Anticipation

August 30, 2023
Photograph of a doctor holding a syringe full of an injectable filler

US Court Rules That Free Samples Don’t Count Towards Commercial Success

Fed. Cir. 2021-2063, 2021-2065: Sales of a product can be used to prove the inventiveness of a patent, but a US court warns that free samples are not relevant to patentability.
February 3, 2022
A photo of an iPhone screen showing an icon to launch the Google app.

Google’s AdWords Defeats Competitor’s Patent Infringement Claim

Canada's Federal Court dismissed allegations by Paid Search Engine that Google infringed a patent for optimizing paid search engines.
March 9, 2020
Photograph of an IV drip delivering a pharmaceutical to a patient in a hospital.

Contested Remicade Patent Will Head Back to Court in June

2020 FCA 30; 2020 FCA 31 – Janssen and Celltrion will return to court in June after the FCA overturned a lower court decision regarding a Remicade patent.
December 12, 2017

Federal Court shoots down an attempted revival of the promise doctrine

2017 FC 774 - The FC granted Pfizer's order pursuant to Section 6 of the PM(NOC) Regulations, prohibiting the Minister of Health from issuing a NOC to Apotex, with respect to a Canadian patent The FC found, on a balance of probabilities, that Apotex’s allegations of obviousness, inutility, non-infringement, overpromising, anticipation and double patenting were not justified.
April 22, 2016

Federal Court Finds “Rigidification” Patent to be Sufficient but Obvious

2015 FC 997 - The FC found that the invention was merely to add a polymer to the slurry, which was known in the prior art, and to continue to do so until the slurry rigidified. The Court found this solution to be obvious to try, and sufficiently disclosed, even though the meaning of “rigidify” was never made clear.
November 23, 2015

CAFC to Rehear On-Sale Bar Novelty Case

The CAFC has now granted a petition for a rehearing the case on this issue of whether or not the sale of bivalirudin from the supplier gave rise to an on-sale bar.
October 27, 2014

Expert witnesses proven to be pivotal in Dow Chemical patent infringement suit

Dow Chemical Co v NOVA Chemicals Corp, 2014 FC 844 - The Federal Court found that NOVA Chemicals infringed Canadian Patent No. 2,160,705, owned by The Dow Chemical Company, by NOVA’s use of its “SURPASS” polyethylene product. Allegations of invalidity for lack of utility, claims broader than any invention made or disclosed, anticipation, obviousness, double patenting, and insufficiency of the specification were unsuccessful.
July 31, 2014

Federal Court Prohibited Issuance of a NOC for Generic Version of Lumigan

Allergan Inc v Apotex Inc, 2014 FC 567 - In terms of claim construction, this case shows the tension between construing claims based solely on the wording of the claims versus peering beyond the wording of the claims to distill an underlying invention.
September 16, 2013

FC Holds Two ABB Electro-Mechanical Patents Obvious in View of State of the Art

ABB Technology AG et al. v. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.- 2013 FC 947 This action relates to the alleged infringement of two patents held by ABB  […]
July 24, 2013

FC Dismisses Roche’s Prohibition Application, Holds Apotex’s Allegations Are Justified that Patent Covering VALCYTE Is Anticipated and Obvious

Hoffman-La Roche Limited v. Apotex Inc., 2013 FC 718 In this application brought under the PM(NOC) Regulations Roche sought to prohibit the Minister of Health from […]
January 22, 2013

FCA Clarifies Prior Disclosure and the “Obvious to Try” Analysis

Wenzel Downhole Tools Ltd. v. National-Oilwell Canada Ltd., 2012 FCA 333 Per Gauthier J.A. (Nadon J.A. concurring): This was an appeal from the Federal Court decision […]