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ANDA Filing Alone Insufficient for Induced Infringement of Method Patent

By on Jan 5, 2023
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The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a district court’s findings of invalidity and noninfringement in a Hatch-Waxman case involving two sets of method patents directed to modulating dosages of pirfenidone, a drug used to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The Court found that the first set of patents were obvious over the prior art and standard medical practice, while the second set were not directly infringed in light of actual physician prescription practice. Genentech, Inc. v. Sandoz Inc., Case No. 22-1595 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 22, 2022) (Newman, Lourie, Prost, JJ.) (Newman, J., dissenting).

Sandoz submitted two abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) for approval to market a generic version of pirfenidone, which Genentech sells under the brand name Esbriet®. Genentech sued Sandoz under the Hatch-Waxman Act, asserting that Sandoz’s generic version would induce infringement of two sets of patents: one directed to modifying dosages of pirfenidone in patients with abnormal liver biomarkers (LFT patents), and the other directed to avoiding adverse interactions in patients also taking fluvoxamine (DDI patents).

The LFT patents are directed to methods of administering pirfenidone to a patient who has exhibited Grade 2 abnormalities in liver function biomarkers alanine transaminase (ALT) and/or aspartate transaminase (AST) in response to pirfenidone. The LFT patents generally recite the following administration options:

  • Temporarily reducing the dose before returning to the full dose
  • Maintaining the full dose
  • Reducing the dose
  • Temporarily discontinuing pirfenidone before returning to the full dose
  • Temporarily discontinuing pirfenidone before returning to a reduced dose.

Sandoz’s proposed label included a “Dosage Modification due to Elevated Liver Enzymes” section, which stated that if a patient exhibits grade 2 elevations of ALT and/or AST, “[t]he full daily dosage may be maintained, if clinically appropriate, or reduced or interrupted (e.g., until liver chemistry tests are within normal limits) with subsequent re-titration to the full dosage as tolerated.” Genentech argued that these instructions constituted induced infringement of the LFT patents. The district court disagreed and held that the LFT patents were obvious over the prior art and standard medical practice and that the defendant would not induce infringement because the labels “merely described” the infringing uses but did not recommend them.

The DDI patents are directed to methods for avoiding adverse interactions between pirfenidone and fluvoxamine and generally involve the steps of discontinuing fluvoxamine or modifying the dose of pirfenidone and continuing fluvoxamine. Sandoz’s proposed label warned of the adverse interactions between pirfenidone and fluvoxamine and stated that fluvoxamine should be discontinued prior to administering pirfenidone or the dose of pirfenidone should be reduced. Genentech similarly argued that these instructions constituted induced infringement of its DDI patents, but the district court held that there was insufficient evidence for infringement because Genentech had not shown that a patient would actually be prescribed both pirfenidone and fluvoxamine in practice.

Genentech appealed the district court’s holdings with respect to both the LFT and DDI patents.

LFT Patents

The Federal Circuit first observed that “varying doses in response to the occurrence [...]

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Delayed Disclaimer: Patent Owner Arguments Made during IPR Not a Claim Limiting Disclaimer in That Proceeding

By on Nov 29, 2022
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Repeating a conclusion from an earlier non-precedential opinion in VirnetX, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) need not accept a patent owner’s arguments as a disclaimer in the very same inter partes review (IPR) proceeding in which those arguments are made. CUPP Computing AS v. Trend Micro Inc., Case Nos. 2020-2262, 2020-2263, 2020-2264, at *11 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 16, 2022) (Dyk, Taranto, Stark, JJ.)

