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...
by John Evans, Ph.D. | Feb 6, 2018 | Evidentiary Issues, Prior Art Issues, PTAB News, PTAB Trial Basics
By: Jaime Choi, Tracy Stitt, and John Evans On February 1, the PTAB held its first “Boardside Chat” of 2018, which featured three judges discussing appeals and AIA trial proceedings for design patents. Not only are such proceedings less common for design patents...
