Newsstand

The PTAB on April 5, 2019, designated as precedential Huawei Device Co., Ltd. v. Optis Cellular Technology, LLC, Case IPR2018-00816 (PTAB Jan. 8, 2019) (Paper 19). The decision provides guidance as to the procedure for submitting new evidence with a rehearing request and explains that a party must show good cause for submitting new evidence.

The United States Patent & Trademark Office will host its next Patent Quality Chat webinar, entitled “New pilot program for motions to amend in AIA trial proceedings,” which will be broadcast on April 9, from noon to 1 p.m. ET.

Sovereign immunity bars a federal copyright infringement claim against a public hospital, the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled on March 7, 2019.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 1, 2019, held the Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s heart disease detection patent invalid because the claims of the patent were directed to a natural law and recited no other inventive concept.

The Eleventh Circuit on April 1, 2019, held that Kroma EU, a European cosmetics company, lacked standing to sue the Kardashian sisters for trademark infringement in the US.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 1, 2019, held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) must reconsider its decision to invalidate IBM’s U.S. Patent No. 7,631,346; the patent is related to a system for reducing authentication burdens by allowing a user to sign-in only once while accessing multiple applications.

The UK is due to leave the European Union – an economic and political partnership of 28 countries – ending 46 years of British membership. But the exact timing remains unclear.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on March 26, 2019, affirmed a district court ruling which declined to disgorge Becton Dickinson & Co.’s (BD) profits despite the fact the syringe maker was found liable by a jury on multiple Lanham Act violations.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced that she has appointed Karyn A. Temple as Register of Copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, effective March 27, 2019. Temple has been Acting Register of Copyrights since October 21, 2016.

The US Patent and Trademark Office on March 27, 2019, alerted EFS-Web users about a system defect in the initial web-based application data sheet (ADS) and the corrected web-based ADS.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 26, 2019, held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board wrongly invalidated an Arctic Cat Inc. patent based on an earlier-filed application.

On March 28, the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force will host the third public meeting on Developing the Digital Marketplace for Copyrighted Works at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

USPTO Director Andrei Iancu on March 13, 2019, appeared at an oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 8, 2019, overturned Apple Inc.’s IPR victory against PersonalWeb Technologies, LLC, holding that the ‘310 patent was not unpatentable due to obviousness because one of the PTAB’s key underlying fact findings was not supported by substantial evidence.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board on March 13, 2019, published the fifth installment of its Motion to Amend Study, which tracks and analyzes all motions to amend filed in AIA trials through the end of September 2018.

The PTAB designated as precedential Lectrosonics, Inc. v. Zaxcom, Inc, an order which provides guidance and information regarding statutory and regulatory requirements for a motion to amend in light of Federal Circuit case law.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on February 26, 2019, held that a “bedside machine” that displays medical information was patent-ineligible because it was directed to the abstract idea of using a computer to gather, analyze, and display data. Univ. of Fla. Research Found. v. Gen. Elec. Co., Fed. Cir., No. 2018-1284, 2/26/19.

The United States Patent & Trademark Office is hosting Virtual Instructor Led Training (vILT) on April 2 and 3. The course is entitled “Examining Computer-Implemented Functional Claim Limitations for Compliance with 35 U.S.C. § 112.”

The US Supreme Court on March 4, 2019, granted the USPTO’s petition to review the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s ruling in NantKwest Inc. v. Iancu.

Acting Register of Copyrights Karyn A. Temple has appointed Kevin R. Amer deputy general counsel of the United States Copyright Office, said the United States Copyright Office in a March 5, 2019 news alert.