The Federal Circuit held that Roche’s patents on etanercept (Enbrel) were not subject to obviousness-type double patenting by Immunex, because Roche’s license to Immunex was not an effective assignment — Roche retained substantial patent rights that prevented common ownership.
The Supreme Court held that combining a generic word with “.com” does not automatically make the resulting term generic; whether a term is generic depends on consumer perception, and “Booking.com” is not generic for hotel reservation services.
The Federal Circuit held that direct competitors have Article III standing to appeal an IPR final written decision even without a specific threat of patent infringement litigation, so long as their commercial activities risk infringement and the patent owner has refused to grant a covenant not to su
The Federal Circuit held that claim preclusion and the Kessler doctrine barred PersonalWeb from re-suing Amazon’s customers for infringement of the same patents, after PersonalWeb had previously settled a lawsuit against Amazon itself without expressly reserving its rights to sue downstream customer
The Federal Circuit addressed whether a standard-essential patent holder’s injunction request against a licensee who rejected a FRAND license offer was properly denied — examining the standards for determining whether a license offer was FRAND-compliant and whether refusal to accept a FRAND of
The Federal Circuit addressed the PTAB’s discretionary authority under § 314(a) to deny IPR petitions based on factors including the stage of parallel district court litigation and the efficiency of institution — affirming the PTAB’s broad discretion in institution decisions and its auth
The Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal and held that patent claims covering a technique for reducing transmission delays in wireless communication systems were directed to a patent-eligible improvement in computer functionality rather than an abstract idea.
The Supreme Court held 5–4 that Georgia’s officially adopted annotated code — including annotations prepared under legislative supervision — is not copyrightable under the government edicts doctrine, because works created by government officials exercising legislative or judicial authority bel
The Federal Circuit affirmed that the USPTO’s subject matter eligibility guidance is not binding on the courts, and that the proper legal standard for patent eligibility remains the Alice/Mayo framework as interpreted by federal court precedent.
The Supreme Court held unanimously that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement case may recover the defendant’s profits under 15 U.S.C. §1117(a) without proving that the infringement was willful.
The Federal Circuit held that assignor estoppel bars a patent assignor from challenging claim validity in district court, but does not prevent the same assignor from filing inter partes review petitions at the PTAB — a critical distinction with major implications for post-grant strategy.
The Federal Circuit held that a patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act covers only the active ingredient actually approved by the FDA—and its salts and esters—but does not extend to a metabolite of that ingredient, even if the metabolite is what is pharmacologically active in the body.
The Supreme Court held 7-2 that § 314(d)’s bar on judicial review of IPR institution decisions extends to determinations about the § 315(b) one-year time bar — meaning courts cannot review whether the PTAB incorrectly concluded that a petition was timely filed within the statutory one-year per
The Federal Circuit held that color marks on product packaging can be inherently distinctive and thus registrable as trademarks without proof of acquired distinctiveness, clarifying that multicolor product packaging marks are treated differently from product design marks.
The Federal Circuit reversed a district court preliminary injunction that barred a patent holder from alleging infringement, holding that a finding of bad faith—including objective baselessness—is a necessary predicate before such an injunction may issue.
The Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress lacked constitutional authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity for copyright infringement under the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, leaving rights holders without a federal damages remedy when states infringe their copyrights.
The Federal Circuit reversed a district court ruling and held that method-of-preparation claims for enriching cell-free fetal DNA from maternal blood were patent eligible under § 101, because the claims went beyond merely observing a natural phenomenon and recited concrete preparation steps.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the ITC’s exclusion order against Comcast set-top boxes, holding that the ITC’s authority under Section 337 extends to articles that infringe after importation when the importer induces customer infringement domestically.
The Federal Circuit applied the Kessler doctrine — a nineteenth-century rule of preclusion in patent law — to bar PersonalWeb from relitigating patent infringement claims against Amazon Web Services customers after PersonalWeb had previously lost in a suit against Amazon directly, holding that custo
The Federal Circuit granted Google’s writ of mandamus and held that cache servers leased inside third-party ISP facilities do not create a “regular and established place of business” for patent venue purposes unless an employee or agent of the defendant is conducting business there.
The Federal Circuit held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board cannot cancel patent claims as indefinite in inter partes review proceedings, since the IPR statute limits the Board to invalidity grounds based on prior art under Sections 102 and 103.