On June 19, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued Sirona Dental Systs. GmbH v. Institut Straumann AG.[1] The case is important because two other recent court decisions – SAS and Aqua Products – affected certain details of this case that ultimately affected how the Fed Circuit ruled. In SAS, the U.S. …
Category: 103
35 U.S. Code § 103 – Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter.
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Fed Circuit Watch: No Challenge to Partial Institution Raises No SAS Issue
On June 7, 2018, the Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit handed down PGS Geophysical AS v. Iancu,[1] which has a tangential relationship to the WesternGeco LLC, of the recent WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. [2] recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. This case is one of several transition cases pending with the …
SCOTUS Watch: Supreme Court Vacates CBM Scope Definition
On May 14, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court granted PNC Bank National Assoc.’s petition for writ of certiorari and vacated the Fed Circuit’s ruling limiting the scope of a covered business method (CBM), in PNC Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Secure Axcess, LLC.[1] The Supreme Court, in its orders, wrote: The petition for writ of certiorari …
Fed Circuit Watch: No Overlap Required for Prima Facie Obviousness Between Claimed & Prior Art Ranges
On March 27, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in In re Brandt, which is just another case in a long line of cases dealing with ranges and obviousness under 35 U.S.C. §103. The facts are as follows. Gregory A. Brandt and John B. Letts, the application-at-issue’s two inventors, and Firestone …
Fed Circuit Watch: Common Sense Cannot Replace Evidentiary Support
On March 23, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down DSS Techs. Mgmt., Inc. v. Apple Inc.,[1] reversing two IPR decisions in Apple’s favor on a DSS-owned patent which the PTAB ruled as unpatentable as obvious. The Fed Circuit panel went to lengths to call out the PTAB’s poor analysis and …
Fed Circuit Watch: Well-Prepared Lexicography Dooms Claim Term as Obvious
This, unfortunately, was a bad week for Steuben Foods, Inc., since this is the second case it lost at the Federal Circuit against the same adversary, Nestlé Foods. This time, in Nestle USA, Inc. v. Steuben Foods, Inc.,[1] the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on March 13, 2018, ruled that Steuben Foods could …
Fed Circuit Watch: Google Upends Patent Troll’s Claims as Obvious
This is the third recent precedential case issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in January that disposed of patent claims as obvious. This case is noteworthy because the losing party is an alleged patent troll, and the winning party is none other than Google. The case, Arendi S.a.r.l. v. Google, LLC,[1] …
Fed Circuit Watch: Motion-Tracking Patent Beats Obviousness Finding
This is the second of a trio of recent Federal Circuit precedential cases that have dealt with the law of obviousness that we will review for this blog. Here, in Elbit Systems of America, LLC v. Thales Visionix, Inc.,[1] the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that claims directed to a motion-tracking patent …
Fed Circuit Watch: Who Let the Cat Out? Faulty USPTO Obviousness Analysis
On February 9, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down Polaris Indus., Inc. v. Arctic Cat, Inc.,[1] where a Fed Circuit panel criticized the invalidation of all 38 claims of Polaris’ patent as obvious under 35 U.S.C. §103 over different combinations of prior art based on the PTAB’s messy §103 analysis. …