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Back in February I reported that the Supreme Court had a heavy patent docket during this 2013-14 term. See, Busy Schedule for the Supremes – Court Takes on Six High Profile Patent Cases This Term. On Tuesday of this week, the Court issued unanimous decisions in two of these cases: Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health and Fitness, Inc., U.S., No. 12-1184, 4/29/2014 and Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Management Sys., U.S., No. 12-1163, 4/29/2014. In deciding these cases, the Court held that the Federal Circuit’s current standard for finding a patent case “exceptional” for the purpose of awarding attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party to be “unduly rigid.”

In my previous post I discussed the recent remand by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals of DuPont’s $919 million dollar verdict in its trade secret misappropriation case against Kolon Industries. In that decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals asked the trial court to consider whether the trade secrets in question had lost their proprietary status because they were disclosed in unsealed court documents in a prior litigation. In this post I will briefly summarize the principles that will guide the trial court in resolving this question.

This is the second article in an ongoing review of recent patent trends in the area of Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC). In the last installment, we reviewed patents on catalyst additives and demonstrated that relatively few patents had recently issued on FCC additives (e.g., gasoline sulfur reduction catalysts), likely reflecting the current use of gas oil hydrotreaters and naphtha hydrotreaters/desuphurizers, which reduce the need for such additives. The current article covers recent patents relating to zeolites. Review of these patents indicates that the most active area of research regarding zeolites, at least from the standpoint of companies obtaining patent protection, is in the area of zeolite mesoporosity (zeolite pore diameters in the range of 2 to 50 nm).

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host a public forum on May 9, 2014 to solicit feedback from organizations and individuals on its recent guidance memorandum for determining subject matter eligibility of claims reciting or involving laws of nature, natural phenomena, and natural products (Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance). The Laws of Nature/Natural Products Guidance implemented a new procedure to address changes in the law relating to subject matter eligibility in view of recent Supreme Court precedent.

Because this Guidance is an topic of importance to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Dilworth IP plans to submit comments on the Guidance and to participate in the public forum, and encourages others to do so.

Additional information including event registration, comment submission instructions and directions can be found at http://www.uspto.gov/patents/announce/myriad-mayo.jsp and in the Federal Register Notice: https://federalregister.gov/a/2014-08759.

In 2011 DuPont won a near billion-dollar verdict in a trade secret case which is now subject to remand following the defendant’s appeal, providing a lesson for future litigants. DuPont initiated the high-stakes litigation against competitor and a former employee, alleging that the employee shared DuPont trade secrets with Kolon Industries in breach of an obligation of confidentiality the employee owed to DuPont.

Dr. Anthony Sabatelli of Dilworth IP joined with Paul Pescatello, JD, PhD of CURE (Connecticut United for Research Excellence) to advocate for the Biotech Industry at the BIO 2014 Legislative Day Fly-In. They were part of a larger contingent of over 200 biotech executives and other concerned parties from across the country who converged on Washington, D.C. on April 8th and 9th for two days of advocacy and legislative briefings. While on the Hill, Drs. Sabatelli and Pescatello met with Connecticut’s Congressional Members and senior staff to discuss key issues such as NIH Funding, Medicare Part B and Part D Reimbursement, and patent litigation reform legislation. Dr. Sabatelli, who has been attending this annual event for the past several years, said “the Fly-In is a unique opportunity for those of us advocating for the Biotech Industry to educate our legislators about issues vital to the continued health of this very important industry.”

Dr. Jonathan Schuchardt of Dilworth IP will be returning to Chicago on April 10th to speak at the 49th annual (and final) Corporate Patent Seminar. Jon will be speaking on the fast evolving and increasingly confusing topic of Obviousness in light of the AIA, the Supreme Court’s KSR decision, the USPTO’s post-KSR guidelines, and several Federal Circuit decisions. This is Jon’s second presentation at CPS in as many years.

Dr. Anthony Sabatelli of Dilworth IP has been invited to join executives and other concerned parties from the Biotech Industry at the BIO Legislative Day Fly-In on April 8th and 9th for two days of advocacy and legislative briefings. A description of the event form the BIO website:

[A] great day of engaging with Members of Congress and their senior staff on the most important legislative issues facing the biotechnology industry. BIO will schedule all congressional meetings and provide attendees with a robust legislative briefing prior to their visits on Capitol Hill. Attendees meet in small groups with the congressional Members and senior staff of the attendee’s congressional delegation.

For more information about the event, please go to the event website.

On March 4th the US Patent and Trademark Office issued guidelines to its examining corps for assessing patent eligible subject matter under 35 USC §101. The guidelines were issued in light of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Myriad, Prometheus, and related cases. See, “Guidance For Determining Subject Matter Eligibility Of Claims Reciting Or Involving Laws of Nature, Natural Phenomena, & Natural Products.” The Guidance is intended to help examiners determine whether the subject matter of a patent claim is significantly different from what exists in nature.

Dilworth IP’s own Dr. Jonathan Schuchardt will be hosting the firm’s first ever webinar this Thursday, March 25th at 1pm Eastern time. The title of the talk is Effective Invention Disclosures and is designed to help scientists, engineers, and business leaders understand elements of winning disclosures that will ultimately result […]