CUPP Computing is the owner of three related patents each entitled “systems and methods for providing security services during power management mode.” After CUPP sued Trend Micro for patent infringement, Trend Micro filed petitions for IPR against all three patents, asserting that several claims of CUPP’s patents were obvious over two prior art references. The Board instituted all three IPR and found all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious. CUPP appealed.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s conclusions. The principal issue concerned CUPP’s argument that the Board erred in claim construction. In CUPP’s view, all of the evidence required the claimed “security system processor” be remote from a “mobile device processor.” The Court rejected CUPP’s arguments. Starting with the claims, the Court found that they simply required that the two processors be different. Although some claims required the security system to send a wake signal to or communicate with the mobile device, that language did not support CUPP’s remoteness construction. As the Court explained, just as an individual can send a note to oneself via email, a unit of the mobile device can send signals to and communicate with the same device. Indeed, some of the claims teach communication via an internal port of the mobile device, which was consistent with a preferred embodiment disclosed in the specification in which the two processors could be within the same mobile device.

The Federal Circuit then addressed CUPP’s disclaimer arguments. The Court agreed with the Board that CUPP’s statements made during the original prosecution were far from clear and unmistakable, being susceptible to several reasonable interpretations that are contrary to CUPP’s construction. The Court also agreed with the Board that CUPP’s arguments during the Trend Micro IPRs do not qualify as a disclaimer for purposes of claim construction. While a disclaimer made during an IPR proceeding is binding in subsequent proceedings, the “Board is not required to accept a patent owner’s arguments as disclaimer when deciding the merits of those arguments.”

As the Federal Circuit explained, expanding the application of disclaimers to the proceedings in which they are made—as CUPP proposed—is rife with problems. IPR proceedings are more similar to district court litigation than they are to initial examination, and it is well established that disclaimers in litigation are not binding in the proceeding in which they are made. Further, CUPP’s proposal would effectively render IPR claim amendments unnecessary, as patent owners would be free to change the scope of their claims retrospectively without regard to the protections provided by the IPR claim amendment process, such as [...]

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PTO Extends Deadline for Comments on Initiatives to Ensure Patent Robustness, Reliability

By on Nov 3, 2022
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On November 3, 2022, the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) announced that it is extending the deadline for public input on its proposed initiatives aimed at ensuring the robustness and reliability of patent rights from January 3, 2023, to February 1, 2023.

For further details about the extension of the deadline, check out the notice here.



EU Unified Patent Court Announces Intent to Launch on April 1, 2023

By and on Oct 20, 2022
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The EU Unified Patent Court (UPC) announced a launch date of April 1, 2023, however, the announced date should be regarded as a statement of intent for it could change. The launch timing has been the subject of various delays and setbacks, several due to unresolved legal issues. The UPC has also published an almost final list of judges. German Federal Court of Justice Judge Klaus Grabinski, who played a key role in drafting the UPC Rules of Procedure, will head the UPC. The majority of UPC judges will only be engaged with their UPC activities part-time (about 50% or 20% of their total work commitment).

The UPC judges are set to receive special training starting in March 2023, only one month prior to the announced launch date of the UPC, leading many to doubt that the April 1 date will be met. Once the new court is operational, owners of European patents will be able to litigate patent disputes across most EU Member States in a single proceeding, eliminating the need to proceed on a country-by-country basis.

Assuming the announced launch date is maintained, the “sunrise period” before the UPC becomes fully operational will commence on January 1, 2023. This sunrise period will last for three months, during which patent owners that do not wish for their existing European patents to be subject to UPC jurisdiction may opt out of such jurisdiction by filing a formal notification to that effect. The European Patent Office has also announced that during the sunrise period, European patent applicants whose applications are ready for grant will, if they wish, be able to delay the formal grant of the application until the UPC becomes operational so that unitary patent protection can be obtained.

The UPC has issued an implementation roadmap for events leading up to the entry into force of the UPC Agreement, with the court opening its doors and starting to receive cases as of April 1, 2023.



