Patent Month In Review: March 2017

No Laches in Patent Infringement Cases
The Supreme Court addressed the distinction between laches and statutes of limitations in patent cases. Its 7-1 SCA Hygeine Products AKT vs. First Quality Products, LLC (S. Ct. 2017) considered whether laches could be used as a defense by defendant First Quality when 7 years had passed from when it first received notice of potential infringement in 2003 and the date that SCA filed an infringement complaint in 2010.  Considering the Congress-passed statute for damages recovery in 35 USC 286 and the laches defense, the Court followed its 2014 Petrella decision in a similar case under copyright law, “Laches is a gap-filling doctrine, and where there is a statute of limitations, there is no gap to fill.”
Eligibility: Get Technical or Get Denied
Dennis Crouch summarized a nonprecendential opinion well with the above maxim to apply to subject matter eligibility questions. The Federal Circuit’s conclusion provides some guidance for future applicants and practitioners, “In contrast to Diehr, claim 1 recites a method that changes the way electronic information is displayed via an unknown and unclaimed process. Absent any limitation to how the data are changed, there is little, if any, transformative effect.[1] Data are still data.” According to the court, the patent failed to show an inventive “technical manner” in which “data is gathered, analyzed, or output.”
[1] The machine or transformation test lives. See Older Supreme Court Cases Provide Guidance for Determining Patentable Subject Matter Post Alice
Assignment of Patent Alone May Not Extend to Child Applications
The Federal Circuit held that a party that had been assigned a parent patent lacked standing to sue for child patents issued from the parent patent. The assignment in question did not assign rights related to continuations, technical know how, or general IP rights.