Intellectual Property (CLE)

Inventions involving artificial intelligence (AI) continue to face several issues on patentability as it does not qualify as the inventor in US patent applications. The amendment to Section 256 of the America Invents Act removed the deceptive intent requirement while still allowing the correction of inventorship. Although this could resolve incorrect inventorship, patentees may not always agree to adjustments and dispute a claim instead. Thus, posing a myriad of issues on invalidation and unenforceability of patent applications for AI-related inventions.

In just a few short years, the IP landscape in Asia has shifted dramatically, and nowhere more than in IP monetization.

In today’s highly competitive work environment, trade secrets are the lifeblood of a business. As more and more companies move to hybrid and remote work structures, the risk of misappropriation magnifies. This underscores the need for businesses to level up their trade secret protection and create sophisticated confidentiality controls without stifling collaborative workspaces.

Today, the proliferation of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) is significantly changing the business landscape.

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology patents have increased aggressively in recent years. Consequently, this upward trend has posed a greater risk for the U.S. pharma patents. Political and economic troubles such as claims of patent evergreening abuse have also added complexity on existing challenges.

The US Patent & Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Inter Partes Reviews (IPR) and Post-Grant Reviews (PGR) proceedings continue to provide patent challengers with a faster and cheaper way to invalidate patents. Thus, patent challengers have made USPTO a forum of choice in disputing patent enforceability and validity.

Since the beginning of 2019, the number of biosimilar litigation - particularly those concerning the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) “patent dance” - has drastically increased. One of the notable BCPIA cases that are being closely watched, is Amgen’s legal battle with Novartis’ Sandoz arm over the Enbrel patent, in which the former intends to hold commercial exclusivity for Enbrel until 2029. The legal precedents established in this dispute are expected to impact the biosimilar market as well as the pending and future biosimilar patent lawsuits.

Also known as claim construction hearing, the Markman hearing is a significant proceeding in a patent infringement case. Getting it right is crucial to the success of a case.

As the world develops and distributes safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19, the pharmaceutical industry is confronted with additional trade secrets protection challenges. Issues include the increased the burdens of protecting their assets, the immense level of R&D, the substantial impact of remote work, and COVID-related legal restrictions. Pharmaceutical companies must implement effective trade secrets protection strategies to manage threats amidst this crisis.

In the U.S. and Canada, courts have designed the doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) to prevent inventors from gaining an unjust extension of their patent rights by obtaining patent on the obvious variants of an invention.