Patent Baristas

MEMORANDUM DATE:            June 28, 2010 TO:                  Patent Examining Corps FROM:           Robert W. Bahr, Acting Associate Commissioner For Patent Examination Policy SUBJECT:     Supreme Court Decision in Bilski v. Kappos Today, the Supreme Court affirmed the USPTO’s decision that the claims in the patent application at issue in Bilski v. Kappos are not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. […]

This morning, the Supreme Court issued its long awaited opinion in Bilski v. Kappos, a case which dealt with whether new processes were patentable only if they were performed with a specific machine, or resulted in a physical transformation of some article. In the run up to the decision, many commentators had predicted that the Court […]

This is a reminder that some companies and individuals are sending out unsolicited mailings to patent applicants and owners of international patents, designs and trade marks asking them to apply for entry in various (sometimes official sounding) publications, databases and “registers” in return for payment of a fee.  These parties tend to make their offers […]

The Jackson Laboratory, a biomedical research institution and repository for laboratory mice, won a summary judgment of no patent infringement against The Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA). CIEA, a non-profit Japanese corporation that develops animal models used for scientific research, alleged that Jackson had infringed U.S. Pat. No. No. 7,145,055 directed to the creation […]

If an authority grants two patents for the same invention to the same applicant, that is double patenting. In most European states the law requires that one of the patents must cease. Since it started, the European Patent Office (EPO) official view has been that it should not allow double patenting. The Guidelines for Examination […]

On March 29, 2010, the University of Utah and Myriad Genetics Inc. lost a U.S. court ruling over some of its patents for detecting inherited breast cancer related to the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.  The 152-page decision, which addresses questions about whether human genes should be subject to patent protection, could have major ramifications for […]

After the US Patent and Trademark Office denied a patent term extension under 35 U.S.C. §156, to Metvixia® — with an active ingredient methyl aminolevulinate hydrochloride — Photocure ASA sought a do-over in district court under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §702. The district court held that the PTO’s ruling was “not in accordance […]

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is increasing the availability of its patent electronic filing system, Electronic Filing System—Web (EFS-Web) by providing a new contingency option when the primary portal to EFS-Web has an unscheduled outage. Previously, the entire EFS-Web system is not available to the users during such an outage. The contingency […]