Patent Baristas

Harold Wegner, a partner at Foley & Lardner has an interesting article pondering the upcoming possible changes to Japanese Patent Law.  The Japanese "Article 35" has become in the news for the astonomical awards of money to employed inventors possible independent of any employment contract. Legislation has been approved by the Cabinet that is now […]

St. Jude Medical settled a 2000 patent infringement suit with heart-valve technology company Edwards Lifesciences Corp.  Edwards will receive a $5.5 million payment, and St. Jude Medical will get paid-up licenses for certain of its heart valve therapy products. In the suit, Edwards claimed St. Jude Medical infringed on three of Edwards’ patents, two relating […]

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT) announced today the intent to appeal the decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interference, interference number 104,746, between itself and Geron Corporation (Nasdaq:GERN) to the U.S. District Court. Advanced Cell Technology disputes Geron Corporation’s claim that ACT’s patent at issue in the interference has been invalidated. An issued […]

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a lower ruling in which a patent held by Integra LifeSciences Holdings prevented Germany’s Merck KGaA from conducting conduct "head-start" exploratory research for future applications into a potential new anticancer drug, even if the drug could not feasibly be marketed until after the patent expired in 2006. Under […]

Reuters reported that Medtronic Inc. lost a patent case over heart stents against rivals Guidant Corp. and Boston Scientific Corp. on Wednesday, but the company said it would appeal the decision.  A Delaware District Court ruled that two of Medtronic’s stent devices used to treat clogged heart arteries infringed a patent held by rival Guidant, […]

In In re Crish, No. 04-1075 (Fed Cir. December 21, 2004), Crish filed a patent application for purified DNA molecules having promoter activity for the human involucrin gene (hINV). The Federal Circuit held that the claims were anticipated by two other publications that disclosed the complete structure of hINV. The claimed invention relates to purified […]

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory M. Sleet ended the stem cell patent suit by PharmaStem Therapeutics, Inc. against CorCell, Inc. and numerous private umbilical cord blood banks for infringement of its patents 5,004,681 and 5,192,553. Judge Sleet stated that, "There was no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find that all, or […]

Without comment, the Supreme Court has declined to review a Federal Circuit decision on a University of Rochester patent involving the discovery of a separate cox-2 gene and related biological processes.  The University had petitioned the Court to hear the case after a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court, in February, upheld a lower […]