Posts Tagged: "anticipation"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a precedential opinion clarifying the requirements for the disclosure of technology that is ready for patenting at a public event to qualify as being “in public use” for purposes of the pre-America Invents Act (AIA) public use bar under 35 USC 102(b). The appeal stems from Minerva Surgical, Inc.’s suit against Hologic, Inc. and Cytyc Surgical Products, LLC for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 9,186,208, titled “Systems for endometrial ablation.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted summary judgment for Hologic that the relevant claims were anticipated under the public use bar of the pre-AIA Section 102(b).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), with Judge Stoll writing, earlier today reversed a denial of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of no infringement relating to U.S. Patent No. 9,031,521, which is assigned to Dali Wireless, Inc. The court also affirmed the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas on a number of other issues, including its denial of JMOL of invalidity of the ‘521 patent. The ‘521 patent is titled “System and Method for Digital Memorized Predistortion for Wireless Communication.” The patent solves the problem of unintended distortions to a signal caused by power amplifiers used to boost the signal on devices such as mobile phones. The patent does this through “through the use of a feedback loop and lookup tables.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on February 1 held in part that the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (UPSTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred in finding a claim anticipated when the petition for inter partes review had only asserted obviousness as to the claim. M&K Holdings, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (CAFC, Feb 1, 2020). The CAFC vacated the PTAB’s decision on that claim but affirmed the holding of unpatentability as to the rest of the asserted claims.

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Biogen MA, Inc. v. EMD Serono, Inc., reversing the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey’s judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) for Biogen. The New Jersey court had found no anticipation of Biogen’s patent claims, overturning a jury’s finding that the claims were anticipated by the prior art. The Federal Circuit’s decision, which turned on the issue of applying a product-by-process novelty analysis to certain nested claim limitations, said that a reasonable jury could find the claims anticipated and remanded with instructions to reinstate the jury verdict.

Since the America Invents Act ushered in a series of sweeping changes to the U.S. patent system in 2011, IP stakeholders have been grappling with Inter Partes Review proceedings (IPRs) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). More than 8,000 IPR petitions have been filed since 2012. IPRs differ from court proceedings in many ways, including more restricted discovery, tighter deadlines, and particular rules and procedures for the submission of arguments and evidence. Despite these differences, the substantive law underlying the patent challenges is the same for IPRs and court proceedings. In an IPR, a Petitioner is allowed to challenge a patent’s validity under the doctrines of anticipation or obviousness. These same challenges are available in court, and the substantive law for anticipation and obviousness is theoretically supposed to be the same for IPRs or for court proceedings. Given that the substantive doctrines of anticipation and obviousness have existed and have been refined for more than a century, and that these doctrines are the same for PTAB and federal court proceedings, practitioners have tended to focus more on the doctrines, rules and procedures specific to IPRs when publishing on IPR practice. An in-depth study of obviousness in IPRs, however, reveals significant differences in the way the PTAB analyzes obviousness as compared to the courts and issues where the PTAB’s approach has changed over time. Over 90% of final written decisions in IPRs in the last three years have included obviousness grounds (as compared to less than 30% for anticipation). The doctrine of obviousness includes a multi-factor test, each factor including numerous sub-doctrines that can impact the analysis. Understanding precisely how the PTAB is analyzing and treating obviousness can improve a litigant’s chances of success in an IPR, whether as a patent owner or a patent challenger.

The Federal Circuit recently overturned a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) inter partes review decision finding that an IPS Group (IPS) patent was not unpatentable as anticipated, holding that the Board erred when determining the inventive entities of the asserted IPS patent and the asserted prior art, which was a different IPS patent that shared an inventor with the other IPS patent. See Duncan Parking Techs. v. IPS Group, Inc., Nos. 2018-1205, 2018-1360, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 3137 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 31, 2019) (Before Lourie, Dyk, and Taranto, J.) (Opinion for the Court, Lourie, J.). The claims at issue related to parking meter technology. IPS has two relevant patents for this technology, the ’310 patent and the ’054 patent. The ’054 patent issued in 2013 from a 2006 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application. It named the Founder of IPS, Dave King, and the Chief Technical Officer of IPS, Alexander Schwarz, as inventors. The ’310 patent was issued in 2010 and based on an application filed in 2008. The ’310 patent named King, along with three other engineers, as inventors. The ’310 patent, however, did not disclose Schwarz as an inventor.

