Last week, the Federal Circuit decided that claims related to a method of fishing that involved evaluating the water to be fished were not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. It is a bit of a head scratcher as to why this opinion is deemed precedential — the eligibility analysis employed here under the Alice/Mayo

Stephanie D. Scruggs
Stephanie Scruggs is an experienced intellectual property attorney primarily focused on complicated patent disputes. Stephanie defends and enforces the IP rights of both U.S. and foreign-based clients in a wide range of industries, including the chemical, biochemical, pharmaceutical, electrical and mechanical fields.
M.S., Chemical Engineering
Patent Registration Number: 54,432
Yet Another Pharmaceutical Patent Falls Under the Scrutiny of 35 U.S.C. § 112
Last week, the Federal Circuit confirmed that Idenix Pharmaceuticals will not be the proud recipient of what was previously regarded as the largest damages award ever recorded in a U.S.
patent case. In fact, the majority’s opinion in Idenix Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Gilead Sciences Inc. not only affirmed the district court’s grant of judgment as…
The Risk of Using “Consisting Essentially of” in Patent Claims
The legal meaning of the transition language “consisting essentially of” is well-established in Federal Circuit case law and is generally construed to mean that the composition or formulation (a) necessarily includes the listed ingredients and (b) is open to unlisted ingredients that do not materially affect the basic and novel properties of the composition. Similarly,…