Posts in Federal Circuit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a precedential decision in Micron Technology, Inc. v. Longhorn IP LLC, dismissing an appeal from a district court’s order imposing an $8 million bond under the Idaho Bad Faith Assertions of Patent Infringement Act. The opinion was authored by Judge Lourie and joined by Judges Schall and Stoll.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a mixed, split, precedential ruling in Wonderland Switzerland AG v. Evenflo Company, Inc., reversing a permanent injunction and granting a new trial for willful patent infringement in a case between two child car seat manufacturers. The court found a district court judge abused his discretion both in granting an injunction based on speculative harm and in excluding a key email chain that asked how to “ingeniously” avoid a patent. The opinion was authored by Chief Judge Moore and Judge Reyna concurred-in-part and dissented-in-part.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential ruling in Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc. finding that the Eastern District of Texas did not abuse its discretion in denying third party Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) motion for permissive intervention in patent infringement proceedings. Applying Fifth Circuit rulings on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 24(b), the Federal Circuit agreed that EFF did not timely move to unseal summary judgment briefs surrounding infringement under the relevant cable data transmission standard.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari to MSN Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., a case that asked the Justices to clarify U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) precedent around using “after-arising technology” to hold a patent invalid in the context of patent-infringement suits. The case arises from a  January 2025 precedential CAFC decision reversing a district court’s determination that certain claims of a patent for Novartis’ heart failure drug Entresto were invalid for lack of written description, and affirming a finding that the claims were not shown to be invalid for obviousness, lack of enablement, or indefiniteness.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a precedential decision affirming the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) cancellation of the registration for the mark I AM MORE THAN AN ATHLETE. GP GAME PLAN. The CAFC also dismissed Game Plan, Inc.’s opposition to Uninterrupted IP, LLC’s (UNIP’s) six intent-to-use applications for marks containing I AM MORE THAN AN ATHLETE and MORE THAN AN ATHLETE. The opinion was authored by Judge Reyna.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday issued a precedential decision in International Business Machines Corporation v. Zillow Group, Inc., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that certain claims of an IBM patent on single sign-on (SSO) technology were unpatentable, while others were not. The CAFC found no fault with the PTAB’s claim construction or its analysis of the prior art and rejected IBM’s argument that the Board relied on a theory not raised in the initial petition for inter partes review (IPR).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued three decisions denying mandamus relief to inter partes review (IPR) petitioners at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) whose petitions were denied institution.  

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today authored by Chief Judge Moore reversing the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) affirmance of a refusal to register the mark KAHWA for cafes and coffee shops.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday affirmed a district court’s summary judgment of non-infringement and judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) in Shopify Inc. v. Express Mobile, Inc., confirming the rejection of a $40 million jury verdict against Shopify. Shopify filed a declaratory judgment action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, seeking a declaration of noninfringement of the claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,063,755, 9,471,287, 6,546,397, and 7,594,168, which relate to website design and functionality. Express Mobile counterclaimed for infringement of those patents and additionally asserted U.S. Patent No. 9,928,044 by accusing Shopify’s Theme Editor and its underlying “Liquid” template technology.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Coda Development S.R.O. v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. affirming the Northern District of Ohio’s post-verdict grant of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) to Goodyear on state trade secret and federal inventorship claims raised by Coda. The Federal Circuit ruled that Coda’s trade secret claims were either not defined with sufficient particularity or were publicly disclosed in patent applications filed by Coda, leading the appellate court to dismiss the appellant’s correction of inventorship claims as well.

What’s really holding America back in the biopharma race against China isn’t just Beijing’s subsidies or cheaper labor. It’s the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s self-inflicted wound: a court so panel-dependent that no one—brand or generic—knows which rule will apply until the panel is drawn. The Supreme Court can fix this in one stroke by granting certiorari in MSN Pharmaceuticals v. Novartis (No. 25-225) and killing the bizarre “after-arising technology” exception that lets old, vague patents swallow future inventions.

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to grant a petition filed by Recentive Analytics, Inc. asking the Court to weigh in on whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) approach to patent eligibility for machine learning claims is improper. The petition was filed in October following an April 2025 decision by the CAFC that addressed an issue of first impression in the patent eligibility context; the opinion held that “claims that do no more than apply established methods of machine learning to a new data environment” are not patent eligible.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday vacated and remanded a district court’s decision in favor of Meta, rejecting the court’s finding that patent owner Adnexus had failed to state a plausible claim for direct infringement. The decision was precedential and authored by Judge Stark, with whom Judges Taranto and Prost joined.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Seagen Inc. v. Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd., reversing the Eastern District of Texas’ denial of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) that Seagen’s patent claims lacked both written description support and enablement. Applying precedent from both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit’s predecessor, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA), the appellate court found that Seagen’s disclosure on the original patent application claiming its antibody-drug conjugate cancer treatment was too broad to give the later-filed patent-at-issue the original application’s priority date, and also required undue experimentation to discover effective drug combinations.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday issued a precedential decision in In Re: Gesture Technology Partners, LLC, affirming in part and dismissing in part an appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The decision affirmed the PTAB’s invalidation of several claims of Gesture’s patent on motion-sensing technology and confirmed the Board’s authority to rule on expired patents. The opinion was authored by Circuit Judge Lourie and joined by Circuit Judges Bryson and Chen.