Patent Law Practice Center

PatentDocs: Kappos v. Hyatt (2012)

We are pleased to share the latest from our friends at PatentDocs.org, the Biotech and Pharma Patent Law and News Blog. The authors, Donald Zuhn and Kevin Noonan, are partners at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff, LLP, and contribute to Patent Docs on a daily basis. Today’s post is entitled, “Kappos v. Hyatt (2012),” and it discusses a 9-0 opinion written by Justice Thomas in which the United States Supreme Court firmly sided with applicant Hyatt regarding both the extent of new evidence that a dissatisfied applicant can produce during a §145 proceeding and the standard of review to be applied by the district court to such evidence.

The Supreme Court held that, “there are no evidentiary restrictions beyond those already imposed by the Federal Rules of Evidence and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” echoing the Federal Circuit majority.  In regards to the issue of the standard of review, the Supreme Court held that “the district court must make a de novo finding when new evidence is presented on a disputed question of fact.”

Here is an excerpt: (more…)

Top 5 Patent Blog Posts of the Week

Today we continue our weekly installment highlighting the best of the patent blogosphere from the past week. If there are any patent blogs you think should be highlighted by our Top 5, please comment on this post and we’ll check them out.

1) CAFC Blog: Revisiting Therasense, CAFC Finds That An Inventor’s Subjective Belief That Submission of Documents Was Unnecessary May Not be Sufficient to Avoid a Showing Of Intent to Deceive – This post discusses Aventis Pharma S.A. and Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC v. Hospira Inc. and Apotex Inc. and shares how the CAFC  found that the patents were invalid over withheld references, and unenforceable for inequitable conduct.

2) IP Watchdog: Beware Twitter’s New Patent Agreement Scheme – This post highlights and critiques Twitter’s announcement that  later this year it will implement what they are calling the “Innovators Patent Agreement,” which they claim will ensure that patents are only used for defensive purposes.

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