On March 2, 2020, the USPTO published a new notice in the Federal Register clarifying their practice regarding unintentional delay. “The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is clarifying its practice as to situations that will require additional information about whether a delay in seeking the revival of an abandoned application, acceptance of a […] On February 21, 2020, the Federal Circuit remanded Ironworks Patents LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co. back to the Northern District of California due to its flawed claim construction below. The panel of judges found the term ‘camera unit’ to have been misinterpreted to require a battery and external interface device over the specification and convention […] On February 4, 2020, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. Prisua Engineering Corp.. The decision remanded an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for review of claims under the proposed novelty and obviousness grounds, despite the fact that the Board had […] 2020 has started off with a bang as a jury in the Central District of California returned a verdict finding for CalTech on five counts of infringement against both Apple and Broadcom. The suit centered around Broadcom Wi-Fi components that had been used in a variety of products resulting in awards of $270,241,171 from Broadcom […] Next month is the 15th Annual Advanced Patent Law Institute at the USPTO, and Maier and Maier’s own Stephen G. Kunin is set to moderate the Thursday morning session focused on Section 101: High Tech v. Life Sciences. Per the program description: ‘The U.S. patent statutes apply equally to all patent applications, but the application […] Final briefing from Appellant Arthrex, Inc., Appellees Arthrocare Corp. and Smith & Nephew, Inc., and the Intervening United States Government was filed January 17, 2020 on the request for en banc rehearing. The decision at issue centered on the constitutionality of the appointment process for the PTAB Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) and whether PTAB proceedings […] This past summer, the Federal Circuit issued an en banc decision against rehearing in Athena Diagnostics, Inc., et al. v. Mayo Collaborative, et al. In the 7-5 decision, there were a staggering 8 separate opinions (four concurring and four dissenting). The common refrain in each was the need for the Supreme Court to address the […] On January 17th, 2020, Chief Judge Barbara Lynn granted Nintendo’s Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law, invalidating iLife’s patent claim asserted against Nintendo for its Wii U games and the resulting jury verdict award of $10.1 million. In the motion, Nintendo raised challenges that the patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,864,796) for Systems Within […] On October 15, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a Final Written Decision upholding all 19 remaining claims at issue as valid over 101 and 112 arguments in PGR2018-00061. The challenged patent, 9,700,793, “relates to a recording medium storing a game program, a game processing method, and an information processing apparatus.” The petition […] The 5G Standard Essential Patent (SEP) Declaration efforts are ongoing as companies around the globe are vying for position in the 5G IP game. The standard looks to define the patents necessary to implement 5G technology into the market to organize future licensing arrangements and portfolio evaluations. The declaration process is being overseen by 3GPP, […]