by John Evans, Ph.D. | Sep 22, 2020 | Prior Art Issues
By Nate Andrews and John Evans – Deciding who invented patents can be “one of muddiest concepts in the muddy metaphysics of the patent law.” Mueller Brass Co. v. Reading Industries, Inc., 352 F. Supp. 1357, 1372 (E.D. Pa. 1972). But identifying who contributed...
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Aug 10, 2020 | Claim Construction, Design Patents
By Clarissa Sullivan and John Evans The Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently designated as informative its decision instituting post-grant review and addressing the issues of design patent functionality in Sattler Tech Corp. v. Humancentric Ventures, LLC. No....
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Apr 27, 2020 | Design Patents, Other News
By Kerry Barrett and John Evans – Last October, the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s decision that a challenged design patent was not obvious. Campbell Soup Co. v. Gamon Plus, Inc., 939 F.3d 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2019). We wrote about how the court applied a more...
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Mar 23, 2020 | Federal Circuit Appeal, PTAB News
By John Evans – On Monday, the Federal Circuit issued a per curiam order denying en banc rehearing that had been requested by all three of the parties to the Arthrex decision, where the Federal Circuit found that PTAB ALJs had been unconstitutional...
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Oct 4, 2019 | Design Patents, Federal Circuit Appeal
By Kerry Barrett and John Evans Design patent obviousness requires a heavy threshold burden of proof. Challengers have to find a “primary reference,” i.e., prior art that has “basically the same” design characteristics as the claimed design. Below is an example of...