Remote Employees Support Patent Venue

By on Oct 13, 2022
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In a per curiam opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to direct the district court to dismiss or transfer the underlying case based on improper venue. In doing so, the Court pointed to remote workers residing in the district to find satisfaction in the venue statute. In re Monolithic Power Systems, Inc., Case No. 22-153 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 30, 2022) (Lourie, Chen, Stark, JJ.) (per curiam) (Lourie, J., dissenting)

Bel Power brought suit in the Western District of Texas alleging that Monolithic infringed Bel Power’s patents by selling power modules used in electronic devices. Monolithic had four remote employees working from home in the district. Monolithic moved to dismiss or transfer to the Northern District of California, arguing that because it was a Delaware corporation without property in the district, venue was not proper under § 1400(b). The district court denied both requests, finding that Monolithic maintained a business presence in the district as contemplated by § 1400(b) by soliciting employment in the district and providing employees with equipment used at or distributed from their homes as part of their employment responsibilities.

In denying the motion to transfer, the district court found that Monolithic had not established that the Northern District of California was clearly more convenient. Monolithic filed for mandamus seeking to overturn either ruling.

The Federal Circuit denied relief. With regard to venue, the Court reasoned that “the district court’s ruling does not involve the type of broad, fundamental, and recurring legal question or usurpation of judicial power that might warrant immediate mandamus review.” Instead, the Court credited the factual findings regarding the amount of equipment Monolithic provided to one of its employees in the district for “the sole purpose” of allowing him “to conduct testing and validation as part of his job,” and ruled that post-judgment appeal would be an adequate alternative means for attaining relief. On the issue of transfer (reviewed under regional circuit law), the Court denied for failure to establish a clear abuse of discretion, noting that this “is not a case in which there is only one correct outcome.”

Judge Lourie dissented, arguing that “[m]ost basically, Monolithic lacks a regular and established place of business in the Western District of Texas, as the statute requires in order for it to be sued there.” In his view, “we should not stand back and let the requirements of the statute be eroded by the details of what an employee stores in his or her home.” He noted that judicial efficiency counsels against allowing cases to be tried in venues not permitted by the statute only to be retried in a proper venue. Judge Lourie reasoned that the circumstances relied on by the district court, including job advertisement and storage of product and equipment in the venue, were not meaningfully different from those of Celgene v. Mylan Pharms (Fed. Cir, 2021), where venue was deemed improper. He noted that “[t]he [...]

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PTO Requests Comments on Initiatives to Ensure Patent Robustness, Reliability

By on Oct 13, 2022
Posted In

The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) is seeking public input and guidance on proposed initiatives directed at bolstering the robustness and reliability of patents. The request for comments was spurred in part by US President Joe Biden’s July 9, 2021, executive order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, and a June 8, 2022, letter from Senators Leahy, Blumenthal, Klobuchar, Cornyn, Collins and Braun raising concerns about patent thickets.

The PTO identified four broad topics and initiatives that it is considering:

  • Prior Art Searching
  • Support for Patent Claims
  • Request for Continued Examination (RCE) Practice
  • Restriction, Divisional, Rejoinder and Non-Statutory Double Patenting Practice.

The PTO seeks comments on 11 main questions and several sub-questions. The first five questions are directed to the PTO initiatives while questions six through 11 address concerns raised by the senators.

PTO Initiatives

  1. How should the PTO facilitate an applicant’s submission of prior art that is not accessible in the Patents End-to-End Search system (e.g., “on sale” or prior public use)?
  1. How, if at all, should the PTO change claim support requirements and/or continuation practice?
  1. How, if at all, should the PTO change RCE practice?
  1. How, if at all, should the PTO limit or change restriction, divisional, rejoinder and/or non-statutory double patenting practice?
  1. Provide any other input on any of the proposals listed under the PTO initiatives.

Senator Inquiries

  1. How would eliminating terminal disclaimers, thus prohibiting patents that are obvious variants of one another, affect patent prosecution strategies and overall patent quality?
  1. Should patents that are tied together by a terminal disclaimer because of an obviousness-type double patenting rejection stand or fall together if their validity is subsequently challenged?
  1. Should the PTO require a second look by a team of patent quality specialists before issuing a continuation patent on a first office action?
  1. Should there be heightened examination requirements for continuation patents?
  1. Should the PTO implement a rule change that requires any continuation application to be filed within a set timeframe of the ultimate parent application?
  1. If filing fees were increased to cover the actual cost of obtaining a patent, would this increase patent quality? And if the fees for continuation applications were increased, would applicants be less likely to file continuations for obvious variants?

