IP Law Bulletin

“Infringement, whether direct or contributory, is essentially a tort,

and implies invasion of some right of the patentee.”

Louis D. Brandeis took his seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for the first time on Monday, October 9, 1916. That opening day of the new term included the swearing in of Associate Justice John H. Clark and oral argument on several motions. It also marked the beginning of Justice Brandeis’s twenty-three-year tenure (1916-1939) on the high court, which is now considered one of the most important in American jurisprudence. Justice Brandeis was not only the first Jewish jurist to sit on the Supreme Court, but he impressed upon his colleagues that the law had to reflect economic and societal realities. In essence, he brought the principles that guided him in the practice of law to the bench.

Nutter was co-founded by Justice Brandeis in 1879 and his legacy continues as a source of pride and inspiration for us today. To honor the hundredth anniversary of Justice Brandeis’s first session, we have summarized several of the patent opinions he authored below.

In view of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Alice, Myriad, and Mayo, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a series of guidance documents on patent subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. These documents are collected on the Subject Matter Eligibility page of the USPTO website. The USPTO’s “May 2016 Subject Matter Eligibility Update” (88 Fed. Reg. 27381), announced the newest in this series of guidance, including new life science examples, a memorandum to the patent examining corps with instructions on formulating subject matter eligibility rejections, an index of eligibility examples, and an appendix of subject matter eligibility court decisions.

To date, the Supreme Court has granted certiorari (commonly referred to as cert) to five patent-related cases this term, which will result in three oral arguments likely to be decided before the end of the term. Two of the cases were consolidated into a single argument, while another case was subject to a Grant-Vacate-and-Remand (GVR) order, meaning the previous decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) has been vacated by the Supreme Court and the case must be reconsidered by the CAFC. There are also over 20 pending Petitions for Writ of Certiorari, which may result in additional patent matters being heard by the Court this term.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has recently become a more dangerous place.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board—usually referred to by its acronym “TTAB,” which is spoken (most often) as four separate letters (tee, tee, ay, bee) rather than the obvious and more concise vocalization of “tee-tab”—is the tribunal where you can go on appeal if you do not like the examiner’s rejection of your trademark application. It is also the tribunal that hears and adjudicates “Oppositions” filed by third party “opposers” against “applicants” seeking registration and “Petitions for Cancellation” where third party “petitioners” proceed against “respondents” registrations they feel were improvidently granted.

Last week the Federal Circuit denied Sequenom’s petition for rehearing en banc to review patent eligibility of their cell-free fetal DNA patent, U.S. Pat. No 6,258,540 (the ’540 Patent).  The District Court found the ’540 Patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for being directed to ineligible subject matter under the U.S. Supreme Court precedent in Mayo v. Prometheus Laboratories, 132 S. Ct. 1298 (2012). The Federal Circuit affirmed and Sequenom filed the petition for rehearing en banc.

On October 19, 2015, the Supreme Court consolidated and granted certiorari in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., et al. and Stryker Corporation, et al. v. Zimmer, Inc., et al., both of which concern enhanced patent infringement damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284. At issue in both cases is the question of whether the Federal Circuit is correct in requiring a willfulness finding under the rigid, two-part Seagate test to award enhanced damages. Under Seagate, finding willfulness requires the patentee to prove that an infringer acted “despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement” and that such risk was known, or should have been known, to the infringer. The question of this test’s propriety is particularly ripe given the Supreme Court’s decision in Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc. during its last term, where a similarly rigid test for imposing an award of attorney’s fees was rejected in favor of a more flexible and discretionary determination.