by John Evans, Ph.D. | Jan 12, 2023 | Design Patents, Federal Circuit Appeal
By John Evans and Josh Gold-Quiros – Big changes to design patent invalidity law may be coming. A pending IPR appeal challenges the Federal Circuit’s 40-year-old obviousness formula as inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s rejection of “a rigid rule that limits...
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Apr 29, 2021 | Design Patents, PTAB News
By John Evans and Hannah Mehrle – On April 15, 2021, the PTAB issued a Final Written Decision in the LKQ Corp. case finding a design patent claiming a vehicle fender panel unpatentable as obvious. IPR2020-00064, Paper No. 39 (Apr. 15, 2021). The obviousness...
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. | 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...
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Jul 30, 2019 | PGR
By John Evans and Kerry Barrett The PTAB’s recent decision instituting post-grant review of a design patent in Man Wah Holdings Ltd. v. Raffel provides interesting perspectives on how design patent invalidity theories work. This decision highlights the subtle...
