Ready to take your invention to market? You may need to explore paths to commercialization. There are two common paths: one is to license the innovation to an established company and the other is to sell your product or service directly to the market. A company must...
A party is liable for inducing infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) if it knowingly causes another party to perform the acts of infringement. Because knowledge of infringement is a requirement for inducing infringement, the inducer’s good faith belief that the...
Patent law protects rights in new and non-obvious inventions. More than this, it provides the owner of the patent with an exclusive monopoly on the invention in the market for a period of time. The ability to prevent competitors from practicing an...
Software patents often include method claims, where inventiveness generally depends on the functionality of the software rather than unique hardware structures. However, if not properly claimed, the value of method claims can be significantly diminished,...
Part 2 of our discussion of the Lexmark case focuses on the ability to contract around the doctrine of patent exhaustion. Current law prevents a patent holder from suing a customer for using a product that the patent holder sold to the customer. ...
On June 16, 2015, the Federal Circuit decided Williamson v. Citrix, changing its position on means-plus-function claims. Because this case has potentially significant impacts on the validity and scope of software patent applications, we are providing this memo to...
The Federal Circuit will soon decide whether the patent exhaustion doctrine, which limits the extent U.S. patent owners can control patented articles after they are sold, is applicable when the sale occurs outside the U.S. Under current Federal Circuit...
On December 5, 2014, the Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of certiorari for Commil, USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. The Supreme Court will hear the case on March 31, 2015. The Court will review whether a defendant’s belief that a patent is...
In Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises, No. 13-720 (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to overrule Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U.S. 29 (1964) in which the Court held that patentees may not collect royalties for use of a patent occurring after the...
In Teva v. Sandoz, 574 U.S. ___ (2015), available at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-854_o7jp.pdf, the Supreme Court held that, in determining issues in claim construction, the Federal Circuit must review a trial court’s factual...
A claim element that is described in terms of its function may be subject to interpretation under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f). §112(f) defines a specific claim form known as “means-plus-function.” The scope of a means-plus-function claim is limited to the...
