Patent Baristas

Last June, we detailed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a trial court decision that three patents held by Purdue Pharma LP couldn’t be enforced because of misrepresentations to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about the painkiller’s effectiveness thus giving Endo Pharmaceutical Holdings Inc. the right to sell a […]

[This is the third in a series of postings regarding the various proposals in the Patent Act of 2005.] Duty of Candor in Front of the USPTO The Code of Federal Regulations mandates that a patent is affected with a public interest and that this interest is best served when the USPTO is aware of […]

[This is the second in a series of postings regarding the various proposals in the Patent Act of 2005.] Assignee Filing Currently, a patent application can only be filed in the United States in the name of the inventors. The Patent Act of 2005 would amend the law to allow the assignee of the invention […]

The lines have been drawn in the sand regarding the Patent Reform Act of 2005 (HR 2795). Most recently, testimony was given (Legislative Hearing on “The Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to H.R. 2795, the ‘Patent Act of 2005’ ” (September 15, 2005) before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property […]

Blawg Review #42, is up at Cyberlaw Central bringing the answer to life, the universe and everything! In his memory, the theme for Blawg Review #42 revolves around the most famous work of Douglas Adams [1952-2001]. Don’t miss David Maister’s post at Passion, People and Principles. In his recent post entitled Warlords and Dickensian Factory […]

The Federal Circuit recently addressed the issue of collateral estoppel in a jury’s determination of a reasonable royalty where two infringing products were sold at different times, thus making the hypothetical royalty negotiations different. In Applied Medical Resources Corporation v. United States Surgical Corporation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (05-1149, Jan. […]

When properly maintained, a laboratory notebook is important in establishing a permanent record that can be referred to in the future to prove what was done during the course of research. When improperly kept, it may fail to prove what was conceived or invented, and it may fail to fix important critical dates. Laboratory notebooks […]

In Fredric A. Stern v. Columbia University and Laszlo Z. Bito, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (05-1291) affirmed a District Court motion for summary judgment that Stern failed to present sufficient evidence to be added as co-inventor of U.S. Patent No. 4,599,353 (“the ’353 patent”), a patent owned by Columbia University. […]