On April 27, 2020, the PTO denied a request by Stephen Thaler to name DABUS, an artificial intelligence (AI) system that "invents", as the sole inventor in a patent application filing. In denying the request, the PTO relied on the statutory text ("whoever invents or discovers...may obtain a patent") and a court decision holding that only natural persons could be inventors under U.S. law.
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U.S. Supreme Court holds that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement suit is not required to show that a defendant willfully infringed the plaintiff's trademark as a precondition to a profits award. Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil Group, Inc., 590 U.S. __ (2020).
Full text of the opinion is available here. On April 20, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Section 314(d) precludes judicial review of PTO's application of Section 315(b)'s time bar. Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Tech., LP, No. 18-916 (April 20, 2020).
PTAB determined that Section 315(b) did not bar IPR institution because "a complaint dismissed without prejudice does not trigger section 315(b)'s one-year limit." Federal Circuit dismissed Click-to-Call's appeal of the PTAB's decision. Click-to-Call filed a writ and the Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings consistent with Cuozzo Speed Tech. v. Lee. Federal Circuit again dismissed the appeal and Click-to-Call requested an en banc hearing. Prior to the hearing, the Federal Circuit issued an en banc decision in Wi-Fi One in which it overruled Achates to find that time-bar determinations under 315(b) are appealable. The High Court granted Thryv's cert petition. In vacating the Federal Circuit's decision and remanding with instructions to dismiss for lack of appellate jurisdiction, the Court reasoned that Congress designed the IPR to weed out bad patent claims efficiently and the purpose of Section 315(b) is to minimize burdensome overlap between IPR and patent-infringement litigation. In his dissent, Justice Gorsuch stated that the majority's opinion takes a flawed premise that the Constitution permits an agency to revoke an inventor's property right in an issued patent. Full text of the opinion is available here. |
Disclaimer: The content in this blog is solely for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
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