Among the proposals under consideration are whether to require applicants to identify corresponding support in the original disclosure for each claim in a continuation application, whether applications should be reassigned to a different examiner after a set number of RCEs are filed, whether the PTO should adopt the unity of invention standard, and whether divisionals should be filed within a set time period.

Click here for further details on the PTO initiatives.

Comments must be received by January 3, 2023, to ensure consideration.



CAFC Pulls Final Loose Thread in Nike-Adidas Patent Row

By on Sep 22, 2022
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Issuing a third and final decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision invalidating the last remaining claim of a Nike footwear textile patent. Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, Case No. 21-1903 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 1, 2022) (Prost, Chen, Stoll, JJ.) (non-precedential)

Adidas filed for inter partes review of a patent owned by Nike relating to a knitted shoe upper. After lengthy litigation, including two prior appeals to the Federal Circuit, all claims of the Nike patent were invalidated except for one substitute claim. In its second appeal, Nike successfully argued that the Board did not provide Nike an opportunity to respond to a patentability issue raised sua sponte by the Board, which included reference to a knitting textbook. On remand from the second appeal, the parties were given the opportunity to brief the Board on this new reference and argue which party bears the burden of persuasion for the patentability issue raised sua sponte by the Board.

On the merits, the Board determined that the knitting textbook did teach the disputed limitation, agreeing with adidas that a skilled artisan would have understood the textbook to teach the contested limitation, and that there was adequate reason to combine the textbook’s teachings with those of the other prior art references. The Board also concluded that the burden of persuasion must fall on the Board itself when it raised the patentability issue sua sponte. Nike appealed, arguing that the Board effectively placed the burden of persuasion on Nike.

The Federal Circuit first addressed the burden of persuasion as it relates to the grounds first raised by the Board. The Court found that the Board juxtaposed its arguments with adidas’s and that they both relied on the same disclosures and arguments. Because the Board and adidas’s arguments mirrored each other, the Court found it unnecessary to determine whether the petitioner or the Board bears the burden of persuasion. The Court also rejected Nike’s argument that the Board effectively shifted the burden to Nike by stating in its opinion that Nike’s arguments were “unpersuasive” and “inadequate.” The Court cited to its 2016 holding in In re Magnum Oil Tools International, in which it explained that the Board’s language is not the concern but rather the actual placement of the burden of persuasion. The Court found that both the Board and adidas met the burden, and that the burden was not shifted to Nike.

Turning to the Board’s obviousness determinations, the Federal Circuit rejected all of Nike’s arguments. First, Nike argued that the knitting textbook did not teach the claimed method of creating apertures in the fabric by omitting stitches. The Court found that the Board relied on specific disclosures in the reference describing the use of empty needles to product “loop displacement.” Nike also argued that there was no motivation to combine the textbook reference with the other two references and that the Board could not rely on “common sense” [...]

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New Patent Eligibility Bill May Impact What Subject Matter Is Patentable

By on Aug 18, 2022
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On August 2, 2022, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2022. Senator Tillis’s bill addresses patent subject matter eligibility by modifying 35 U.S.C. § 101 to mitigate areas in which it has been considered problematic in view of recent judicial decisions/exceptions construing it while retaining its core features. For some in the biotechnology space, “problematic” Supreme Court decisions have included May Collaborative Services (2012), Myriad Genetics (2013), Alice Corp. (2014) and their Federal Circuit progeny.

The core features for eligibility will remain in the statute as: “[w]hoever invents or discovers any useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefore.”

The bill provides express exceptions, including:

  • A mathematical formula, apart from useful invention or discovery
  • An unmodified human gene, as that gene exists in the human body
  • An unmodified natural material, as that material exists in nature.

