On Tuesday, May 5, 2021, the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai released an unprecedented statement supporting a “Covid-19 TRIPS Waiver.” Specifically, Ambassador Tai stated “[t]he Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines. We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen.”
The stock market was unimpressed.
To quote the Talking Heads: “And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?’ Continue Reading
In patent disputes involving complex technologies, especially when the disputed patent was developed in an early stage of the technical field, research papers and similar publications are oftentimes relied on to make obviousness-based invalidity challenges. It is common for such research papers to include predictions or aspirations with regards to potential future developments in the field. These aspirational statements are routinely relied upon to support motivations to combine prior art and assertions that the direction of advancement predicted by these statements renders a patent’s claimed invention obvious.
The ASA has issued a stark warning to advertisers: non-compliance with ASA rules on disclosures in advertising is rife and that is unacceptable. The regulator now plans to get tough with those in breach.
Patent protection in Europe is regulated by a complex system. In addition to the “classic” national patents, there is a transition to a new Unitary Patent system, which has been in planning for almost a decade now and is expected to finally enter into force in Spring 2022. It will consist of the European Unitary Patent and a E(UPC). The Unitary Patent grants EU-wide protection through a single registration and allows for EU-wide injunctions. During the transition period there are many options to consider, such as the possibility to opt-out of the system. The proceedings under the UPC Agreement will face new possibilities with regard to, for instance, jurisdiction, language, and costs. Our dedicated UPC team is ready to advise in this area. Our team includes litigators with extensive experience in patent litigation, both locally and in cross-border situations. They have evaluated current possibilities for clients during the transition period and assessed the options on future patent applications and infringement actions. The UPC team has already summarized our most frequently asked questions on these topics, including strategies to 
One of the most common responses to being sued for patent infringement is a petition to the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenging the validity of the patent. To avoid duplication of effort, either the Board or the tribunal can defer to the other. According to a recent decision, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will not defer to the PTAB in such situations. In Certain Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems, Robots, and Components thereof (337-TA-1228), Judge Lord emphatically confirmed that in order to conclude its investigations “at the earliest practicable time,” the ITC should not stay a Section 337 investigation in view of an Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) proceeding at the PTAB, even where this might deprive an accused infringer of the opportunity to have the PTAB review an asserted patent prior to the issuance of an Exclusion Order. 
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is an administrative law body of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) that determines disputes over the issuance, reissuance, and cancellation of patent claims. The PTAB has become well known to patent litigants since the implementation in 2012 of new proceedings, including Inter Partes Review (IPR), for challenging the patentability of issued patent claims. 
In 2020, the PTAB increasingly denied otherwise meritorious petitions for review under its discretionary authority, as my partner Steve Auvil and I recently 