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This week in Other Barks & Bites: the House of Representatives approves a bill by voice vote which would enable the sale of acceleration certificates for patent applications in the Patents for Humanity Program

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) yesterday affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that certain claims of Nike, Inc.’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,814,598 and 8,266,749 are not unpatentable as obvious.

On June 23, the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund celebrated 40 years of the Bayh-Dole act with a virtual briefing, titled: “The Bayh-Dole Act at 40 Years: How the ‘Most Inspired Piece of Legislation’ of a Half-Century Has Turned American Basic Research Discoveries into Products, Startups and Economic Growth.”

I’ve recently hosted two webinars on patent classification, taking a look at how contractors for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) determine where to route each patent application within the Office after filing.

On June 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Seed Co. Ltd. v. Westerman, Hattori, Daniels & Adrian, LLP in a legal malpractice case resulting from the failure of lawyers from two different law firms, Westerman, Hattori, Daniels & ...

Recently, the USPTO published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to change the “Trial Practice at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board,” which is contained in Part 42 of Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

On June 1, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that the agency was establishing a public docket for the receipt of public comments regarding the types of patent information published in the FDA’s Orange Book, a collection of FDA-approved drugs and their therapeutic equivalents designed to improve competition from generic drugmakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be coming to a slow but steady close in Europe, with no evidence of a spike despite loosening of lockdowns, at least according to outlets like the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

On June 9, the full Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “COVID-19 Fraud: Law Enforcement’s Response to Those Exploiting the Pandemic.”

This week in Washington IP events, the Senate Financial Services Subcommittee focuses on Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction oversight while the House Transportation Committee marks up a major transportation bill that would heavily impact research and development in that sector.