Patents / Patent Litigation
In a precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District of Delaware's reading of “dextromethorphan” and “quinidine” to include salt forms—sustaining a preliminary injunction against Hetero's generic Nuedexta—but vacated the district court's waiver of the Rule 65(c) bond and remanded.
Patents / Patent Litigation
In a precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District of Delaware's reading of “dextromethorphan” and “quinidine” to include salt forms—sustaining a preliminary injunction against Hetero's generic Nuedexta—but vacated the district court's waiver of the Rule 65(c) bond and remanded.
Patents / Patent Litigation
Patents / PTAB
Patents / Claim Construction
Patents / PTAB
Inter partes review is an administrative trial before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that lets a third party challenge issued patent claims on prior-art grounds. The statute defines who can file, what can be raised, and the threshold to institute.
Policy / ITC
A Section 337 investigation at the U.S. International Trade Commission targets unfair acts in importation, most often patent infringement, and can end in an order excluding the accused goods from entry into the United States.
Patents / Patent Litigation
Induced infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) reaches those who actively encourage others to infringe; contributory infringement under § 271(c) reaches those who supply a component with no substantial noninfringing use. Both require knowledge.
Patents / Damages
Section 284 sets a damages floor: a patent owner who proves infringement is entitled to no less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention, plus interest and costs, with treble damages available.
Patents / Patent Litigation
The doctrine of equivalents lets a patent owner prove infringement even when an accused product does not literally meet a claim limitation, so long as the difference is insubstantial. The Supreme Court ties the test to each individual claim element.
Policy / USPTO
Patent term adjustment compensates a patentee for delays caused by the USPTO during examination. Section 154(b) sets specific timing guarantees, and the term is extended day-for-day when the Office misses them.
Patents / Claim Construction
During examination the USPTO gives pending claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification. The standard, set out in MPEP 2111, differs from how courts read issued claims.
Patent Litigation / Cloud
A June 18 complaint accuses AWS services including EC2, S3, CloudFront and the Nitro System of infringing four asserted patents; the case is assigned to Judge Jamal N. Whitehead.
Patent Litigation / Consumer Electronics
A June 18 N.D. Cal. complaint accuses Assassin's Creed Nexus VR and Eagle Flight of infringing U.S. Patents 10,528,129 and 9,977,495 covering a static visual reference rendered into a VR field of view.
Patent Litigation / Aviation
A June 19 complaint accuses Archer's Midnight and Maker aircraft of infringing U.S. Patent 7,946,528 on a VTOL flight-control system; the case is assigned in the Northern District of California's San Jose Division.
Patent Litigation / Consumer Electronics
A June 18 panel held that a classification search returning tens of thousands of references does not, by itself, prove a prior-art ground was discoverable, and that Ironburg's other search evidence was tainted by hindsight. Valve's barred invalidity defenses return to the district court.
Patent Eligibility / AgTech
A June 2 panel held AGI SureTrack's agricultural-data claims are directed to an abstract idea under Section 101, while vacating the district court's unexplained ruling that the case was not exceptional for purposes of fees.
USPTO Policy / USPTO Policy
Effective July 20, 2026, the agency amends the Rules of Practice to bar foreign-domiciled applicants and patent owners from prosecuting pro se, citing alignment with other countries and enforcement against fraud.
USPTO Policy / USPTO Policy
A June 3 notice opens a pilot that advances patent applications and PTAB appeals out of turn for U.S.-domiciled small businesses, universities, and nonprofits that meaningfully participate in consensus-based standards bodies.
Trade Secrets / Trade Secrets
A May 22 panel vacated the zeroed-out trade-secret damages and ordered the district court to consider two unjust-enrichment models it had excluded, while reinstating the jury's contract verdict.
Trade Secrets / Trade Secrets
A divided May 28 panel held that access plus similarity put Insulet on notice years before it sued, so the three-year limitations clock had run and EOFlow was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Patents / Patents
A June 4 panel vacated the infringement and damages judgments over a one-question verdict form, then sent the §101 fight on the wireless-building-control patent back for a properly instructed Alice step two.
