Source: https://www.malloylaw.com/blog/itemlist/category/2-patent?start=20
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:37:37+00:00

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The latest chapter in the Apple v. Samsung saga, previously blogged about here, is set to play out during oral arguments in front of the United States Supreme Court this fall. Samsung was found to infringe several of Apple's design patents related to specific design features of a smartphone, and not necessarily an entire phone. 35 U.S.C. § 289 authorizes courts to award the total profit from the article of manufacture bearing the design. Thus, the original damage award was based on Samsung's profits from the sales of the smartphone. The Supreme Court, however, will hear the question of whether, where a design patent is applied to only a component of a product, an award of infringer’s profits should be limited to those profits attributable to the component.
The USPTO recently introduced its initiative to "fast track" patent applications which cover immunotherapies for cancer. The program is designed to support the White House's National Cancer Moonshot, which aims to eliminate cancer with a $1 Billion call to arms to find new therapies and techniques for prevention. Eligible applications will be prioritized for examination, and, once accepted into the program, applicants can expect to receive a final decision in one year or less.
The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision earlier this week in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., granting district courts the discretion to award enhanced damages up to three times the amount found or assessed, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §284, against those guilty of patent infringement, however, limiting the award to “egregious cases of misconduct beyond typical infringement.” The decision reverses the Federal Circuit’s two-part test, established in In re Seagate Technology, LLC, as inconsistent with the language of §284. Seagate, which required the patent owner to satisfy an objective and subjective test before a court could increase damages for willful infringement, was found to be “unduly rigid” and confined the ability of district courts to exercise the discretion §284 conferred on them. For more on this case, visit http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-1513_db8e.pdf.
In Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the "Raging Bull" case, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the defense of laches, whereby the accused infringer alleges that the right holder sat on its rights for too long before bringing suit, cannot be used to shorten the three-year statute of limitations set forth in the Copyright Act. In the case of SCA Hygeiene Products, AK v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, the Supreme Court has recently taken up the question as it pertains to the defense of laches and the six-year statute of limitations set forth in the Patent Laws. Follow the case here for updates.
Yesterday, the USPTO issued the most recent guidelines of patent subject matter eligibility pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 101, i.e. the detemrination of when an invention will be found ineligible for an "abstract idea", "law of nature", or "natural phenomenon". This update follows the two preceding updates each from July 2015, and late 2014 (after the Alice decision). Specifically, the new memorandum issued by the Deputy Commissioner now requires that an examiner: (1) identify the judicial exception by referring what is recited in the claim and explain why it is considered an exception; (2) identify any additional elements (specifically point to claim features/limitations/steps) recited in the claim beyond the identified judicial exception; and (3) explain the reason(s) that the additional elements taken individually, and as a combination, do not result in the claim as a whole amounting to significantly more than the judicial exception. Overall, this appears to be an increased burden on the examiner in formulating an initial 101 rejection. Additional examples and recent court decisions have also been provided. For more, visit http://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/examination-policy/2014-interim-guidance-subject-matter-eligibility-0.
The National Archives reports that the original patent documents for the Wright brothers' Flying Machine surfaced recently after having been mis-filed in 1979. The document was recovered after a targeted search of more than 269 Million documents maintained by the Archives. The discovery is timely, as the documents were due to be displayed next month during the 110th anniversary of the patent grant date. U.S. Patent No. 821,393 was filed in March of 1903, several months before the historic flight, which would have been good advice from the brothers' patent attorney.
In the unending saga of Samsung v. Apple, the Supreme Court has recently granted certiorari on a single question relating to damages in a case of design patent infringement, that is: where a design patent only covers a single component of an overall product, should a damages award be limited only to those profits attributed to that component? For more on this case, head over to SCOTUSblog.

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