Anticipat Discusses Success in Overturning Abstract Idea Rejections on Appeal

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Warren Woessner

For difficult grounds of rejection, the right advocacy can make all the difference. The right counsel can know when to appeal and how to win on appeal. Here, we explore the demographic of firms that represent appellants that overturn one of the most difficult of all rejections: Section 101 abstract idea. Recent data show that while some big/specialized firms are successful, others without the same name recognition also are doing relatively well. Continue reading →

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PTAB Changes Begin To Help Inventors

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Warren Woessner

This is a guest post from Russ Slifer and was originally posted on Law360.

The past year has seen significant changes to all practice areas before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Many of these changes are positive for patent owners, innovators, inventors and the U.S. patent system. Several issues that have plagued patent owners in post grant trials were addressed in 2017; claim amendments, serial petitions and petitions based on art already considered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, addressed patent owner claim amendments during PTAB trials, while the PTAB continued its recent trend of issuing more precedential and informative decisions. Several of these decisions are first steps in the right direction and, if applied properly, should begin to balance PTAB trials while providing more guidance to its 272 administrative patent judges. Continue reading →

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Ex Parte Patterson: Assay Based on Two “Natural Phenomena” Does Not Equal One “Inventive Concept”

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Warren Woessner

Cotton-Tipped ApplicatorAccording to the “Mayo/Alice” rule, if a claim is directed to a “natural phenomena” such as the relationship between the a drug’s metabolite concentration following administration of an immunosuppressive drug and the therapeutic window of efficacy of the drug, the claim is patent ineligible unless there is some further inventive concept in the claim. The Board in Ex parte Patterson, Appeal no. 2016-001355 (Bd. App., Dec. 4, 2017) found that a claim to determining the presence of cancerous cervical cells in a sample and of predicting whether a subject has a cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) lesion that is a CIN2+ lesion (“bad’), was patent ineligible as claiming a natural phenomenon.

Claim 1 read:

1. A method of predicting whether a subject has a cervical intraepithelial
neoplasia (CIN) lesion that is a CIN2+ lesion, the method comprising:
obtaining data from a labeled liquid sample of cervical
cells in suspension from the subject, wherein the data are
obtained by analyzing the liquid sample with a flow cytometric
device and comprise per cell morphometric data and data
selected from the group consisting of: per cell biomarker data,
per cell DNA content data, and combinations thereof; and
predicting from the per cell morphometric data and from
the data selected from the group consisting of: per cell
biomarker data, per cell DNA content data, and combinations
thereof; whether the subject has a CIN2+ lesion. Continue reading →

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“An Unusual Case” – Promega Corp. v. Life Technologies Corp.

Posted on December 4, 2017 by Warren Woessner

I am going to try to summarize the Fed. Cir.’s holding and reasoning in Promega Corp. v. Life Tech Corp., Appeal No. 2013-1011 et al. (Fed. Cir., November 13, 2017), without burying you in the procedural details, but it won’t be easy.

In Promega I, 773 F.3d at 1341, the Fed. Cir. reversed a district court verdict that Promega was entitled to $52 million in lost profits for Life’s worldwide and/or U.S. sales of a test kit Life put together in England using one component imported from the United States. The only foundation under the damages calculation was the worldwide sales figures (about $708 million). Continue reading →

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