On January 7, 1913, the United States Patent Office issued Patent No. 1,049,667 entitled, “Manufacture of Gasolene” to William Merriam Burton.  The patent disclosed an improved process for the thermal cracking of crude oil. Thermal cracking is the process by which crude oil’s long molecules are separated by distillation into smaller more volatile hydrocarbons. The […]

On December 11, 2019, writing for a unanimous Court Judge Sotomayor ruled that the language in Section 145 of the Patent Act, 35 U.S. Code § 145, that provides that the prevailing party is entitled to “all expenses of the proceedings” does not authorize reimbursement of the PTO’s attorneys’ fees. Peters v. NantKwest, 589 U. S. […]

Today powerful computers perform computationally intensive processes similar to the cognitive functions we associate with the human mind, such as learning and problem solving. This is sometimes referred to as Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). As AI plays an ever increasing role in the development of potentially patentable inventions questions of inventorship and novelty arise. In August […]

On September 12th, in a case of first impression, a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit ruled unanimously that the scope of a design patent can be determined by its title alone, where the figures do not depict an article of manufacture. In Curver Luxembourg, Sarl v. Home Expressions Inc., Curver filed for a design […]