However, the bill further states that genes or natural material that are “purified, enriched, or otherwise altered by human activity, or otherwise employed in a useful invention or discovery,” would not be considered unmodified and would be eligible for patents. One of the goals of the bill is to override case law that has made it  difficult to receive patents on diagnostics inventions and otherwise blurred the line between what inventions are considered abstract.

Processes that are excluded from eligibility under the bill include:

  • Nontechnological economic, financial, business, social, cultural or artistic processes
  • Mental processes performed solely in the human mind
  • Processes occurring in nature wholly independent of, and prior to, any human activity.

Under current law, the question of what constitutes a technological solution that would render an otherwise abstract idea patent eligible is a hotly contested one often determined on a case-by-case basis. The European Patent Convention’s eligibility exclusions include presentations of information and mathematical methods. However, if there is a technical use applied to those types of inventions, they are patent eligible.

The bill was reportedly drafted following three years of work by Senator Tillis’ team, including a series of US Senate hearings in 2019 with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and meetings with an array of industries. Updates will be posted to the IP Update blog as legislative developments warrant.

Practice Note: Readers are encouraged to check out the IP Update report that discusses a recent presentation by the PTO that shares recommendations for dealing with § 101 rejections during prosecution, which can be found here.



In the Weeds? Humira “Patent Thicket” Isn’t an Antitrust Violation

By on Aug 11, 2022
Posted In ,

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed that welfare benefit plans that bought the drug Humira did not have valid antitrust claims against the patent owner. The Court found that amassing patents by itself is not enough to give rise to an antitrust claim, and that the welfare benefit plans would need to prove that the patents were invalid. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, et al. v. AbbVie Inc., et al., Case No. 20-2402 (7th Cir. Aug. 1, 2022) (Easterbrook, Wood, Kirsch, JJ.)

AbbVie owns a patent covering Humira, which is a drug used to treat arthritic and inflammatory diseases. Humira is not covered by the Hatch-Waxman Act because it is a biologic drug, rather than a synthetic drug. Biologics are covered by the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), under which a competitor must ask the US Food and Drug Administration for permission to sell a “biosimilar” drug based on certain guidelines. From the first sale of the original drug, the competitor must wait 12 years to enter the market. If the original drug seller believes that a patent blocks competition and initiates litigation, the competitor is still free to sell its biosimilar drug. The competitor sells at risk of an adverse outcome in the litigation.

The original Humira patent expired in 2016, but AbbVie obtained 132 additional patents related to the drug. After the 12-year BPCIA requirement passed, none of AbbVie’s competitors chose to launch a biosimilar. Instead, competitors settled with AbbVie on terms to enter the US market in 2023. In exchange, AbbVie agreed that enforcement of all 132 of its patents would end in 2023 even if they were not set to expire.

Welfare benefit plans that pay for Humira on behalf of covered beneficiaries accused AbbVie of violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The payors argued that AbbVie’s settlements with potential competitors established a conspiracy that restrained competition in violation of Section 1, and that AbbVie’s “patent thicket” allowed AbbVie to reap unlawful monopoly profits from Humira after expiration of the original patent in violation of Section 2. The district court dismissed the complaint. The payors appealed.

The issue on appeal with respect to Section 2 was whether the payors had to prove that all of AbbVie’s Humira-related patents were invalid. Under the Walker Process antitrust doctrine, a party may be liable for an antitrust violation if it knowingly asserts a fraudulently procured patent in an attempt to monopolize a market. The payors did not argue that all 132 of AbbVie’s patents were fraudulent. The Seventh Circuit reasoned that because the patent laws do not set a cap on the number of patents a person (or company) can hold, the payors would need to prove that each of AbbVie’s 132 Humira-related patents were invalid to succeed in showing a violation under Section 2. Not only did the payors fail to prove that all 132 patents were invalid, but they did not even offer to do so. [...]

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