federal Circuit released a decision allowing the USPTO to recover attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 145. According to § 145: “[a]n applicant dissatisfied with the decision of the [PTAB] . . . may, unless appeal has been taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the […] Continue Reading →
Gene Simmons Attempts to Trademark Iconic Hand Symbol Kiss lead singer, Gene Simmons, recently filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register the famous rock ‘n’ roll “horns” hand gesture as a trademark. Simmons filed the application June 9th to register “a hand gesture with the index and small fingers extended upward and the thumb extended […] Continue Reading →