Patents

Case summaries and articles about  patents.

February 28, 2017

Patent Appeal Board Rejects Home Healthcare Administration System for Obviousness

PAB 1394 - The Patent Appeal Board rejected the “Home Health Point-Of-Care and Administration System” disclosed in Canadian Patent Application No. 2,579,081 for being obvious to a person skilled in the art.
February 14, 2017

FC Determines Use of Xpresspost(TM) is Delivery to a Designated Establishment

2016 FC 517 - The FC held that patent applicants and holders using Xpresspost(TM) need only submit correspondence for CIPO to a Canada Post location by the deadline, rather than ensure physical delivery is completed by the deadline. The decision saved Biogen’s response to a requisition in a conflict proceeding from being deemed abandoned.
February 7, 2017

FC Affirms Prothonotary Decision Allowing Action to Continue on Allegations of Likely Future (Quia Timet) Infringement

2016 FC 336 - The FC affirmed Prothonotary Tabib’s decision to strike some of Gilead Science's pleadings and allow the infringement action to continue on the basis of amended allegations of a likely future (quia timet) infringement.
February 3, 2017

Does the Patent Act provide a “complete code” of remedies? ONSC allows the argument to proceed that it may not

2016 ONSC 7193 - The ONSC heard pleadings by Apotex and Pfizer concerning Pfizer’s, now invalid, patent for Viagra. Apotex had previously been prevented from manufacturing its own generic because of the Viagra patent, and now claimed damages for the delay in being able to market its own variant. The appeal was dismissed and Apotex’s claim was allowed to proceed unstruck.
January 23, 2017

Patent Regulatory Regime Prohibits Parallel Consumer Civil Actions Rooted in Patent Act Breaches

2015 BCCA 506 - This BCCA decision confirmed that the patent regulatory regime – that being the Patent Act, the Patent Rules, the Food and Drugs Act, the Food and Drug Regulations, and the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations, is a complete code which forecloses parallel civil actions rooted in a breach of the Patent Act.
January 10, 2017

PAB Finds Proposed Amendments Overcome Defects in Stabilized Alpha Helical Peptides Application

PAB 1393 - The Patent Appeal Board found that Canadian Patent Application No. 2,544,223, entitled “Stabilized Alpha Helical Peptides and Uses Thereof” lacked utility, lacked sufficient disclosure, was obvious, and included indefinite claims.
January 3, 2017

FC Rules PM(NOC) Prohibition Application Not An Abuse of Process

2015 FC 1016 - In this decision, the FC permitted the applicant to proceed with its prohibition application, despite a previous decision finding that the patent in question was invalid.
December 20, 2016

Bargain Theory Requires Adequate Disclosure in Patents

2015 FC 108 - Patent drafters are required to provide adequate disclosure of an invention in patent applications to reduce the likelihood that the granted patent will be litigated and invalidated years down the road. This Federal Court (“FC”) decision dismissed an application for a prohibition order on the grounds of non-infringement and found the patent to be obvious and lacking in utility.
November 28, 2016

Patent Appeal Board Rejects Waste-Disposal Film Dispensing Cassette for Obviousness and Lack of Novelty

PAB 1392 - Patent applicants should be wary of relying solely on evidence of commercial success to avoid rejection on the grounds of obviousness, as factors such as marketing may be found to be the actual reason for the success.
November 23, 2016

FC Invalidates Selection Patent as Obvious in View of Genus Patent

2015 FC 247 - The Federal Court reminds us that a selection patent will typically require something more than routine testing to justify the reclaiming of a particular compound within a previously known class of compounds.
November 14, 2016

Patent Appeal Board Rejects “Simple” Sports Training Aid for Obviousness, Improper Inclusion of New Matter, and Indefiniteness

PAB 1391 - Although the simplicity of a product may be attractive from a marketing perspective, it makes for an easy rejection of the patent application for obviousness.
October 24, 2016

3D Printing Will Rock the World of IP: The ITC Admits Defeat and Allows the Importation of Digital 3D Models

The ITC finally dropped its investigation against the dental equipment manufacturer ClearCorrect. The move comes long after the ITC lost a legal battle that decided that the ITC does not have the power to police the importation of digital data, even where that digital data is being used to 3D-print a patented product in the United States.
October 21, 2016

FCA Clarifies Test for Obviousness-Type Double-Patenting

2016 FCA 119 - The FCA dismissed the appeal, which alleged that Canadian Patent No. 2,226,784 was invalid on the basis of obviousness-type double-patenting and for lack of utility due to no sound prediction. As a result, the ‘784 patent was upheld.
October 6, 2016

Pharmaceutical Patentees Could Face More than 100% of Actual Damages under PM(NOC) Regulations

2014 FCA 68 - Innovator pharmaceutical companies should be cautious and think twice about how aggressively they defend their patents as they could potentially face paying more than 100% of actual damages as an award under section 8 of the PM(NOC) Regulations.
October 5, 2016

“More or Less Self-evident” Remains the Standard in the Obvious-to-Try Test

2015 FCA 286 - An attack on the Federal Court’s slight rewording of the obvious-to-try test has proven unsuccessful. The FC referring to a 'fair expectation of success'" was not a reviewable error.
October 5, 2016

Canadian Version of Alice Financial Services Patent Rejected for Lack of Statutory Subject Matter

PAB 1408 - The Canadian version of one of the computer-implemented financial services patent applications from the famous U.S. case on software patent eligibility, Alice Corp v CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. __, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014), was rejected for lack of patentable subject matter.
October 3, 2016

FCA Will not Reweigh Expert Evidence to Appeal Patent Invalidity

2015 FCA 191 - The FCA dismissed an appeal wherein Alcon sought to reverse a finding of invalidity against its patent by surreptitiously asking the FCA to reweigh the evidence as a challenge against the Federal Court Judge’s findings of fact and preferred expert evidence.
October 3, 2016

Careful Patent Drafting Saves Novartis’s EXJADE Patent Despite Two Distinct Promises

2016 FCA 230 - The FCA found that the EXJADE patent was drafted so as to make an important distinction between the utilities of the Formula I and Formula II compounds, and thereby held the Formula II claims to a lesser promise, and dismissed Teva’s allegations of inutility.
September 30, 2016

Software and Data Analytics Patents still a Challenge in Canada

PAB 1407 - The PAB rejected the computer-implemented data analytics patent application of Canadian Patent Application No. 2,798,566, entitled “Identified Customer Reporting”, for lack of statutory subject matter, since no physical feature – no computing device – was found to be essential to the claims.
September 6, 2016

Patent Application for Blackjack Variation Rejected as Unpatentable Subject Matter

In Re Smith, (Fed. Cir. 2015-1664) - A patent application for a variation on the blackjack game was rejected as unpatentable after the CAFC applied the two-step test for patentable subject matter from Mayo and Alice.