Patently-O

Who Owns the Land Under the Trail?

Barron v. United States, Nos. 2025-1179, -1459 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 22, 2026). This is not a patent case, but decisions from the Court of Federal Claims are also appealed to the Federal Circuit -- making ...
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Reading the Bench: Predictions for Five October Federal Circuit Arguments

Blind AI readers forecast four pending Federal Circuit appeals, including Samsung v. ITC and Taylor Made v. Costco, after a ...
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PTAB Section 101 Appeal Data, 2009–2026

I have been parsing ex parte PTAB decisions - about 130 k for this post running from 2009 through September 2026 - looking particularly at the eligibility cases. The short version: eligibility is ...
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Supreme Court Patent Cases

Supreme Court denies VirtaMove without holding it for Tesla, Kahoot!, Intel, or FedEx. Plus new petitions on post-expiration royalties and § 101.
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Making a Proper Determination of Obviousness

Earlier this week, the USPTO published updated examination guidelines regarding obviousness determinations under 35 U.S.C. §103. While these new guidelines are not legally binding, they offer ...
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Copyright: Lawfirms Sued for Submitting Prior Art to the USPTO

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The Federal Circuit Edits Its Damages Footnote in Constellation Designs v. LG

The "optimization" claims of US8842761 and US10693700 are ineligible under § 101; The "constellation" claims of US11019509 and US11018922 are eligible; The infringement verdict stands (denial of JMOL ...
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Problem Statements and the Scope of Prior Art

A patentable invention needs to be more than simply "new." Rather, an invention requires a substantial step beyond what was already known in the field. Since 1952, this doctrine has been known as ...
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Federal Circuit Vacates $300 Million Jury Verdict on Multiple Grounds

In a significant decision with implications for patent litigation practice, the Federal Circuit has vacated both infringement and damages judgments totaling $300 million in Optis Cellular Technology v ...
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The Services Problem That Undermines Crocs’ Textualist False Advertising Defense

A recent petition for certiorari in Crocs v. Dawgs asks the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify whether the Lanham Act’s false advertising provision can reach a company’s false claims that its product is ...
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A Year of Patent Cert Denials

Over the past twelve months, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in 36 cases raising patent questions. It granted one, Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., 608 U.S. ___ (2026), which ...
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Provisional Prior Art

Patent law cases often turn on timing. In our first-to-file system, the question often boils down to whether the patent at issue was effectively filed before the competing patent application. This ...