Features

Today, building brands solely on the promise of a different product or service has become unsustainable. Any “new and improved” feature or benefit is quickly eclipsed by competitors. Consequently, brands signal category superiority not through rational claims, but by reinforcing a distinct persona — a “ness” comprised of distinguishing traits and behaviors that form an ownable brand essence difficult for competitors to replicate.

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Part One of a Two-Part ArticleThis two-part article discusses the various legal and evidentiary requirements for antedating and removing prior art that patent owners should consider when their pre-AIA patents are challenged based on a prior art publication or activity that is not otherwise subject to a statutory bar. It also addresses considerations for petitioners to consider when developing their initial and ongoing invalidity strategies. Part One leads off with a discussion of the evidentiary requirements for proving earlier invention, conception and diligence and actual reduction in practice.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently addressed the usage of the doctrine of collateral estoppel in patent infringement cases. Specifically, the court considered whether a finding of invalidity of claims by the PTAB at an inter partes review could be used to estop a patent holder from asserting patent infringement of different claims of the same patent in district court litigation.

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The Supreme Court’s unanimous 2023 decision in Amgen v. Sanofi reshaped enablement analysis for broad genus patent claims. In the wake of Amgen, broad functional claims have been scrutinized rigorously for sufficient disclosure. This article summarizes key post-Amgen decisions, which illustrate how patent drafters and litigators must navigate the fine line between claim breadth and disclosure depth in the post-Amgen era.

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Last month, a flood of whimsical, dreamlike portraits in the style of Studio Ghibli (the Japanese animation studio) swept across social media. What began as a playful social trend quickly raised legal concerns. Within days, users began reporting that OpenAI had restricted prompts referencing specific artistic styles. This trend offers a live case study of how generative AI may implicate core doctrines of copyright law, including derivative works, substantial similarity, and fair use.

Columns & Departments

Federal Circuit Examines Written Description Requirements for U.S. Patent Application Publications Used as Prior Art Under Pre-AIAFederal Circuit Denies Preliminary Injunction In a Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act Case

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The D.C. Circuit affirmed that AI cannot be the sole author on a copyright-registered work, but left questions about the future of AI authorship in copyright for Congress to resolve.

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Many patent applicants currently face difficulty in obtaining antibody claims because of written description and enablement rejections under 35 U.S.C. §112(a). The USPTO routinely rejects claims as too broad, arguing that such claims cover more antibodies than the specification discloses, or that undue experimentation would be needed to determine whether an antibody reads on the claims. These heightened disclosure requirements increase laboratory costs to generate sufficient data for a §112(a)-proof specification.