The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the trial decision of Justice Gauthier in the decision Phostech v. Valence 2011 FCA 237 (PDF) finding that the trial judge made no error in construing the claim to find the patent valid and infringed.
Continue reading FCA upholds patent infringement and validity in Phostech v. Valence
Earlier today, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in CyberSource Corporation v. Retail Decisions, Inc. (PDF), that a Beauregard claim directed to a credit card anti-fraud invention was invalid under s.101 as non-patentable subject-matter.
Last week, in Tucows.Com Co. v. Lojas Renner, 2011 ONCA 548, the Ontario Court of Appeal determined that a domain name was “personal property in Ontario” for the purposes of jurisdiction under Rule 17.02(a) after a UDRP proceeding had already been started.
The Canadian Patent Office has issued guidelines to its examiners on examining patent applications for patentable subject matter in light of the Federal Court’s Amazon.com decision.
Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Myriad Genetics held that isolated genes are patent-eligible subject matter, reversing the lower court in part (PDF).
Continue reading U.S. CAFC on patentability of isolated genes
After a long period of time with no public decisions being published through its website, the Patent Appeal Board (PAB) at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office has published a flurry of decisions:
#1307 (PDF) – Patent Application No. 2407304 – The PAB reversed the examiner’s finding on ‘obviousness’ type double patenting and allowed claims in a divisional over the claims the parent. The PAB would allow claims to monoclonal antibodies based on a description of polypeptides but in this case the monoclonal antibody claims were too broad.
#1308 (PDF) – Patent Application No. 2294324 – The application related to a coupon dispenser and the PAB applied the Sanofi obviousness analysis to reject the application. The PAB also held that certain claims were indefinite for not meeting the promise of the preamble. Interestingly, examination was requested on this application in 1999, over 11 years ago.
#1309 (PDF) – Patent Application No. 2285672 – The application related to telomerase. The PAB considered the claims definite to a person skilled in the art (reversing the examiner) but overly broad and not enabled (upholding the examiner).
#1310 (PDF) – Patent Application No. 551406 – This is an old act patent application that went through 17 years of prosecution (9 office actions) and related to superconductive crystalline materials. The PAB considered with the application included a sound line of reasoning to support the utility of the claims and allowed most of the claims (reversing the examiner). The PAB also reversed the examiner on the inclusion of the ‘desired result’ in the body of the claim.
#1311 (PDF) – Patent Application No. 2292065 – The PAB rejected the application as being obvious in light of a different piece of prior art from the prior art relied upon by the Examiner.
#1312 (PDF) – Patent Application No. 2306317 – The PAB reversed the examiner allowing the application by holding that the claims were directed to artificial tissue equivalents rather than unpatentable organs and tissues.
Some of these decisions are dated November 2010 so took over 8 months to be published on the CIPO website from the date they were issued by the PAB.
Decision #1302, while not available through the CIPO website [Update 11-08-17: decision now available – PDF] has been published in the Canadian Patent Reporter as Re Immunex Corporation Patent Application 583,988, 89 CPR (4th) 34. Decision #1301 has also never been published online. These two decisions are likely not published on the CIPO website because they relate to old-act patent applications that are not made public.
Earlier today, UK’s highest court held in Lucasfilm Ltd v Ainsworth that the English courts can decide the issue of infringement of U.S. copyright where there is jurisdiction over the defendant. Continue reading UK Supreme Court on enforcement of foreign IP
CIRA has announced that they are implementing a new set of policies and rules for domain name disputes. The new CDRP includes changes to the meaning of “use”, “confusingly similar” and “bad faith” along with a host of other changes and will come into force August 22, 2011.
While we wait for the judgment from the Federal Court of Appeal in the Amazon.com proceeding on the patentability of business methods, I thought I would post a few remaining items from the case.
I had previously posted copies of the Appellant’s Factum and the Respondent’s Factum. Copies of the Intervener’s Factum and the Respondent’s Reply to the Intervener are now also available.
There are a few reports from the hearing including from Nora Sleeth at Osgoode Hall Law School and Chris Heer of Bennett Jones.
In decision released yesterday, the Federal Court of Appeal considered the application of s.73(1)(a) ‘good faith’ under the Patent Act and held that “Its operation is extinguished once the patent issues.” (PDF of decision) Dimock Stratton represented two of the respondents in the case and has a summary available.