In AC Techs., S.A. v. Amazon.com, Inc. the Federal Circuit found the PTAB did not exceed its statutory authority by addressing a non-instituted ground on reconsideration; in fact, it would have violated the statutory scheme for the PTAB not to consider the previously non-instituted ground… The claims at issue related to data access and management, namely, storing copies of data across a network to improve data integrity and reduce network lag. Amazon and Blizzard challenged the ’680 patent based on a single prior art reference. They presented three grounds in their petition, all centered on the construction of the term “computer unit.”

Unlike the Board’s anticipation determinations, which contravened the only permissible findings that could be drawn from the prior art under the proper constructions of the relevant claim terms, the obviousness determinations involved “potentially lawful but insufficiently or inappropriately explained” factual findings. In re Van Os, 844 F.3d 1359, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2017). The Board failed to explain its reasoning to allow the Court to determine whether its findings would be lawful. When faced with similarly deficient factual findings, the Court has “consistently vacated and remanded for further proceedings.” Id. Consequently, the Court vacated the Board’s obviousness rejections with respect to claims 1-3, 5-8, and 21, and remanded for further factual findings and explanation on this issue.

A jury verdict awarded more than $26 million to a group of plaintiffs including San Diego, CA-based gene analysis firm Illumina, Inc. The jury found that Ariosa Diagnostics infringed upon two patents, awarding $15.7 million in lost profits to Illumina and nearly $11 million in lost profits to Verinata Health… In the recent jury verdict, both Illumina and Verinata lost on willful infringement arguments made against Ariosa during the trial. However, the validity of both patents was confirmed after being challenged by Ariosa during the case.

D’Agostino’s appeal challenges PTAB authority to entertain invalidity on remand as no part of the IPR statute found in the America Invents Act (AIA) permits PTAB action more than 18 months after institution… The Federal Circuit remanded the reversed claim construction to the PTAB for further proceedings “not inconsistent with [the Court’s] opinion.” On appeal to the Federal Circuit, D’Agostino argued that the PTAB lacked the jurisdiction to entertain unpatentability on remand as no part of the IPR statute found in the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 permits Board action more than 18 months after institution, rendering that decision on remand ultra vires.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the rejection of several claims in a patent owned by Monsanto… Extrinsic evidence is permissible to interpret an allegedly anticipating references and to shed light on what it would have meant to a POSA. For purposes of inherent anticipation, recognition is not required within the prior art itself and need not antedate the patent at issue or have contemporaneous recognition by a POSA.

The Federal Circuit heard the case of Microsoft Corp. v. Biscotti, Inc. After Biscotti, Inc. (“Biscotti”) sued Microsoft Corp. (“Microsoft”) for patent infringement, Microsoft filed three unsuccessful inter partes reviews (“IPR”) challenging certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,144,182 (“the ‘182 patent”) as anticipated or obvious. The ‘182 patent relates to tools and techniques for providing video calling solutions. The IPRs focused on independent claims 6 and 69, and their dependent claims. On appeal Microsoft challenged the Board’s standard of review… The Federal Circuit reiterated that anticipation is a question of fact subject to substantial evidence review, that ultimate claim construction and claim construction relying solely on intrinsic evidence is subject to de novo review, and subsidiary factual findings based on extrinsic evidence are reviewed for substantial evidence.

On November 1st, a panel of administrative patent judges (APJs) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision which found that 11 claims of a networking patent held by Salt Lake City, UT-based wide area network (WAN) developer FatPipe Networks as being anticipated and obvious in light of prior art. A press release on the news from FatPipe, however, notes that the PTAB panel did not invalidate “a signature claim” of the patent covering a method for load balancing over disparate networks.

An inherency rejection, whether it be inherent anticipation or inherent obviousness, can be extremely difficult to overcome. Indeed, at many times it seems there is a great deal of subjectivity weaved into an inherency rejection… Inherency was initially a doctrine rooted in anticipation, but has long since been applied to become applicable to obviousness rejections as well. What this means is this: Inherency may supply a missing claim limitation in either an obviousness rejection. See Par Pharmaceutical, Inc. v. TWi Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 773 F.3d 1186 (2014). However, the Federal Circuit has always been mindful that inherency in the context of an obviousness rejection must be carefully limited. There is “a high standard in order to rely on inherency to establish the existence of a claim limitation in the prior art in an obviousness analysis…” Id.