Patent Law Practice Center

Patent Litigation: The Joint Defense Group

Trevor Carter, partner at Baker & Daniels and Practice Center Contributor, is chairing PLI’s program: The Joint Defense Group in Patent Litigation: Necessary Evil or Useful Asset?, scheduled for this Wednesday, July 14, 2010.  The first hour of the program will be a presentation on key legal issues surrounding  joint defense groups.  This presentation will focus on the nuts and bolts of joint defense groups, including how to properly enter into joint defense relationships to protect privilege and other interests.  The second hour will be a panel presentation focusing on practical aspects of joint defense groups.  Counsel with significant experience litigating in and against joint defense groups will provide their perspective on how to efficiently work with joint defense opponents and co-defendants.  Issues that will be addressed include conflicts, privilege, confidentiality, settlement concerns and strategy, hiring and use of experts, and working with customers and vendors who are not part of the lawsuit.

Michael A. Morin, partner at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP and Samantha Weil, summer associate at Finnegan, Henderson, et. al, have prepared an article for the program titled: Hang Together or Hang Separately: The Common-Interest Privilege .  Michael Morin will be speaking at the Joint Defense program on Wednesday. (more…)

Supreme Court Rules that Business Methods May be Patentable

Guest Post by Trevor Carter (partner at  Baker & Daniels ,Practice Center Contributor and PLI Faculty Member) and Daniel M. Lechleiter ( associate at Baker & Daniels)

On June 28, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bilski v. Kappos, an important case involving whether patent claims directed to so-called “business methods” are patentable under U.S. patent law.  The case involved a patent application that claimed a method of hedging against the risk of price changes in the energy market.  The claims described a series of steps instructing how to hedge risk, as well as the same concept embodied in a mathematical formula.  The U.S. Patent Office and all of the lower courts rejected the application as unpatentable, and, because it found that the claims pertain to an “abstract idea,” the Supreme Court agreed.

But, far short of providing clear guidance on how to determine whether a given business method is patentable, the Supreme Court provided high level guidance and left future case by case determinations to lower courts.  Thus, while the case makes clear that certain business methods can be patentable, with the exception of very general guidance found in the Patent Act and three of the Court’s prior decisions, it leaves wide open the question of how to distinguish patent-eligible business methods from ineligible ones.  This will undoubtedly lead to further litigation and legal experimentation in the lower courts, as they attempt to determine how and where to draw the line between patentable and unpatentable business methods. (more…)