Mealey's (November 12, 2018, 1:13 PM EST) -- WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Nov. 9 decision, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred in finding no nexus between a patent owner’s claimed method for creating a minimally invasive operative corridor through tissue with significant neural structures and the patent owner’s commercial surgical technique, when assessing secondary considerations of nonobviousness (Nuvasive Inc. v. Andrei Iancu, Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, No. 17-1666, Fed. Cir., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 31806)....