Patent Law

USPTO News: PTO Seeks Comments Regarding Maintenance Fees Notice

Posted on November 01, 2008
By Christopher P. Singer -- In a Notice published in the Federal Register (73 Fed. Reg. 47534) on Thursday, October 30, 2008, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published its burden and cost analysis for proposed continuing information collection relating to maintenance fee submissions, and requested comments to the proposed collection...

IPO PTO Day & Patent Interferences Rules & Practice Conference

Posted on November 01, 2008
The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) has released a preliminary program for its 19th Annual Conference on U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Law and Practice (PTO Day) on December 1, 2008 in Washington, D.C. The patent portion of the conference will address the following topics:? Accelerated Examination Practice? Design Patent Protection After the Egyptian Goddess Case? Patentable Subject Matter After In re Bilski? Other Recent Federal Circuit Decisions Affecting USPTO Practice? Luncheon Address by Gerald J...

USPTO News: Patent Prosecution Highway Pilot Program Between U.S. and Danish Patent Offices

Posted on October 30, 2008
By Christopher P. Singer -- In a memorandum dated October 20, 2008, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it will expand the patent prosecution highway (PPH) pilot program to include the Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO). The PPH program becomes effective on November 3, 2008 for a term of one year, and is extendable for another year...

Speak No Evil (Don't Even Hint at It): Declaratory Judgment Jurisprudence After Medimmune

Posted on October 30, 2008
By Michael H. Baniak & Suresh B. Pillai --I. INTRODUCTIONPatent owners enjoy most of the same benefits, including the right to exclude and the freedom to contract, as the owners of other types of personal property. Balanced with these ordinary rights, however, is Congress's concern that the property rights of the patent owners do not conflict with the underlying purpose of patent grants: "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...

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Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2008) - Part II

Posted on October 30, 2008
Opposing Federal Circuit Preliminary Injunction Standards in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz By Kevin E. Noonan -- The decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, affirming the District Court's grant of a preliminary injunction, nicely illustrates the way the Federal Circuit exercises its prerogatives in applying the abuse of discretion standard...

Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2008)

Posted on October 29, 2008
Opposing Federal Circuit Preliminary Injunction Standards in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz By Kevin E. Noonan --The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed grant of a preliminary injunction in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz on October 21, and also affirmed the District Court's determination that the patents-in-suit were not rendered unenforceable by inequitable conduct during prosecution (although defendant Sandoz will be able to pursue this defense at trial)...

PTO Announces No IDS or Markush Rules During Bush Administration

Posted on October 28, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- The American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association (AIPLA) reported today that two of the pending U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rules packages, regarding changes in the rules governing Information Disclosure Statements ("the IDS rules") and claims encompassing multiple alternative embodiments ("the Markush rules") will not be published as final rules (and thus, will not go into effect) before the end of the Bush administration...

Court Report

Posted on October 26, 2008
By Sherri Oslick --About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring.Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. et al. v. Barr Laboratories Inc.1:08-cv-00782; filed October 20, 2008 in the District Court of DelawareInfringement of U...

Conference & CLE Calendar

Posted on October 26, 2008
October 28-29, 2008 - Pharma/Biotech IP Due Diligence*** (C5) - Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10-11, 2008 - Patent Litigation 2008 (Practising Law Institute) - Atlanta, GA November 11-13, 2008 - 4th Biosimilars conference (Visiongain) - Philadelphia, PA November 12-14, 2008 - Structuring, Negotiating and Managing Pharma/Biotech Collaborative Agreements (American Conference Institute) - New York, NY November 17-18, 2008 - Pharmaceutical and Biotech Patent Opinion Writing*** (American Conference Institute) - Boston, MA November 17-18, 2008 - Patent Litigation 2008 (Practising Law Institute) - New York, NY November 19-20, 2008 - Paragraph IV on Trial*** (American Conference Institute) - New York, NY December...

