The Federal Circuit vacated a district court’s indefiniteness finding for a viscometer patent, holding that the intrinsic record — not dictionary definitions — governs claim construction, and that terms of degree are not indefinite when the specification provides adequate context for a skilled
The Federal Circuit granted mandamus, holding that a foreign defendant cannot defeat Rule 4(k)(2) personal jurisdiction in the plaintiff’s chosen forum by unilaterally consenting to jurisdiction in a different district after the lawsuit is filed.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that Sandoz’s generic pirfenidone label would not induce infringement of Genentech’s method-of-treatment patents, and also upheld invalidity of the liver function test patents as obvious, clarifying the inducement standard for drug labels in Hatch-Waxman litigation.
The Federal Circuit reversed a summary judgment of patent invalidity for anticipation, finding genuine disputes about whether the alleged prior art product predated the patent’s critical date, and separately affirmed that Mosaic’s claimed trade dress was invalid as functional.
The Federal Circuit held that genuine disputes of material fact precluded summary judgment of patent invalidity for failure to name a co-inventor, reversing the district court’s ruling that the patents were invalid for nonjoinder.
The Federal Circuit held that collateral estoppel from a prior IPR proceeding can invalidate claims in a later IPR even when the claims use different language, as long as the differences do not materially alter the question of patentability.
The Federal Circuit upheld the exclusion of a patent owner’s expert witness whose infringement opinion rested on a claim construction that materially differed from the district court’s adopted construction, resulting in summary judgment of noninfringement.
The Federal Circuit held that a patent owner’s disclaimer made for the first time during an IPR proceeding does not bind the PTAB in that same proceeding, preventing patentees from narrowing claim scope through argument alone to avoid invalidity.
The Federal Circuit unanimously affirmed the district court’s holding that five patent claims covering ibrutinib (Imbruvica) — a breakthrough cancer drug — were not invalid for obviousness, lack of written description, or lack of enablement, underscoring appellate deference to trial court fact
The Federal Circuit held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may adopt claim constructions that differ from those entered by a district court in concurrent litigation, as the two proceedings are legally independent.
The Federal Circuit held that patent owners may amend claims during inter partes review to address issues beyond the specific grounds raised in the petition, provided the amendments do not enlarge claim scope or add new matter.
The Federal Circuit held that although an irrevocable patent license cannot be unilaterally revoked by the grantor, both parties may mutually agree to terminate it, and doing so restores the licensor’s standing to bring patent infringement suits against the former licensee.
The Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s ruling that the claim term “Downloadable” was indefinite in Finjan’s computer virus detection patents, holding that the term’s plain meaning — an executable or interpretable application program — was sufficiently definite.
The Federal Circuit issued two precedential opinions vacating preliminary injunctions in hoverboard design patent cases, holding that courts must conduct product-by-product infringement analysis under the ordinary observer test and properly account for prior art when evaluating likelihood of success
The Federal Circuit affirmed that IBM’s patents covering coordinated map-based and list-based selection of geographic data were directed to the abstract idea of organizing and displaying visual information, lacking an inventive concept sufficient for patent eligibility.
The Federal Circuit reversed an indefiniteness ruling against patents covering geometric meshing methods used in computer-aided design, holding that the district court applied an incorrect ‘unanswered questions’ test rather than the proper ‘reasonable certainty’ standard from
The Federal Circuit addressed trade secret and copyright claims arising from TA Instruments’ alleged misappropriation of Malvern Panalytical’s confidential algorithms and software for rheology instruments — affirming the district court’s rulings on preemption of state trade secret
The Federal Circuit reversed dismissal of a peer-to-peer video delivery network patent under § 101, holding that the complaint plausibly alleged the claims represented a specific technical improvement over prior content distribution networks.
The Federal Circuit affirmed infringement of Corcept Therapeutics’ method-of-treatment patents covering combination therapy using mifepristone with a strong CYP3A inhibitor — finding that Teva’s ANDA label induced infringement and rejecting Teva’s challenge to the skinny label carv
The Federal Circuit affirmed rejection of claims covering a computer-implemented system for identifying Social Security Disability Insurance eligibility, holding the claims were directed to an abstract mental process that humans perform through observation and evaluation.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that product-by-process claim language — which defines a product in terms of the process used to make it — does not impart patentable weight unless the claimed process produces a product that is structurally and functionally different from the prior art.
The Federal Circuit held that the reissue recapture doctrine bars an applicant from using a reissue application to reclaim claim scope that was deliberately surrendered during original prosecution to overcome a patent eligibility rejection under § 101.
The Federal Circuit held that the Patent Act requires inventors to be human beings, affirming the USPTO’s rejection of applications that named an artificial intelligence system called DABUS as the sole inventor.
The Federal Circuit affirmed an award of attorneys’ fees under the court’s inherent equitable powers, holding that a patent owner’s voluntary dismissal from one district followed immediately by refiling the same case in a different district constituted bad-faith forum shopping that warranted sanctio