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A company’s brand is one of its most valuable strategic assets and one of its most visible ones. Learn the importance of the scope and power of your brand and how to move toward success.

Learn how to assess your firm’s readiness to identify and exploit its IP capabilities using a set of questions related to Intellectual Property.

Last November, as the Corona virus was triggering a COVID-19 pandemic that made the need for reliable digital communication more crucial than it has ever been, the Federal Circuit issued a boon to the telecommunication industry by ruling in Koninklijke KPN NV v. Gemalto N2M GmBH et al. that sufficiently […]

Dear Clients and Colleagues, During this time of uncertainty and anxiety, we just wanted to let you know that your friends at Dilworth IP are available to assist you in whatever way we can. We wanted to share this quick bulleted list of updates for you. As of last Tuesday, […]

So much effort is devoted to patent drafting and its associated prosecution to produce strong, broad claims that bring value to the client, that it’s a bit disconcerting when agreements governing the rights in such Intellectual Property are interpreted in a way as to undercut those rights.  However, one such […]

Thanksgiving is the best family holiday. It is stocked full of tradition: family, laughing, turkey dinner, football, and more turkey; while at the same serving as a catalog for memories that mark the progression of our lives. Fortunately, I was always able to get at least one of the Turkey legs, which you could pick up like fried chicken and dive-in without concern for cutlery rules, dripping juice or falling bits of skin or meat (these were the dog’s responsibility). Imagine the shock when a few months ago I stumbled on U.S. Patent No. 10,327,596 for a turkey leg holder.

In OSI Pharmaceuticals, LLC v. Apotex Inc.[1] the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s inter partes review decision that claims 44-46 and 53 of OSI’s patent U.S. 6,900,221 (‘221 Patent) were unpatentable as obvious.[2]  It is a noteworthy case because it squarely addresses obviousness and reasonable expectation […]

As patent practitioners, so much of what we do is managing deadlines, devising strategy within those deadlines and evaluating the impact of delay.  The importance of this is illustrated in Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. v. Andrei Iancu[1] where the Federal Circuit upheld a decision by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on patent term adjustment (PTA).[2]  It serves as a reminder to practitioners that in addition to other tactical considerations involved in replying to a Final Office Action, they must also account for its effect on PTA.

In Henny Penny Corp. v. Frymaster LLC[1] the Federal Circuit upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s inter partes review decision that claims 1-3, 5-12, 17-21, and 23 of Frymaster’s patent U.S. 8,497,691 (‘691 Patent) were not unpatentable as obvious.[2]  It is an interesting case because it illustrates a finding of nonobviousness where the Board not only held that there was no motivation to combine, but endorsed a showing of secondary considerations.

This is an article in a series reviewing Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) patents granted in approximately the last year.  In particular, the patents highlighted here relate to FCC catalyst and additive systems.  One take-away from this review is that the number of such patents as a percentage of the entirety of FCC-related patents, including those related to equipment, processes, feed treatment, environmental, etc., is down to less than a quarter.  This may reflect a shift in research dollars away from the catalyst area, or at least a shift in those research dollars directed to acquiring patentable inventions.  The second take-away is that the catalyst related patents are largely directed to integral multiple zeolite systems for increasing light olefins production, such as USY and ZSM-5.  This was already a fairly crowded area, however, in U.S. Patent No. 10,173,206 assigned to Albemarle Europe SPL, an interesting approach was to combine a Y zeolite exchanged with a non-rare earth material selected from magnesium, calcium or strontium, with a ZSM-5 zeolite, where the ratio of the two zeolites was specified.