Prior Art

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The Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB” or “the Board”) ruling that invalidated three patents in three separate IPR proceedings (IPR2015-00325, IPR2015-00326, and IPR2015-00330).  The patent owner, ATI Technologies, asserted that the inventions in the challenged claims antedated the asserted prior art.  That is, ATI attempted to swear behind the asserted…

On December 12, 2018, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Appeal Board (PTAB) ruled in favor of Mylan in its inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. It found all claims of Sanofi’s Lantus formulation patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,476,652 and 7,713,930) unpatentable as obvious on numerous grounds, and held that despite over $2 billion in annual sales,…

When a non-patent literature (NPL) reference is used to challenge a patent, a key issue to be resolved is whether the NPL reference is a “printed publication” under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Several prior posts have addressed this question, such as here and here.

The Federal Circuit recently, on November 6, weighed in yet…

The PTAB has broad discretion under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d) to deny institution if “the same or substantially the same prior art or arguments previously were presented to the Office.” Several are aware that the PTAB commonly exercises its discretion to deny “follow-on” petitions that seek to challenge the validity of a patent that has…