Posts in Patents

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday issued a precedential decision affirming a finding of invalidity of certain claims of Satius Holding, LLC’s wireless communications patent, but holding that the district court’s reasoning, which focused on indefiniteness, was erroneous.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Truinject Corp. v. Galderma S.A., affirming a U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware judgment for Galderma S.A. on tortious interference, breach of contract, and trade secret misappropriation claims. The CAFC held that Truinject Corporation forfeited its arguments on appeal about the dismissal of its tortious interference claim and the summary judgment of no damages.

Patent infringement litigation is often discussed in terms of high-profile disputes or headline verdicts. What receives less attention is the cost of getting there. Whether a company is enforcing its patent rights or defending against a claim, the financial impact of patent litigation can be significant long before a case ever reaches trial. For many businesses, particularly those operating in technology-driven industries, patent litigation is no longer just a legal issue. It is a business consideration that can influence strategy, resource allocation and long-term planning.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in ParkerVision, Inc. v. Qualcomm Incorporated dismissing ParkerVision’s appeal from a judgment of non-infringement for lack of appellate jurisdiction. The CAFC determined that a partial final judgment entered under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) was not final, since it resolved infringement of only some claims of a single patent. The CAFC also denied ParkerVision’s request to reassign the case to a different district judge on remand.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Wednesday vacating and remanding a district court ruling that had denied Pen-Tech Associates, Inc.’s motion for sanctions and attorney’s fees due to Epic Tech, LLC’s allegedly frivolous infringement claims. The CAFC found the district court had provided “insufficient detail to permit meaningful review.”

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires faced the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property Tuesday in an oversight hearing pushing for more information on several of the policy changes his administration has put in place. The hearing was the last over which its current Chairman, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), will preside.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an updated memorandum today addressed to all patent applicants and practitioners that provides a flowchart for analyzing Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations (SMEDs) submitted under 37 C.F.R. Section 1.132 and reviews best practices for submitting them. The memo, from USPTO Director John Squires, is an addendum to an April 2026 SMED memorandum and, according to the USPTO, “this memorandum is consistent with existing USPTO guidance and does not announce any new USPTO practice or procedure.”

Using one associate to prepare a claim construction chart and a second to check it is ordinary practice. In In re Brian E. Mitchell, Proceeding No. D2026-16, a patent attorney did the same with two generative AI tools: one to draft proposed claim constructions and a second to review them. Erroneous citations still reached the district court, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) publicly reprimanded him for that.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision on September 25 in Zentian Ltd. v. Apple Inc., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision that found all claims of a speech recognition patent unpatentable as obvious. The court rejected Zentian’s challenge to the PTAB’s construction of the term “feature vector” and affirmed the determination that codewords in a prior art reference fall within that term.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Friday in The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. v. Google LLC, affirming a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that granted Google LLC and YouTube LLC judgment on the pleadings on patent ineligibility grounds under 35 U.S.C. Section 101.

President and CEO of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) and former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Coke Morgan Stewart told attendees of IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum today that “we need to get out the paddles and shock the patient” when it comes to the state of the U.S. patent system.

Biological drugs, or biologics, are now a well-established class of therapeutic products worldwide. Unlike conventional small-molecule drugs, which are generally obtained through chemical synthesis and have relatively simple and well-defined structures, biologics are derived from living organisms or produced through biotechnology processes involving living cells. They include, among others, monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, hormones, blood-derived products and advanced cell-based therapies.

Recent discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) in legal practice tend to split into two opposing positions. One holds that junior attorneys should not meaningfully use AI because it will interfere with their development and prevent the formation of sound legal judgment. The other holds that AI will replace junior attorneys by eliminating the tasks they traditionally performed. Both positions rest on the same hidden assumption, which is that AI carries a direction of its own and that the profession’s task is to decide whether to accept it or resist it.

Today, the Bayh-Dole Coalition published a report detailing tremendous economic benefits driven by federal funding into American innovation made possible by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. Looking at the past three decades of available tech transfer licensing data, the Coalition’s report underscores the importance of the Bayh-Dole Act’s decentralization of patent ownership in federally-funded inventions, which has unlocked up to $3.3 trillion in gross economic output for the United States during the study period.