ACI ITC Litigation Conference

Posted on October 25, 2008
American Conference Institute (ACI) will be holding its Advanced Forum on ITC Litigation from January 27-28, 2009 in Washington, DC. The conference will offer insights into current trends and issues involved in an ITC action, including:? The fallout from the decision in Broadcomm v...

LSI Commercialization of Life Sciences Inventions Conference

Posted on October 25, 2008
Law Seminars International (LSI) will be holding a conference on Innovative Strategies for Accelerating the Commercialization of Life Sciences Inventions on January 29-30, 2009 in Phoenix, AZ. During the conference, LSI's faculty will offer presentations on the following topics: ? Accelerating the "gap" from discovery to development to commercialization;? Valuation of discoveries from discovery to development to commercialization;? Consortia and other multi-party collaborations: Increasingly important mechanisms for accelerating commercialization;? Patent pools: Another innovative tool to accelerate commercialization;? Unique challenges associated with licensing inventions from academic research environment to private-sector life sciences company;? Venture philanthropy as creative funding source; and? Exit...

Law Professors Back USPTO in Tafas v. Dudas Appeal

Posted on October 24, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and USPTO Director Jon Dudas filed their reply brief in the Tafas v. Dudas appeal. On the same day that the Patent Office filed its reply brief, Patently-O provided links to the fifteen amicus briefs filed in the appeal, thirteen of which support Plaintiffs-Appellees Dr...

Patent Profile: Immunomedics Announces Issuance of Patent for anti-CD20 Antibody

Posted on October 23, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Last week, Immunomedics, Inc. announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued U.S. Patent No. 7,435,803, which is directed to humanized and chimeric anti-CD20 antibodies and CD20 antibody fusion proteins. Such antibodies are useful for the treatment and diagnosis of B-cell disorders, such as B-cell malignancies and autoimmune diseases...

In re Tzipori (Fed. Cir. 2008)

Posted on October 21, 2008
By Donald Zuhn --Last week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a determination by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences that the claims of U.S. Application No. 10/041,958 would have been obvious in view of five prior art references.The '958 application, filed by Appellants Saul Tzipori, Ramaswamy Balakrishnan, and Arthur Donohue-Rolfe (Tzipori), relates to antibodies that bind Shiga-like toxin II (SLT-II), which is secreted by some strains of Escherichia coli in the intestinal tracts of mammals...

USPTO News: KIPO Becomes Participating Foreign Office in PDX Program

Posted on October 21, 2008
By Christopher P. Singer -- In a Notice dated October 14, 2008, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) has become the third participating foreign intellectual property office in the electronic priority document exchange program...

Court Report

Posted on October 19, 2008
By Sherri Oslick --About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring.Zydus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., USA et al. v. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd et al...

Conference & CLE Calendar

Posted on October 19, 2008
October 15, 2008 - Developments in Pharmaceutical and Biotech Patent Law (Practising Law Institute) - San Francisco, CA October 15-16, 2008 - Pharmaceutical Congress on Paragraph IV Disputes*** (Center for Business Intelligence) - Philadelphia, PA October 15-16, 2008 - Advanced Courses (Patent Resources Group) - Santa Ana Pueblo, NM October 15-17, 2008 - Maximizing Pharmaceutical Patent Lifecycles*** (American Conference Institute) - New York, NY October 23-24, 2008 - Patent Litigation 2008 (Practising Law Institute) - Chicago, IL October 28-29, 2008 - Pharma/Biotech IP Due Diligence*** (C5) - Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10-11, 2008 - Patent Litigation 2008 (Practising Law Institute) -...

CBI Bio/Pharmaceutical Summit on Legal and Regulatory Product Lifecycle Strategies

Posted on October 18, 2008
The Center for Business Intelligence (CBI) will be holding its Bio/Pharmaceutical Summit on Legal and Regulatory Product Lifecycle Strategies on January 20-21, 2009 in Baltimore, MD. The conference will address the current challenges, policies, and practical strategies from both legal and regulatory perspectives to help companies implement a more effective and modern approach to lifecycle management (LCM)...

