Welcome to the Snell & Wilmer intellectual property and technology litigation blog! Check here for useful news and information about patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, and other IP and technology litigation developments.
By Daniel M. Staren and David G. Barker Last week, a Federal Circuit panel vacated a billion dollar jury verdict in favor of plaintiff-appellee California Institute of Technology (“Caltech”) and remanded for a new trial on damages because of Caltech’s unsupported two-tiered reasonable royalty patent damages theory. Caltech sued Broadcom, Apple, and others in the […]
By Emily Parker and David Barker Last week, a split Federal Circuit panel reversed a decision invalidating certain computer-aided-design patent claims because the district court used an incorrect indefiniteness standard. Nature Simulation Systems (“NSS”) sued Autodesk, Inc. for infringing two patents directed to computerized methods for building three-dimensional objects. Autodesk argued that certain claims in […]
By David G. Barker In a precedential opinion this week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court judgment in favor of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, in an appeal brought by HEC Pharm challenging the written description in Novartis’s 9,187,405 patent. Novartis markets a 0.5 mg daily-dose drug to treat a form of multiple sclerosis, and the patent […]
By Anne Bolamperti and David G. Barker The Federal Circuit invalidated Juno Therapeutics, Inc.’s T cell therapy patent for cancer treatment and erased a billion dollar judgment in Juno’s favor. The court held that the jury verdict regarding the patent’s written description under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) was not supported by substantial evidence. Juno’s U.S. Patent No. […]
By Marsha Cotton and David G. Barker The Supreme Court upheld assignor estoppel in Minerva Surgical, Inc. v. Hologic, Inc., et al. but held that the Federal Circuit “failed to recognize the doctrine’s proper limits.” In doing so, the Court imposed new limitations on when the equitable doctrine applies in a patent case. The Court […]
By Daniel M. Staren and David G. Barker The Supreme Court held this week that the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (“USPTO”) appointment of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) judges cannot be constitutionally enforced because the USPTO director does not have authority to review final PTAB decisions. Smith & Nephew, Inc. and ArthroCare […]
By Zachary Schroeder and Jacob C. Jones On June 1, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, LP. The Court agreed to resolve whether 17 U.S.C. § 411(b) requires a district court to refer a matter to the Copyright Office where there is a claim the copyright […]
By: David G. Barker and Emily R. Parker Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Minerva Surgical v. Hologic, thereby agreeing to resolve a long-running debate on patent law’s doctrine of assignor estoppel. Minerva Surgical has asked the Court to abolish the doctrine, which bars inventors who sell their patent rights from challenging […]
By Anne Bolamperti and David G. Barker In RPX Corp. v. Applications in Internet Time LLC, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) held in a precedential opinion that three inter partes reviews (“IPRs”) were time-barred under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) because the petitioner, RPX Corp. (“RPX”), failed to name its client Salesforce.com (“Salesforce”) as a real party in […]
By Alysha Gilbert and David G. Barker Are PTAB judges constitutional? This week the Supreme Court granted certiorari to answer this question. In Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, the Federal Circuit considered whether the appointment of administrative patent judges violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. The Appointments Clause requires the president to appoint principal officers, […]
