Mealey's Patents : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Patents

February 15, 2024
Request For Contempt Finding In Trademark, Design Patent Case Denied

HOUSTON — A federal judge in Texas on Feb. 14 rejected as premature allegations that a defendant has violated a stipulated preliminary injunction in a trademark and design patent infringement case by manufacturing and selling a redesigned floating pool chaise.
February 15, 2024
Illinois Federal Judge Declares Trading Platform Technology Patent-Ineligible

CHICAGO — A defendant on Feb. 14 secured dismissal of allegations that it infringes three patents owned by a fellow provider of foreign currency trading and information services, with a federal judge in Illinois finding that although the technology improves upon prior art by providing “more accurate and reliable” metrics for traders, “the concepts of obtaining, filtering, and processing data to provide statistical information are abstract regardless of the quality of the process used to do so.”
February 15, 2024
Panel Preserves Win For Samsung In Smartphone Functionality Patent Row

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A pro se appellant, inventor and patent infringement plaintiff who unsuccessfully sued Samsung Electronics America Inc. has failed to persuade the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to revive the case, which was dismissed with prejudice by a federal judge in California.
February 14, 2024
Government: AI-Assisted Invention Patents Require ‘Significant Human’ Role

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patent applicants must be “natural persons” — artificial intelligences cannot be listed as inventors — and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) analysis of applications including artificial intelligence-assisted inventions focuses on whether a significant human contribution exists, according to guidance published in the Federal Register on Feb. 13.
February 14, 2024
Federal Circuit Declines Call To Construe ‘OFF,’ Declares Patent Indefinite

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A system and method for deterring identify theft was correctly deemed indefinite by a federal judge in Illinois because the “specification and claims fail to provide adequate guidance as to the identity” of a recited “transaction partner,” a divided Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 14.
February 13, 2024
Dexcom Seeks To Add New Challenge To Abbott Glucose Monitoring Patent

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — In a new petition filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, Dexcom Inc. says that two new claims of the same patent already the subject of inter partes review (IPR) should also be examined after patent owner Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. recently added allegations of their infringement in federal court.
February 09, 2024
Panel Issues Mixed Ruling In Appeal Of Post-Grant Review Of Vape Patent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 9 said that although an obviousness challenge by Philip Morris Products S.A. to patented vaping technology was correctly decided in favor of the tobacco giant, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board wrongly found inadequate written descriptive support for two other claims.
February 09, 2024
Manuals Wrongly Excluded From Prior Art Analysis, Federal Circuit Rules

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Inter partes review (IPR) of two patents relating to a meat and cheese slicer was reinstated Feb. 8 by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which said the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board not only wrongly found that manuals relied on by the petitioner were not publicly available but also erred in concluding that the remaining prior art failed to disclose two limitations.
February 08, 2024
Petitioner: Integration Of Haptics In Augmented Reality Not New, Novel

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Patent Trial and Appeal Board was urged Feb. 7 to cancel various claims of a patent directed to augmented reality (AR) applications that feature integrated haptics, or touch feedback, in a petition for inter partes review (IPR) by a gaming company.
February 08, 2024
Federal Circuit Tells Patent Board To Construe Claims As Proposed By Google

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 7 said an implicit claim construction by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of a disputed term in a climate control patent was unduly narrow.
February 07, 2024
Tesla Challenges Patented Vehicle Power Consumption Technology In New Petition

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A patent that purportedly optimizes vehicle power consumption to yield improved fuel efficiency would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) by November 2005, the patent’s claimed priority date, Tesla Inc. tells the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
February 06, 2024
Board Wrongly Shifted Burden During Inter Partes Review, Patent Owner Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The owner of a patented treatment of pre-myopia, myopia or progression of myopia says in a new appeal the Patent Trial and Appeal Board wrongly declared the technology obvious.
February 06, 2024
Motorized Dumbbell Is Patent-Eligible, Appellant Tells Federal Circuit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Allowing a Utah federal judge’s determination of ineligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. § 101, to stand “would be fundamentally unfair” and cause the patent owner, a self-described “innovator in weightlifting technologies” and “pioneer of selectorized dumbbells,” to lose valuable ground to market “latecomer” iFIT Inc., the patent owner tells the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a Feb. 5 appellant brief.
February 06, 2024
Panel Upholds Sanction But Reinstates Loofah Patent Infringement Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal magistrate judge in Arkansas did not abuse his discretion in sanctioning a patent owner for discovery abuse but committed several errors during claim construction, leading to a jury verdict and final judgment of noninfringement that must be vacated, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found Feb. 5.
February 06, 2024
Patent Dispute Over Nasal Antiseptic Product Mooted, Michigan Federal Judge Finds

