Patent Law Year in Review

by Dennis Crouch

I just gave a short (45 min) talk about the past year in patent law. See the slides here: Patent Year in Review.  Key points:

1. Director Review and Ex Parte Lobbying: Exercising the constitutional right to petition the government via shadow request for director review.
2. Full Scope Enablement and Written Description: Increased focus by both the USPTO and the Federal Circuit.  Pending SCOTUS cases of Amgen v. Sanofi and Juno v. Kite.
3. Patents as Commodity: Many folks are treating it as such.
4. Broad IPR Estoppel: CalTech v. Broadcom/Apple.  Pending before the Supreme Court.
5. Who is the Inventor: AI and Corporation as the inventor.  Thaler v. Vidal cert petition likely in January 2023.
6. Eligibility: Tropp and Interactive Wearables are not great vehicles for Supreme Court review.  Hopefully IBM petitions its case from IBM v. Zillow.
7. Patent Venue: Lots still happening in W.D.Tex.  IMO, parties arguing inconvenient venue don’t really care about convenience. Their basic concern is that they want to escape from Judge Albright’s courtroom and raise costs on the patentee.