The Twist? No Access, No Infringement
Gregorini v. Apple, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-00406-SSS-JC, 2024 WL 5264949 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 25, 2024)
For a plaintiff to allege copyright infringement, they must prove two elements: (1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) the defendant wrongfully copied from the plaintiff’s valid copyright. To establish the second element, the plaintiff must show both that the alleged infringer actually copied the copyrighted work and that they copied a sufficiently significant amount of copyrighted material from the plaintiff’s work so that the parties’ works are substantially similar. Because both sub-parts must be proven, failure to establish either actual copying or substantial similarity is fatal to a copyright infringement claim.
Steuben Foods’ RDOE Argument: Compelling, But Not Compelling Enough
Steuben Foods, Inc. v. Shibuya Hoppmann Corp., 127 F.4th 348 (Fed. Cir. 2025)
In a recent decision, the Federal Circuit in Steuben Foods, Inc. v. Shibuya Hoppmann Corp. left the application of the reverse doctrine of equivalents hanging on by a thread. While the CAFC found Steuben’s RDOE arguments compelling, it ultimately held that resolving the RDOE issue was not necessary to determine that the district court’s judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of noninfringement was improper.
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The Secret is Out: CAFC Declares Patent Applications as Prior Art Before Publication in Lynk Labs
Lynk Labs, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 2023-2346, 2025 WL 85559 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 14, 2025)
In Lynk Labs, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that found that a patent application filed before the priority date of Lynk Lab’s patent—but published after—could serve as prior art in an inter partes review (IPR).
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I Say Yes, You Say No: PTAB Articulates Different Standards for Determining Whether a Printed Publication Was Publicly Available
Ex parte Grillo-Lopez, Appeal No. 2018-006082 (Jan. 31, 2020)
On April 7, 2020, the PTAB designated its January decision in Ex parte Grillo-Lopez (“the Decision”) as precedential. In the Decision, the Board held that patent examination and IPR proceedings have different standards for establishing a prior art printed publication, with the petitioner in an IPR facing a higher burden of showing that a reference was publicly accessible. Having been designated as precedential, the Decision is now binding authority in all USPTO ex parte proceedings. Continue reading…
PTAB Determines That Medical Journal Article Qualifies as a Publicly Available Printed Publication
Grunenthal GmbH v. Antecip Bioventures II LLC, PGR2018-00092 (Feb. 25, 2020)
In a recent decision invalidating certain claims of a pain treatment patent, the PTAB held that a 2012 article published in the scientific journal Rheumatology was a publicly available printed publication that qualified as prior art.