Book Description

Succinct and timely, Patent Law, Sixth Edition demystifies its subject as it explores and explains important cases, judicial authorities, statutes, and policy. Approachably written for law students, attorneys, inventors, and laypersons alike, this text stands on its own and may be used alongside any patent or IP casebook to support more in-depth study of patent law. New to the Sixth Edition: Coverage of the Supreme Court’s ongoing, intensive scrutiny of the America Invents Act (AIA), the most significant change to U.S. patent law in 70 years, including: Helsinn (definition of prior art under the AIA) Cuozzo (non-reviewability of institution decisions) Oil States (Constitutionality of AIA) SAS Institute (rejecting partial institution) Return Mail (federal government not a “person” entitled to post-grant review) Dex Media (cert. granted, reviewability of Board’s time-bar decisions) The burgeoning landscape of patent-eligibility jurisprudence under 35 U.S.C. §101, including Federal Circuit decisions in: Vanda, Cleveland Clinic, Genetic Techs., Endo, Athena Diagnostics (laws of nature) Enfish; Thales Visionix (abstract ideas) Berkheimer, Aatrix, Cellspin (role of fact questions in the Mayo/Alice Step Two “inventiveness” inquiry) Disparate viewpoints for analyzing the bedrock requirement of nonobviousness, including the Federal Circuit’s first en banc obviousness decision in thirty years: Apple v. Samsung The continued vitality of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, as illustrated in a spate of Federal Circuit decisions including: Lilly v. Hospira Supreme Court decisions examining patent infringement remedies, including: WesternGeco (offshore lost profits) NantKwest (cert. granted, attorney fee-shifting in §145 civil actions) Supreme Court decisions cabining long-standing defenses to patent infringement, including: Impression Products (patent exhaustion) SCA Hygiene (laches and equitable estoppel) Professors and students will benefit from: Thorough coverage and clear writing that clarifies principal legal doctrines, key judicial authorities, governing statutes, and policy considerations for obtaining, enforcing, and challenging a U.S. patent In-depth treatment and comparison of pre- and post-America Invents Act regimes for novelty and prior art with numerous hypotheticals Timely statistics on patent trends Succinct analysis of multi-national patent protection regimes Helpful visual aids, such as figures, tables, and timelines A sample patent and breakdown of a prosecution history Boldfaced key terms and a convenient Glossary