Novartis v. Accord Redux – Panel 2 Reverses Panel 1

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Warren Woessner

To save me a lot of typing, please read my post of January 10, 2022, summarizing the first Panel’s holding in Novartis Pharmaceutical v Accord Healthcare, Inc., 21 F.4th 1362 (Fed. Cir., 2022). The panel in that decision was Judges Moore, O’Malley and Linn, with Moore dissenting. A brief summary of the holding was that the majority of the panel found that a negative limitation that was disclosed only by implication in the specification satisfied the written description requirement.  A slightly different Panel,  consisting of Judges Moore, Linn and Hughes granted rehearing.  The panel split, with Moore writing for the majority and Linn dissenting.

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The Solicitor’s Holistic Approach to the Mayo/Alice Analysis in American Axle

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Warren Woessner

This is not exactly breaking news, and other commentators have discussed it, but I think that the Solicitor General’s Amicus Brief urging the Supreme Court to grant cert. in American Axle v. Neapco Holdings, Appeal No. 20-891 (May 2022) contains language that would be helpful to any inventor faced with a ruling that an invention is not patent-eligible because it is an attempt to monopolize a natural law. If the facts of this case have become hazy, please re-read my posts of January 13th and 11th, 2021, on the proceedings below. American Axle petitioned for cert. after losing at the Fed. Cir. level and the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General to provide her opinion on the question of “[w]hether claim 22 of petitioner’s patent, which claims a process for manufacturing an automobile driveshaft that simultaneously reduces two types of driveshaft variation, is patent eligible under Section 101.” The Solicitor General’s brief said that it should be patent eligible.

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Almirall v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals – Negative Limitations II

Posted on April 8, 2022 by Warren Woessner

This post gets a “Part II” designation because the Fed. Cir. clarified the support necessary to find a negative limitation in the prior art (Almirall LLC v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Appeal No. 2020-2331 (Fed. Cir., March 14, 2022)). In my earlier post on Novartis v. Accord Heathcare, 21 F.4th 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2022), the Fed. Cir. panel addressed the question of how much support was required in the specification for an applicant to add a negative limitation to a claim, to distinguish the prior art.

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Intellectual Property in Russia

Posted on March 31, 2022 by Thomas Carey

Guest Post from Thomas C. Carey | Chair, Business Practice Group, at Sunstein LLP

The Russian war on Ukraine has resulted in a series of US sanctions and Russian countermeasures that have disrupted the coordination of patent and trademark rights between the United States and Russia.

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