July 24, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC - On July 22, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found in favor of Finnegan client DuPont, affirming a district court’s grant of JMOL that plaintiff Novozymes’s patent failed to comply with the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112 and was thus invalid as a matter of law. Novozymes filed a patent application that disclosed vast numbers of prophetic alpha-amylase proteins without any guidance pointing to which of the proteins actually had advantageous properties. Then, some ten years later, in a continuation application, Novozymes claimed a very particular protein with certain properties that was not in any way highlighted in the original application. The Federal Circuit held that the original application did not describe the variants later claimed in the issued patent, noting in its decision that a patent “is not a reward for the search, but compensation for its successful conclusion.”
With more than 375 intellectual property lawyers, Finnegan is one of the largest IP law firms in the world. From offices in Washington, DC; Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Palo Alto, California; Reston, Virginia; Brussels, Belgium; Shanghai, China; Taipei, Taiwan; and Tokyo, Japan, the firm practices all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law, including counseling, prosecution, licensing, and litigation. Finnegan also represents clients on IP issues related to international trade, portfolio management, the Internet, e-commerce, government contracts, antitrust, and unfair competition. For additional information on the firm, please visit www.finnegan.com.
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