In Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s holding that claims directed to a heart rate monitor were sufficiently definite to avoid invalidation and remanded the case to the Federal Circuit. For a copy of the opinion,
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If business method patents are not dead, after this month’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, they are at least on life support. For a copy of the opinion, click here. In Alice Corp., the Supreme Court affirmed an en
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In Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc., (for a copy of the opinion, click here) the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s holding that Limelight could be liable for actively inducing the infringement of Akamai’s patent claims even though, under the Federal Circuit’s governing standards, no
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Defending the Patent Case – Exploiting the Tensions in Patent Law in Inventor and Expert Depositions
A company accused of patent infringement has a large variety of defenses to deploy, including the following: 1. Non-infringement (i.e., the accused product does not practice the patent claims) 2. Prior art invalidity (i.e., the patent claims are not novel or are
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Under U.S. law, improved articles of manufacture may be patentable if they are novel and non-obvious. Sometimes, an inventor comes up with a new article that is faster, stronger, more flexible, more rigid, lighter, etc. by using new materials to make the
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Pros and Cons of Apparatus and Method of Use Claims Devices or apparatuses can often be protected by using two kinds of patent claims: apparatus and method of use claims. Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks. In general, apparatus claims expand
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Since we have been living with managed medical care for some time, many people have become accustomed to the idea that they need to act as their own advocate when dealing with medical professionals. Thus, we have become more comfortable with questioning
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Last month, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that could have a significant impact on patent owners who seek International Trade Commission (ITC) exclusion orders to block the importation of goods used to infringe their patents. In a 2-1
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The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) has had a variety of procedures to enable applicants to speed up the examination of their applications. However, they’ve generally been limited in some fashion or had burdensome requirements. That has changed with the introduction
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This time of the year it is common to publish lists of everything ranging from the top songs to the top movies to the best and worst dressed people. Last year we published a list of the top 10 misconceptions about patents
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