Patent Law Practice Center

Federal Circuit refuses en banc hearing in Ariosa v. Sequenom

Several weeks ago, in a per curiam decision with only Judge Newman dissenting, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied the Sequenom petition for rehearing en banc. See Ariosa Diagnostics, Inv. v. Sequenom, Inc. Sequenom, the patent holder, had already hired Thomas Goldstein, the founder of SCOTUS blog and renowned Supreme Court advocate, as a part of their appellate team. The case will now undoubtedly move to the Supreme Court. We can only hope that the Supreme Court will take the case and once and for all decide whether they intended for all genomic innovations, no matter how revolutionary, to be patent-ineligible.

If you look quickly at the per curiam decision, you might mistakenly believe that there is a unanimity of thought at the Federal Circuit on the issue of patent eligibility. After all, the case was denied en banc rehearing. But there were three separate written opinions, two concurring with the denial and only Judge Newman dissenting. In truth, if you take the time to read the opinions, you realize that all four of the Judges who signed opinions believe the Supreme Court is wrong on patent eligibility. Given Judge Linn’s concurring opinion at the panel level, we can safely conclude that he too believes the Supreme Court is wrong on this matter.

After the brief per curiam decision, several written opinions followed. First, Judge Lourie, who was joined by Judge Moore, wrote that while the claims at issue may be susceptible to challenge for being too broad or indefinite, “they should not be patent-ineligible on the ground that they set forth natural laws or are abstractions.”

Lourie would go on to conclude:

In sum, it is unsound to have a rule that takes inventions of this nature out of the realm of patent-eligibility on grounds that they only claim a natural phenomenon plus conventional steps, or that they claim abstract concepts. But I agree that the panel did not err in its conclusion that under Supreme Court precedent it had no option other than to affirm the district court.

Even Judge Dyk, who is more skeptical of patents than most of the other judges on the Federal Circuit, thinks the Supreme Court went too far in Mayo, but wrote separately that he believes that any additional guidance must come from the Supreme Court, not the Federal Circuit.

In an uncharacteristically short dissent, Judge Newman wrote:

Precedent does not require that all discoveries of natural phenomena or their application in new ways or for new uses are ineligible for patenting… The new diagnostic method here is novel and unforeseen, and is of profound public benefit… The panel’s decision to withhold access to patenting, now endorsed by the en banc court’s refusal to rehear the case, is devoid of support.

Judge Newman also went on to remind us all that patenting “facilitate[s] the public benefit of provision of this method through medical diagnostic commerce, rather than remaining a laboratory curiosity.”

We haven’t heard the last of this case. The question remains, however, whether the Supreme Court will take the case when given the opportunity or whether they will allow this ruling and the confusion to remain indefinitely.

Cloud Technology Manages Network Bandwidth

IBM recently issued a press release touting U.S. Patent No. 8,352,953, titled Dynamically provisioning virtual machines, which was actually issued in January 2013. That suggests that the technology at play in this patent application is making its way into the stream of commerce. This gives us an opportunity to take a look at a real world useful innovation in the cloud computing space and wonder whether the claims issued would satisfy the half of the Federal Circuit that seems opposed to software patents.

The invention at issue was developed as a method for dynamically managing network bandwidth within a cloud computing environment. IBM says this innovation could lead to significant improvements in overall system performance, efficiency and economy.

In a typical cloud computing environment, each user is given access to a virtual machine (“VM”) that delivers a host operating system and physical resources such as processor and memory to support the user’s application requirements. To accommodate numerous users, multiple VMs are assigned within the cloud and as demands for system resources increase and multiply, applications can become constrained by limits on networking bandwidth. This IBM invention allows the system to automatically and dynamically reassign work from one system node to another based on networking bandwidth requirements and availability, ensuring that the system and VMs can run efficiently.

