The Federal Circuit clarified that a published U.S. application (published application) is available for IPR as long as its filing date (its “effectively filed” date in AIA vernacular) is before the priority date of the challenged patent, even if the publication date of the published application is after the priority date of the challenged patent. […] On December 18, 2024, the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing concerning the Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act of 2024.[1] Senator Coons (one of the senators co-sponsoring the Act) led the hearing. Senator Coons emphasized during the hearing […] April 5, 2024 – Maier & Maier PLLC is pleased to report that we secured a victory for our client Firstbeat Technologies OY in a case involving a heart rate measuring apparatus incorporated into wearable technology. The case was originally filed by Polar Electro OY in the District of Delaware on November 7, 2011, but […] Over the summer, Congressman Nathaniel Moran (R-TX-01), a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, and Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (D-PA-04) introduced the bicameral Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act of 2024. This bipartisan bill aims to restore patentees’ abilities to protect their […] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) recently issued a decision interpreting one of the exception provisions in AIA U.S.C. § 102(b), namely subsection (b)(2)(B). Sanho Corp. v. Kaijet Tech. Int’l, 108 F.4th 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2024). The patentee in Sanho Corp. sought to disqualify a U.S. Patent Application Publication to […] Among the bases for patent term adjustment in section 154(b) is “appellate review by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or by a Federal court in a case in which the patent was issued under a decision in the review reversing an adverse determination of patentability” (clause (iii) of section 154(b)(1)(C)). Section 154(b)(1)(C) or the […] Two key decisions have been issued from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) this Thursday regarding abuse of process. The first, Patent Quality Assurance, LLC, v. VLSI Technology LLC, IPR2021-01229, Paper 102, is a precedential decision where the Director of the USPTO Kathi Vidal held that Petitioner Patent Quality Assurance (PQA) abused the Inter-Partes […] In recent years the Western District of Texas has become an increasingly popular destination for patent litigation, in large part due to the litigant friendly rules propagated by Judge Albright. The Western District of Texas (as well as the Eastern District of Texas, another popular district for patent litigation) is part of the 5th Circuit. […] On December 3, 2022, the United States Patent and Trademark Office will shorten the response deadline for Trademark office actions from 6-months to 3-months. This shortened deadline will apply to all office actions issued on or after December 3, 2022. There will be an opportunity to file one 3-month extension for an additional fee. The […] Inventor Sholem Weisner sued Google LLC for patent infringement of four patents (10,380,202, 10,642,910, 10,394,905 and 10,642,911) in the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2020. Weisner’s patents all shared the same specification which generally described ways to “digitally record a person’s physical activities and ways to use this digital record.” […]