Posts in Courts

In an order issued earlier this week, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires granted Director Review and partially vacated a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Final Written Decision that found several claims of U.S. Patent No. 11,828,425 unpatentable as obvious. Squires remanded the case after finding that the Board did not explain why its conclusion as to claim 2 differed from the outcome of a parallel district court proceeding on the same claim.

Recent developments in ex parte Corteva Agriscience LLC (Reexamination Control 90/019,130; Patent 10,947,555 B2) clarify obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) in the context of patent families with multiple continuations and varying patent term adjustments (PTA)…. In Corteva, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) distinguished Cellect and extended Allergan by holding that a child patent (here, the ’555 patent) is not unpatentable for ODP if it does not expire later than the original patent in the family, including any PTA awarded to the original patent. Below is a figure from Corteva.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Sansone v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, affirming the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia’s dismissal of a pro se inventor’s lawsuit and denial of his motion for summary judgment. Stanley Sansone filed U.S. Patent Application No. 16/255,511 on January 23, 2019, seeking a patent for a wearable thermal device, but a patent examiner rejected all claims. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) affirmed the rejection, after which Sansone sought continued examination.

A trademark dispute between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“the Church”) and the Mormon Stories Podcast (“the Podcast”) has  this week become a broader fight over the Church’s Mormon-related trademark portfolio. The Church’s complaint, filed on April 17, 2026, alleged that the Podcast’s name, branding, and use of Church imagery create a likelihood of confusion regarding whether the Podcast is actually affiliated with the Church. Meanwhile, the Podcast’s answer to the complaint and counterclaim goes further. Rather than merely denying infringement, the Podcast is now seeking cancellation of multiple Mormon-related trademarks owned by the Church..

The Supreme Court should grant certiorari in Hyatt v. Squires—a case it is scheduled to consider later this week—and finally put an end to prosecution laches in patent law. Not limit it. Not cabin it. Not send the Federal Circuit back to craft yet another multi-factor balancing test that will inevitably metastasize into a litigation weapon. The Supreme Court must end prosecution laches once and for all, period.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday issued a decision in Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Pfizer Inc., affirming summary judgment that all claims of Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s U.S. Patent 11,358,953 are invalid as anticipated. The court held that Enanta’s provisional application failed to provide adequate written description support under 35 U.S.C. Section 112 for a key chemical substituent claimed in the ‘953 patent. As a result, the patent could not claim the provisional’s earlier priority date and was anticipated by Pfizer’s prior disclosure of nirmatrelvir.

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition for certiorari in Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation v. Unified Patents LLC, a case that asked the High Court to consider whether patent owners have a right to require Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitioners to identify all real parties in interest (RPIs) in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. The petition stems from a precedential June 2025 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision dismissing Dolby Labs’ appeal from the PTAB for lack of an injury-in-fact to confer Article III standing. The Federal Circuit held that, although patent owners might have the right to dispute unnamed RPIs during IPR proceedings, the America Invents Act (AIA) does not give patent owners a freestanding right to identify RPIs.

The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari today in Game Plan, Inc. v. Uninterrupted IP, LLC, leaving in place a precedential decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) that affirmed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) cancellation of Game Plan’s trademark registration and dismissal of its opposition to six intent-to-use applications filed by Uninterrupted IP, LLC (UNIP).

On June 15, 2026, a federal court in San Francisco dismissed xAI’s trade secret claims against OpenAI with prejudice. The dismissal came with prejudice for a reason that sits at the heart of this article: xAI had sought to keep the case alive long enough to obtain, in discovery, the evidence it lacked at filing. The court refused, holding that a plaintiff “was required to have completed its investigation of its claims before filing suit, not after.” Put differently: the court did not treat a job interview as a trade secret extraction ceremony.

Last week, economic consulting firm Cornerstone Research published a report, titled Intellectual Property Litigation: U.S. Trends in Global Perspective, detailing global diversification in patent litigation and indicating that the United States is no longer the dominant forum for patent disputes. This shift away from a U.S.-centric infringement landscape has taken place at the same time that intangible assets now represent the vast majority of corporate value with many intellectual property (IP) owners increasingly choosing trade secret protection for domestic disputes, a trend being driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Valve Corporation, reversing a district court ruling that had estopped Valve Corporation from asserting two invalidity grounds at trial. The majority opinion, authored by Judge Hughes, concluded that the district court relied on insufficient evidence to estop one ground and failed to adequately account for hindsight bias in estopping the other. Judge Stark filed a concurring opinion.

It’s easy to take for granted that books, news, films, shows, songs, video games, photographs, artwork, and more are ubiquitously available through apps, streams, downloads and other digital means. But the thriving legitimate digital marketplace we enjoy today didn’t emerge by accident. It was built, in significant part, on the historical bedrock of secondary liability—the well-established common-law legal principle that one who assists another in committing a wrong is just as liable as the direct wrongdoer. In the internet ecosystem, that means platforms, internet service providers (ISPs), and other online intermediaries bear some responsibility when they knowingly facilitate or profit from copyright infringement.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Boston Scientific Corp. v. Stryker Corporation, affirming the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey’s denial of a preliminary injunction that Boston Scientific Corp. and Relievant Medsystems, Inc. sought to block Stryker Corporation’s launch of its OptaBlate BVN spinal ablation device. The dispute centered on whether Stryker’s product induced infringement of claims 16 and 21 of the U.S. Patent No. 12,303,166.

The ongoing trademark dispute between outdoor apparel company Patagonia and environmental activist and drag performer Pattie Gonia has generated considerable public attention. To many observers, the case appears to be a clash between a large corporation and an individual activist who shares many of the company’s environmental values. But viewed through the lens of trademark law, the dispute raises a far more nuanced question.