DETROIT — Citing an infringement defendant’s decision to pull from the market an accused nasal antiseptic and promise to refrain from manufacturing or selling the product in the near future, a federal judge in Michigan has dismissed the case as moot over the objection of the patent owner.
February 05, 2024
Panel Upholds Denial Of New Trial, Does Not Reach Patent Ineligibility Claim

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 2 said it need not address a conditional cross-appeal by prevailing patent infringement defendant Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) in which the video console maker sought a determination of patent ineligibility in view of the panel’s holding in the same ruling that a patent owner is not entitled to a new trial.
February 05, 2024
Microsoft Can Amend Invalidity Contentions, Defense In OneDrive Infringement Row

SEATTLE — In a Feb. 2 order addressing three motions he deemed “separate but ultimately related,” a federal judge in Washington granted Microsoft Corp. leave to amend its claim that three patents are invalid along with its counterclaims and affirmative defenses to allegations of infringement based upon a recent appellate ruling.
February 05, 2024
Delaware Federal Judge Denies Bid For New Trial In Decade-Old Patent Case

WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal judge in Delaware on Feb. 2 closed a case initiated in 2013 against Google LLC, in which the tech giant was cleared at a May 2023 trial of allegations that it infringed a patent the jury also said is invalid.
February 02, 2024
Panel: ‘Distributed Hypermedia’ System And Method Properly Declared Patent-Ineligible

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A patent owner failed to persuade the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to undo a determination of ineligibility by a federal judge in California, with the appellate panel declaring in a Feb. 1 decision that “interacting with data objects on the World Wide Web is an abstraction.”
February 01, 2024
Appellant: Defendant Wrongly Deemed A Noninfringer Of Pump Deployment Patent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Findings by a federal judge in Massachusetts that a heart pump product line does not infringe six patents were premised on an erroneous construction of several disputed claim terms, a patent owner argues in a brief filed with the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
February 01, 2024
Panel Backs District Court, Says Irreparable Harm Unproven In Patent Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Delaware committed no abuse of discretion in denying a patent owner’s request for a preliminary injunction that would bar a competitor from launching its planned 5G in-flight broadband network, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded Jan. 31.
February 01, 2024
Harvard Patent, Licensed To 10X Genomics, Should Be Canceled, Petitioner Says

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Nanostring Technologies Inc. in a petition for inter partes review (IPR) tells the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that although a challenged independent claim of a patented method for imaging nucleic acids is “lengthy and detailed,” “length and detail should not be mistaken for inventiveness.”
January 30, 2024
9th Circuit Stays Mandate Reversing Court’s Dismissal In FCA Drug Pricing Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a 90-day stay of the mandate reversing and remanding a district court’s dismissal of a relator’s qui tam suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) against pharmaceutical companies related to their alleged fraud by artificially inflating drug prices.
January 30, 2024
Novo Nordisk Tells Patent Board Mylan Petition Is Procedurally Improper

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A “copycat” challenge to a patent associated with the weight loss drug Ozempic filed 18 months after the petitioners were accused of infringement — and that seeks joinder to an existing and timely inter partes review (IPR) initiated by Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. — falls outside the time limits proscribed in federal patent law, Novo Nordisk A/S tells the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
January 30, 2024
Halliburton Defends Patent Board’s Anticipation, Obviousness Determinations

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Substantial evidence supports a final written decision (FWD) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that technology directed to the automation of hydraulic fracturing processes is unpatentable, Halliburton Energy Systems Inc. maintains in a recent appellee brief filed with the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.