Newsletter RSS

Mealey's Patents

  • July 28, 2025

    Federal Circuit Finds No Jurisdiction Over Patent Royalty Row, Transfers Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held July 25 that it lacks jurisdiction to consider a medicine maker’s request for changes to an arbitration award requiring royalty payments to another company for a patented active ingredient because the issues on appeal do not sound in patent law, transferring the case to the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • July 28, 2025

    Xerox Again Sees Patent Invalidation Affirmed By Federal Circuit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) invalidation of all claims in a patent held by Xerox Inc. describing a method of content delivering content to users, agreeing with the PTAB’s claim construction that all parties agreed would be dispositive if upheld.

  • July 28, 2025

    On Remand From 9th Circuit, Judge Dismisses FCA Suit Against Drugmakers

    SAN FRANCISCO — On remand from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and after the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari, a California federal judge dismissed without prejudice a qui tam suit accusing pharmaceutical companies of violating the False Claims Act (FCA) and related state laws by artificially inflating drug prices, finding that dismissal “is warranted” because the second amended complaint “lumps” the companies “together in an undifferentiated mass” regarding the alleged fraud.

  • July 25, 2025

    Federal Circuit OKs Judgment On Patent, Copyright, Other Claims On Steel Brace

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A steel company failed to show that a construction company infringed its patent describing a type of bracing for preventing seismic damage to buildings, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, affirming a Utah federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in the construction company’s favor.

  • July 24, 2025

    Federal Circuit: PTAB Right To Reject Interference Estoppel In Gambling IPR

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that there was no error in the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that an appellant patent owner’s patent for an invention that applied to transfers of data between gaming machines was invalid as obvious; the panel also found “no shenanigans” in the decision not to apply interference estoppel.

  • July 24, 2025

    Federal Circuit Won’t Rethink AI Patent Eligibility 1st Impression Decision

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The full Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 23 denied a machine learning patent holder’s petition for panel or en banc rehearing, leaving in place an April panel decision on a matter of first impression that affirmed the invalidation of the patents for describing the abstract concept of machine learning without pointing to specific improvements.

  • July 22, 2025

    Federal Circuit Reverses Patent, Trademark Infringement Finding In Sweatshirt Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed an Arizona federal jury’s verdict in a design patent and trademark infringement dispute related to oversized sweatshirts, holding that substantial evidence does not support the jury’s finding that a manufacturer infringed another entity’s trademarks.

  • July 21, 2025

    Judge Tosses AI Patent Inventorship Claims For Lack Of Jurisdiction

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge dismissed an artificial intelligence (AI) data scientist’s complaint against his former employer, an industrial supplier, seeking the invalidation of patents for which he claimed to be the inventor, noting that the scientist appeared to cite a nonexistent subsection of the Patent Act and sought relief that was not possible.

  • July 21, 2025

    Judge: No Juror Could Find Infringement In Metrology Tech Suit

    BOSTON — A federal judge in Massachusetts granted summary judgment in favor of a defendant semiconductor manufacturer, holding that “no reasonable juror” would find that its use of another company’s product infringed a nonpracticing plaintiff entity’s patent on a piece of metrology filtering technology.

  • July 17, 2025

    Texas Federal Judge: Patents Asserted Against Cisco Invalid As Abstract

    WACO, Texas — A Texas federal judge who found that Cisco Systems Inc. did not infringe multiple claims of a computer system patent before a jury began deliberations said in a July 16 opinion that two remaining patents at issue are invalid as being directed at an abstract concept without a necessary transformative inventive idea added to it.

  • July 17, 2025

    Judge Says AI Photo Analysis Patent Not Abstract Per Alice Test

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware federal judge rejected a defendant artificial intelligence company’s argument that the machine learning patents it is accused of infringing are invalid as abstract, agreeing with the insurance company patent holder that “the patents recite the patent-eligible arrangement of two independently trained classifiers to analyze property characteristics and conditions.”