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Patentee’s Arguments in Reexamination Create Intervening Rights Erasing $29.4 Million Verdict

Scott Daniels, Partner at Westerman, Hattori, Daniels & Adrian and Practice Center Contributor, sent in this article discussing Tuesday’s CAFC decision in the Marine Polymer Techs. v. HemCon case. In a decision that seems to encourage reexamination, the Court held that “intervening rights” apply to unamended claims based on statements made during reexamination.  Daniels discusses the history of the case and highlights the key points of the CAFC decision.

The CAFC panel decision [Tuesday] in Marine Polymer Techs. v. HemCon will do more to popularize reexamination than all the proselytizing by all the reexamination lawyers and bloggers ever could.  The Court held that an argument made by the patentee traversing a rejection in reexamination constituted a disclaimer of patented subject matter; this disclaimer triggered absolute intervening rights for the accused infringer under 35 U.S.C. §§ 252 and 307(b), thereby eliminating all damages for the period before the issuance of the reexamination certificate.  The Court also suggested that the accused infringer might also be protected by equitable intervening rights for the period after issuance of the reexamination certificate and sent the case back to the trial court for further fact-finding. (more…)

Foley & Lardner On The ACLU/Myriad Decision

The following discussion comes from Courtenay C. Brinckerhoff and Jacqueline D. Wright Bonilla of Foley & Lardner.

Federal Circuit Decides Highly Anticipated “ACLU/Myriad” Gene Patenting Case – Subject Matter Patent-Eligibility of Isolated DNA and Diagnostic Methods Addressed Head-On

On July 29, 2011, in one of the most controversial and publicized biotech patent cases in many years, the Federal Circuit decided the “ACLU/Myriad” gene patenting case, formally known as Assn. Mole. Path. et al. v. USPTO et al. In a majority opinion by Judge Lourie, the Court addressed the case on the merits, after finding standing. The Court held all “isolated DNA” claims at issue patent-eligible, but held as patent-ineligible diagnostic method claims that in effect recite only “comparing” or “analyzing” DNA sequences. While it is anticipated that this ruling may be the subject of en banc review before the Federal Circuit and/or will ultimately find its way to the Supreme Court, today’s decision and its impact will undoubtedly be of great interest to everyone working in the biotechnology and diagnostic medicine fields.

Background

After hearing oral arguments on April 4, 2011, Judges Lourie, Bryson, and Moore issued opinions relating to the appeal of the March 29, 2010 summary judgment decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sweet, J.) that invalidated the challenged claims in seven Myriad patents as patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. (See Foley’s April 4, 2011 Legal News Alert: The Federal Circuit Hears Oral Arguments in Myriad Isolated DNA Case.) (more…)

AMP v. USPTO: Myriad wins this battle, but will the war continue?

Ryan Chirnomas, Partner in the Biotechnology group at Westerman, Hattori, Daniels and Adrian, sent in this article discussing Friday’s Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision in the AMP v. USPTO case.  He highlights the key points of the decision and why this decision should come as a relief to anyone in the biotechnology industry.

After nearly four months of consideration[1], the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the controversial AMP v. USPTO case on Friday, July 29, 2011.  Weighing in at just over a hundred pages total, the decision includes a majority opinion by Judge Lourie, a concurrence by Judge Moore and a dissent by Judge Bryson.  The main point of contention between the three opinions relates to the patent-eligibility of the composition claims, particularly the claims which recite isolated long DNA sequences.

Standing

The first issue considered by the CAFC was whether the Plaintiffs had standing to sue.  The Plaintiffs were a motley crew of doctors, patients, scientific organizations and advocacy groups.  This wide breadth of Plaintiffs was one of the unusual aspects of this case.  Some Plaintiffs, such as cancer patients, claimed standing based on the fact that they could not afford the costs of the genetic tests or obtain a second opinion, due to Myriad being the exclusive provider for this test in the United States.  The Court quickly dismissed this reasoning, stating that “we fail to see how the inability to afford a patented invention could establish an invasion of a legally protected interest for purposes of standing.”  Citing MedImmune, the Court succinctly stated: “[s]imply disagreeing with the existence of a patent or even suffering an attenuated, non-proximate, effect from the existence of a patent does not meet the Supreme Court’s requirement for an adverse legal controversy of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.”

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