Patents / Patents
A June 5 panel dismissed-in-part and affirmed-in-part Carolyn Hafeman's appeal from six IPRs, holding that a post-institution Sotera-violation argument still amounts to an unreviewable attack on institution.
Patents / Automotive
A late-December Federal Circuit opinion kept focus on claim construction, prior IPR history, and engine-control patents.
Policy / PTAB Policy
The Federal Circuit addressed a petition arising from IPR filings and shifting PTO guidance on parallel litigation stipulations.
Trade Secrets / Trade Secrets
The Federal Circuit affirmed judgment against Coda's trade-secret and inventorship theories after years of litigation over tire inflation technology.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit rejected a collateral attack on PTAB final written decisions that had already invalidated gesture-recognition patent claims.
Policy / PTAB Policy
A Federal Circuit order left Motorola without extraordinary relief after the Acting Director ended IPRs in view of parallel district-court litigation.
Trade Secrets / Anti-SLAPP
The Federal Circuit held that IQE's pleaded misappropriation theory arose from Tower's filing of patent applications.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit held that a PTAB loss on parent claims did not automatically preclude dependent claims the Board had not found unpatentable.
Policy / PTAB Policy
The Federal Circuit held that claimed future harms from IPR and PGR institution policy were too speculative to support Article III jurisdiction.
Patents / Damages
The Federal Circuit reviewed expert damages proof in a medical-device patent case involving Intuitive Surgical stapler products.
Patents / Consumer Products
The Federal Circuit reviewed a consumer-product case involving patent and trade-dress theories around embedded-ring shower curtains.
Patents / Hatch-Waxman
The Federal Circuit reviewed treatment claims involving rivaroxaban and aspirin for reducing cardiovascular-event risk.
Patents / Prosecution
The Federal Circuit faulted the Board's categorical Section 101 treatment of apparatus and system claims.
Patents / Prosecution
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTO wins involving Gilbert Hyatt's older patent applications and Article III limits on pending claims.
Patents / Section 101
The Federal Circuit held that claims directed to a compact adjustable dumbbell were not abstract at Alice step one.
Patents / Energy
The Federal Circuit reviewed PTAB treatment of module-level solar technology claims and implicit claim construction.
Patents / IPR
A Federal Circuit order continued the long-running rewards-program patent dispute after earlier PTAB and estoppel rulings.
Patents / Gaming
The Federal Circuit reviewed a casino-gaming patent dispute involving older interference activity and Zynga's later IPR petition.
Patents / Medical Devices
The Federal Circuit reviewed PTAB findings on a medical-device patent directed to treating calcified vascular lesions.
Patents / Hatch-Waxman
The Federal Circuit reviewed obviousness and written-description issues in a Hatch-Waxman fight over paliperidone palmitate treatment claims.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit reviewed claim-scope findings and prior-art mapping in an IPR over website-generation technology.
Patents / SEP
The Federal Circuit reviewed a large Texas verdict record involving cellular standards patents and multiple validity and evidentiary issues.
Patents / Software
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB treatment of a security-patent term in an IPR involving Roku and Nintendo.
Patents / Section 101
The Federal Circuit held that claims using OCR in remote check deposit were patent-ineligible on summary judgment.
Patents / Biotech
The Federal Circuit reviewed PTAB final written decisions in related IPRs over CRISPR guide-RNA technology.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit reiterated that IPR participation alone does not create appellate standing.
Patents / Mobile
The Federal Circuit reviewed Apple's PTAB appeal involving a Gesture Technology patent and mobile-camera interaction claims.
Patents / Damages
The Federal Circuit remanded a smart-thermostat damages case in one of 2025's most important patent opinions.
Patents / Mobile
The Federal Circuit reviewed PTAB findings over whether prior art disclosed a disputed user-action limitation.
Patents / Prosecution
The Federal Circuit reviewed a Board affirmance involving anticipation and an applicant affidavit.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit addressed jury instructions, prior-art use at trial, and the scope of IPR estoppel.
