Rose Esfandiari

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Centripetal Networks, LLC v. Keysight Technologies, Inc., affirming a final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and holding that the Board correctly construed a limitation of one independent claim of Centripetal’s patent and properly found that a prior art reference anticipated the claim.

Opponents of the “Pro Codes Act” are speaking out this week following its recent reintroduction in the U.S. Senate. The Protecting and Enhancing Public Access to Codes (Pro Codes) Act of 2026, S. 4145, was reintroduced on March 19 by Senators Jon Cornyn, Chris Coons, Mazie Hirono, and Thom Tillis. According to the bill’s sponsors, the legislation “ensures safety standards do not lose copyright protection when they are incorporated into law by name so long as they are accessible for free on a publicly available website.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Tesla, Inc. v. Charge Fusion Technologies, LLC, affirming in part, reversing in part, and vacating in part a final written decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The CAFC determined that the PTAB improperly construed a limitation of one independent claim but correctly construed limitations of other independent claims. The court reversed the finding of non-obviousness for claim 1, vacated the judgment regarding its dependent claims, and affirmed the finding of non-obviousness for the remaining claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision in Ascendis Pharma A/S v. BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., affirming a district court order that upheld the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California decision denying Ascendis’s motion for a mandatory stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659(a)(2). The ruling concluded that Ascendis was not entitled to a mandatory stay because Ascendis voluntarily dismissed its original complaint and filed a virtually identical refiled complaint to restart the statutory deadline. Judge Stoll authored the opinion, joined by Judges Lourie and Chen.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ruling that internet service provider Cox Communications, Inc., is not contributorily liable for its subscribers’ copyright infringement. In a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Thomas, the Court held that a service provider is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement only when it intended for its service to be used in that way, which is established only if the provider either encouraged the infringement or designed the service specifically to facilitate it.