  • July 16, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Patent Claims Against DraftKings, But Not FanDuel

    TRENTON, N.J. — In a pair of opinions issued on the same day, a New Jersey federal judge found that sports betting company DraftKings Inc. and a related entity successfully showed that a technology company failed to substantiate its patent infringement claims against the sportsbook, while separately finding that FanDuel Inc. failed to show that patents held by the same company were invalid as abstract.

  • July 15, 2025

    Federal Circuit Finds No Error In AAPA Use In PTAB Catheter Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) should have found all claims of a patent related to a cardiovascular catheter device to be unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held July 14, affirming the bulk of the board’s findings but reversing as to a single claim PTAB did not invalidate.

  • July 15, 2025

    Judge Sanctions IP Lawyer For Giving Netflix Info To 3rd Party In Patent Row

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge ordered sanctions against an attorney from Ramey LLP who formerly represented a pro se plaintiff in a patent infringement dispute brought against Netflix Inc., holding that the attorney inappropriately shared discovery information with a third party the court previously blocked from being joined to the litigation.

  • July 11, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity Of Smart HVAC System Patent Claims

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed decisions by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated patents related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) held by EcoFactor Inc. in a series of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings brought by Google LLC, in the latest step in the battle between the companies over smart thermostat technologies.

  • July 10, 2025

    Federal Circuit Again Finds For Janssen On Mental Health Drug Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New Jersey federal judge’s finding that two appellant medicine makers failed to show that claims in a patent related to dosing regimens for an injectable schizophrenia treatment were invalid as obvious, holding that it saw no error in the judge’s analysis of the motivation to combine prior art references.

  • July 09, 2025

    Device Maker Tells High Court Shortened Discovery Timeline Tainted Patent Trial

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A medical product company tells the U.S. Supreme Court that a North Carolina federal court violated its due process rights by changing both the time to trial and the time for discovery in a patent infringement case for which the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has already ordered a new trial.

  • July 08, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Cisco’s Noninfringement Of Server Management Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 7 affirmed a Massachusetts federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement on some patent counts and a jury’s verdict of noninfringement on others, agreeing that Egenera Inc. failed to show that Cisco Systems Inc. infringed a patent on a server management system.

  • July 03, 2025

    Dismissal Stipulated In Coverage Dispute Over Loss Of Patent Litigation Counsel

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An inventor, his Colorado-based company and a captive insurer filed a joint stipulation of dismissal in a Tennessee federal court, resolving and dismissing with prejudice all claims asserted in a case concerning a coverage dispute over loss of patent litigation counsel.

  • July 02, 2025

    High Court Rejects Micron’s Mandamus Bid To Protect Source Code

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an American chip maker’s request for relief from a California federal judge’s discovery order requiring it to turn its source code over to a Chinese rival in a patent infringement dispute.

  • July 02, 2025

    Federal Circuit Won’t Rehear Induced Infringement Arguments For Generic Drug

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a biopharmaceutical company’s petition for rehearing en banc in a July 1 order, rejecting the company’s contention that an appeals court panel improperly analyzed its intent to encourage practitioners to use its antipsychotic medication in a way that would infringe on another company’s patented injectable medication used to treat schizophrenia.

  • July 02, 2025

    PTAB Claim Construction Error Caused Fact Analysis Errors In Eye Med Patent Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred while construing a claim phrase during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings regarding an eye redness medication; the panel reversed the PTAB’s claim construction and vacated a finding of obviousness that stemmed from it.

  • July 02, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Can Patent, Mum On Location Of ‘Second Point,’ Invalid

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Ohio federal judge’s finding that certain claims of a food packaging company’s patents on a type of can for beverages are invalid as indefinite, upholding the judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of other can-making companies.

  • June 19, 2025

    COMMENTARY: Can AI Be Patented? Navigating Patent Subject Matter Eligibility

    By John H. Mutchler

  • July 01, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Mixed PTAB Findings On Automatic Computing Patents

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of June 30 opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a set of mixed findings from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that held that most, but not all, claims valid in patents describing a method for improving computer processor power for autonomous actions, despite arguments from Amazon.com Inc. and other entities that prior art rendered all claims unpatentable as obvious.