Wyeth v. Dudas (D.D.C. 2008)

Posted on October 17, 2008
District Court Decision Impacts PTA Determinations By Donald Zuhn -- On September 30th, the District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment in favor of Wyeth, determining that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had misconstrued 35 U...

PTO Files Reply Brief in Tafas v. Dudas Appeal

Posted on October 16, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and USPTO Director Jon Dudas filed their reply brief today in the Tafas v. Dudas appeal (a copy of the brief can be obtained here). We previously reported on the filing of opening appeal briefs by the PTO, GSK, and Dr...

In re Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride Antitrust Litigation (Fed. Cir. 2008)

Posted on October 16, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan --The Federal Circuit today issued its decision in the Ciprofloxacin antitrust litigation, in an opinion that addressed the extent to which a patent-holding innovator drug company can enter into an agreement with a generic competitor that keeps the generic drug off the market...

Presidential "Debate" on U.S. Patent Policy

Posted on October 15, 2008
By Donald Zuhn --On Wednesday Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain will be participating in their third, and final, presidential debate. While the third debate will address the economy and domestic policy issues, there is a strong likelihood, particularly in view of the current financial crisis, that U...

Amgen v. Hoffmann-LaRoche: Remaining Issues

Posted on October 14, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- On October 2, 2008, Judge William Young of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts issued his 150-page opinion in Amgen Inc. v. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. , Amgen's patent infringement suit over Roche's Mircera® drug product (see "Victory for Amgen in District Court Decision - Part I")...

Patents Online Announces New Patent Search Engine

Posted on October 14, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Patents Online, LLC, the company behind FreePatentsOnline, today announced the release of a companion online service, SumoBrain. The service, which was launched this summer, offers an alternative to patent search pay services by providing free cross-collection searching, portfolios, saved search capabilities, alerts, bulk PDF download capabilities, and collaboration tools...

Technorati Profile

Posted on October 13, 2008
Technorati Profile

Patents Docs Web Addresses

Posted on October 13, 2008
Due to some problems associated with the renewal of our alternate domain names, the Patent Docs weblog can no longer be reached via the patentdocs.net or patentdocs.us web addresses. We recommend that you replace bookmarks to either of the above addresses with the following address: http://www...

Court Report

Posted on October 12, 2008
By Sherri Oslick -- About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring. Invitrogen Corp. v. Oxford Biomedical Research, Inc. et al.3:08-cv-00599; filed October 8, 2008 in the Western District of Wisconsin Declaratory judgment of invalidity, non-infringement, and unenforceability (due to lapse) of U...

Conference & CLE Calendar

Posted on October 12, 2008
October 15, 2008 - Developments in Pharmaceutical and Biotech Patent Law (Practising Law Institute) - San Francisco, CA October 15-16, 2008 - Pharmaceutical Congress on Paragraph IV Disputes*** (Center for Business Intelligence) - Philadelphia, PA October 15-16, 2008 - Advanced Courses (Patent Resources Group) - Santa Ana Pueblo, NM October 15-17, 2008 - Maximizing Pharmaceutical Patent Lifecycles*** (American Conference Institute) - New York, NY October 23-24, 2008 - Patent Litigation 2008 (Practising Law Institute) - Chicago, IL October 28-29, 2008 - Pharma/Biotech IP Due Diligence*** (C5) - Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10-11, 2008 - Patent Litigation 2008 (Practising Law Institute) -...

Amgen v. Hoffmann-LaRoche: Back to the District Court

Posted on October 11, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- The Federal Circuit today issued an Order, pursuant to Federal Circuit Rule 36, affirming the District Court's grant of a preliminary injunction in Amgen Inc. v. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Amgen's patent infringement suit over Roche's Mircera® drug product...

More on Ex parte Appeal Rule

Posted on October 11, 2008
On Wednesday, we published a request from Dr. Richard Belzer to patent practitioners and patent applicants to submit comments regarding the Ex parte Appeal Rule to the Office and Management and Budget (OMB) (see "Unhappy with the Ex parte Appeal Rule? Read This Now -- Updated")...

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