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Cell therapy products in the U.S. are estimated to be worth approximately $4.5 billion currently and expected to grow to over $30 billion in the next ten years. As market value increases litigation is bound to heat up.

Recently, Fate Therapeutics and the Whitehead Institute sued Shoreline Biosciences in the Southern District of California for allegedly infringing six patents directed to composition and methods relating to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) directly under 35 U.S.C. §§ 271(a) and (g), and for inducing infringement. Fate’s infringement theories included both literal infringement and infringement under the Doctrine of Equivalents. The court granted summary judgment of noninfringement to Shoreline for all asserted claims.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently addressed the issue of “analogous prior art,” a patent law doctrine fundamental to the legal determination of whether a patent is invalid as obvious over the prior art. The decision illustrates the importance of carefully considering whether asserted prior art is analogous to the challenged patent, as the use of non-analogous art can result in dismissal of any obviousness argument based on that art.

On April 20, 2023, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced several proposed rule changes that would have an impact on patent applicants, patent holders, and patent challengers. A common thread running through several of the rule changes is the requirement of increased disclosure from litigating parties, including disclosures of related parties, ownership interests, and all settlement agreements (and any related or collateral agreements) between the parties. While the proposed rule changes are subject to a public comment period, if implemented, they would (i) introduce several major changes to the process of challenging patents before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and (ii.) significantly increase USPTO administrative fees.

The answer? Not much, in itself. If one patent is good, 132 is probably fine too. That was Judge Easterbrook’s reasoning in a recent decision addressing indirect purchasers’ antitrust challenge to AbbVie’s so-called “patent thicket” of 132 patents around the blockbuster drug Humira, arguing the sheer number of patents blocked…

In the United States, the scale of trade secret theft is estimated to be between $180 billion and $450 billion annually. Among the targets of this theft are pharmaceutical companies, which are some of the most research-intensive institutions in the world. Pharmaceutical research generally requires extensive work and often generates…

The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in MaxPower Semiconductor Inc. et al v. Rohm Semiconductor USA, LLC highlights the interplay between the liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) authority as an agency tribunal having a broad role to protect the public interest in…

The situation is familiar: an employee leaves one company to go work for another, or perhaps to found her own start-up.  She may be working on the same problems that she faced at her former workplace, and in the same technological space.

The employee’s work at her new company results in the issuance of a patent, and the new company takes the lead in the marketplace.  Based on the work done by the employee at the former employer, however, the former employer may believe that it has ownership rights in the new patent.

What rights might the former employer have?  A recent Federal Circuit decision, Bio-Rad v ITC – CAFC, sheds some light on how courts may resolve this kind of dispute—and how thorny the issues may be.  Key takeaways are summarized below.

The prosecution of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the infamous healthcare and life sciences company, Theranos, Inc., has sparked media attention around the country. With just a few months before trial is slated to begin, Holmes recently lost her pretrial battle over whether the attorney-client privilege precludes the introduction of certain emails with counsel.  While the emails at issue remain sealed from public view, related filings and hearings indicate Holmes and lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP (“BSF”) attempted to prevent the Wall Street Journal from exposing the startup’s impending collapse.