Posts Tagged: "Federal Circuit"

In a precedential decision issued June 4, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a district court’s finding of noninfringement in favor of Moderna, Inc. in its ongoing patent battle with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals over mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine technology. The court held that Alnylam had acted as its own lexicographer in defining the term “branched alkyl” in its patent specifications and that definition foreclosed Alnylam’s infringement allegations against Moderna’s SPIKEVAX® vaccine.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a split ruling in Acufloor, LLC v. EvenTile, Inc. vacating a stipulated judgment of non-infringement by the Middle District of Florida following claim construction in infringement litigation between rivals in the ceramic tile installation industry. Although Judge Leonard Stark concurred with the panel’s vacatur, he dissented from the majority’s narrow construction of the claim term “edge,” arguing that the proper course of action for the appellate court was to remand to the district court under Acufloor’s proposed broader construction, which creates enablement issues that the district court should address in the first instance.

It is an understatement to say that the patent system in the United States has seen better times. The belief that U.S. patent quality is low is unfounded, but like so many other myths it endures despite its falsity. The persistent myth about low patent quality continues to mislead patent policy even though annual “correctness” reviews by the Patent Office show remarkably high levels of accuracy for patent examiners. The myth continues despite independent research showing that when mistakes are made it is far more common for examiners to reject patent claims than it is for them to issue patents with invalid claims.

In January 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential ruling in Lynk Labs, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. affirming a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that had invalidated the patent claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,687,400 to Lynk Labs… Two statutes were in play: U.S.C. 311(b) and U.S.C. 102(e); both the pre-America Invent Act (AIA) versions.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) filed a combined petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc on Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), arguing that the court’s March precedential decision vacating a Commission determination on the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement “overlooks the cardinal rule that statutory language must be read in context.”

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a split precedential decision in EcoFactor v. Google, with the majority holding that a district court’s order denying Google’s motion for a new trial on damages following a $20 million damages award for EcoFactor, Inc. should be reversed. Judges Reyna and Stark each issued opinions dissenting in part.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday in a precedential decision affirmed a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision finding that the mark VETEMENTS for clothing items is generic and merely descriptive without acquired distinctiveness under the doctrine of foreign equivalents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday, May 16, reversed a district court’s decision granting summary judgment of non-infringement for Apple. The CAFC found that, under the district court’s broad construction of the term “widget,” Fintiv, Inc. had presented enough evidence to “create a genuine issue of material fact that a widget exists in the accused products,” and therefore potentially infringed.

Two patent applicants struck out at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit  (CAFC) Thursday when the court affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision upholding a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiner’s rejection of their application for a diagnostic testing patent. Patent application No. 12/925,221 is directed to “collect[ing] a sample of a volatile material (e.g., breath or urine) produced by a living entity (e.g., person or animal) and then analyz[ing] the sample using a mass spectrometer to create a digital health record with information such as the living entity’s age or weight” in order to diagnose certain conditions.

Recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decisions have gutted 35 U.S.C. §315(e)(2). Last week, in Ingenico Inc. v. IOENGINE, LLC, 2025 WL 1318188 (Fed. Cir. 2025), the Federal Circuit resolved an open issue regarding IPR estoppel in district court, holding that system art is never subject to IPR estoppel under 35 U.S.C. §315(e)(2). But Ingenico went much further and also held that “IPR estoppel does not preclude a petitioner from relying on the same patents and printed publications as evidence in asserting a ground that could not be raised during the IPR, such as that the claimed invention was known or used by others, on sale, or in public use.”

In a precedential opinion issued on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated and remanded a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that awarded priority to the Broad Institute in the high-profile CRISPR-Cas9 patent dispute. The court held that the PTAB applied the wrong standard by requiring the Regents of the University of California, the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier (“the Regents”) to show their invention was known to work. The CAFC reaffirmed that conception doesn’t require certainty of success and remanded for reevaluation under the correct framework.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Incyte Corp. v. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. dismissing Incyte’s appeal from post-grant review (PGR) proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for lack of Article III standing. While the Federal Circuit majority deciding the case found that Incyte couldn’t establish a sufficient injury in fact, Circuit Judge Todd Hughes authored a concurrence echoing his previous concerns regarding the appellate court’s overly rigid and narrow standard for analyzing standing in PTAB appeals.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday affirmed a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision upholding an examiner’s refusal to register the mark US SPACE FORCE to Thomas Foster. The CAFC, in an opinion authored by Chief Judge Moore, agreed with the TTAB that the mark created a false suggestion of a connection with the United States government based on President Donald Trump’s creation of the Space Force as a sixth military branch, which was established by congress in December of 2019.

Patent owner NexSteps filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court that was docketed this week challenging lower rulings overturning a jury verdict over a lack of evidentiary basis for the jury’s infringement finding under the doctrine of equivalents (DOE). NexSteps, a developer of technologies that improve consumer interactions with electronic devices, challenges these rulings as creating rigid requirements to proving DOE infringement claims that undermines the flexible, case-specific inquiry called for by Supreme Court precedent on the doctrine.

In a precedential decision issued May 6, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed in part and vacated in part a Delaware district court’s injunction that blocked Avadel CNS Pharmaceuticals from conducting clinical research and seeking regulatory approval for expanded uses of its once-nightly narcolepsy drug, Lumryz. The Federal Circuit ruled that the injunction unlawfully covered conduct protected by the Hatch-Waxman Act’s “safe harbor” provision, 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1), which exempts pre-approval research and regulatory activities from infringement liability.