Supreme Court Long Conference: Patent and Trademark Cases from September 29, 2025
Briefly

Supreme Court Long Conference: Patent and Trademark Cases from September 29, 2025
"Novartis's patent for Entresto (a blockbuster heart failure drug generating over $3 billion annually) claimed a combination of valsartan and sacubitril, but the actual commercial product uses a form discovered four years after the patent filing that was not particularly described in the original specification. The Federal Circuit held that later-discovered technology cannot invalidate patents, creating some tension with precedents like The Incandescent Lamp Patent, 159 U.S. 465 (1895),"
"These cases questions whether the PTAB has constitutional authority under Article III and the public rights doctrine to conduct inter partes review proceedings on patents that expired before the IPR petition was filed. Gesture Technology's camera-based sensing patents expired in 2020, but Apple filed an IPR petition in May 2021, and the PTAB subsequently invalidated the claims, extinguishing Gesture's ability to collect damages for past infringement."
The Court may address whether after-arising technology can be considered when evaluating patent validity under 35 U.S.C. §112(a)'s written description and enablement requirements. Novartis's Entresto patent claimed a valsartan-plus-sacubitril combination while the commercial product uses a form discovered four years after filing that the specification did not particularly describe. The Federal Circuit ruled later-discovered technology cannot invalidate patents, creating tension with precedents requiring enablement of a claim's full scope. The Court may also determine whether the PTAB has constitutional authority to conduct inter partes review of patents that expired before the IPR petition was filed.
Read at Patently-O
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