Patents / Hatch-Waxman
The Federal Circuit rejected the idea that a regulatory filing alone can create the artificial infringement needed for a Hatch-Waxman suit.
Patents / Section 101
The Federal Circuit affirmed Section 101 invalidity in a dispute involving display and device-control patent claims.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit revisited when admitted prior art may be used in an IPR obviousness analysis without becoming the statutory basis of the ground.
Patents / AI
The Federal Circuit held that using generic machine learning for TV network maps and live-event schedules did not supply patent-eligible subject matter.
Patents / Prosecution
The Federal Circuit affirmed a PTO decision after applying substantial-evidence review to anticipation findings.
Patents / Hatch-Waxman
The Federal Circuit emphasized that district courts decide patent issues while FDA decides safety, effectiveness, and bioequivalence.
Patents / Biotech
The Federal Circuit reviewed formulation claim language in a biologics-adjacent dispute over VEGF antagonist treatment technology.
Patents / Hatch-Waxman
The Federal Circuit addressed how patent term extensions apply when a reissued patent sits in the regulatory-review timeline.
Patents / ITC
The Federal Circuit clarified how an American company can satisfy Section 337's domestic-industry requirement for products manufactured abroad.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit affirmed unpatentability findings for selected claims in Gesture's image-capture patent.
Patents / IPR
The Federal Circuit affirmed an IPR decision involving LED technology and whether a reference qualified as prior art.
Patents / Hatch-Waxman
The Federal Circuit held that a later-filed, later-issued, earlier-expiring family member was not a proper ODP reference against Allergan's earlier patent.
Patents / Damages
The Federal Circuit's 2024 panel decision in the Nest thermostat dispute became the platform for the court's later en banc damages review.
Policy / Design Patents
The agency instructed design examiners and PTAB panels to apply LKQ's more flexible obviousness framework.
Patents / Design Patents
The en banc court abandoned the Rosen-Durling framework and moved design patents toward Graham and KSR.
Patents / Prosecution
The Federal Circuit held that ODP analysis for PTA-extended patents looks to the expiration date after PTA is added.
Patents / IPR
The court said the Board had to consider petitioner arguments responding to a claim construction first raised by the patent owner.
Trademarks / Supreme Court
The Court rejected a worldwide damages theory and focused the Lanham Act inquiry on domestic use in commerce.
Trademarks / Supreme Court
The Court held that VIP could not automatically invoke Rogers when it used Jack Daniel's marks as source identifiers on a dog toy.
Patents / Biotech
The Court held that Amgen had not enabled the full scope of functional antibody claims covering PCSK9 binding.
Copyright / Fair Use
The Supreme Court held that the licensing use of a Warhol Prince image weighed against fair use in the dispute with photographer Lynn Goldsmith.
Patents / AI
Thaler v. Vidal held that inventors must be natural persons, keeping DABUS out of U.S. patent inventorship.
Patents / Section 101
The Court declined to review a Federal Circuit Section 101 decision involving automotive driveshaft manufacturing claims.
Copyright / Supreme Court
The Court held that lack of legal or factual knowledge can excuse inaccurate registration information under Section 411(b).
Patents / Supreme Court
The Supreme Court kept assignor estoppel alive but limited it to invalidity arguments inconsistent with the assignor's representations.
Policy / PTAB Policy
The Supreme Court held that APJ authority required a path for review by the presidentially appointed PTO Director.
Copyright / Software
The Court held that Google's reuse of Java API declaring code in Android was fair use.
Trademarks / Supreme Court
The Court held that a generic.com term is not automatically generic if consumers perceive it as a source identifier.
Trademarks / Supreme Court
The Court held that Marcel could not block Lucky Brand's release defense when the later suit involved different claims.
Copyright / Supreme Court
The Supreme Court held that official annotations prepared under legislative authority could not be copyrighted.
Trademarks / Supreme Court
The Supreme Court held that willfulness is not an absolute prerequisite to disgorgement of profits under the Lanham Act.
Patents / IPR
The Supreme Court held that Section 314(d) bars appeal of the PTAB's decision to institute IPR despite a Section 315(b) time-bar argument.