Federal Case Summaries
Coverage since November 3, 1994

Federal

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Metabolite Laboratories v. Laboratory Corporation of America — Method Patent on Diagnosing Vitamin Deficiency by Correlating Homocysteine Levels Upheld

The Federal Circuit affirmed a jury verdict that LabCorp indirectly infringed Metabolite’s patent on a method of detecting vitamin B12 and folate deficiency by measuring and correlating homocysteine levels, a case that later reached the Supreme Court and raised fundamental questions about pate

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Chiron Corp. v. Genentech, Inc. — Broad Monoclonal Antibody Claims Invalid When Specification Enables Only Murine Antibodies, Not Chimeric or Humanized Forms

The Federal Circuit affirmed invalidity of Chiron’s HER2 antibody patent, holding that claims broadly encompassing chimeric and humanized antibodies were not enabled by a specification that only disclosed murine antibodies, even though the claims were filed years before Herceptin was developed

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University of Rochester v. G.D. Searle & Co. — Method Patent Claims Fail Written Description When Claimed Compounds Were Not Invented

The Federal Circuit affirmed invalidation of the University of Rochester’s COX-2 inhibitor method patent, holding that a patent claiming a method of using a compound fails the written description requirement when the specification does not disclose the actual compounds needed to perform the me

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Liquid Dynamics Corp. v. Vaughan Co. — Terms of Approximation Like ‘Substantial’ in Patent Claims Have Real Meaning and Cannot Be Interpreted to Require Perfection

The Federal Circuit vacated a summary judgment of non-infringement, holding that the claim term ‘a substantial helical flow path’ is a meaningful approximation — not an absolute requirement for a geometrically perfect helix — and that the district court erred by construing the term to re

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Geneva Pharmaceuticals v. GlaxoSmithKline — Method-of-Use Claims Cannot Extend Patent Protection When Earlier Compound Patent Discloses the Same Use

The Federal Circuit held that method-of-use claims on a pharmaceutical compound are not patentably distinct from an earlier patent claiming the same compound when the earlier patent’s specification already disclosed that use, affirming invalidity for nonstatutory obviousness-type double patent

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