The Biggest Patent Cases of 2015

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued several key decisions which had major implications for patent law going forward. Law360 reached to Finnegan attorney James R. Barney for his thoughts on some of the biggest patent cases of 2015.

In the Williamson v. Citrix Online case, an en banc Federal Circuit adjusted the rules for means-plus-function claims, deciding that patents that don't include the word "means" can now be challenged as indefinite. Barney noted that there are many patents that were written without the word "means" that the owners had assumed could not be challenged as indefinite, but under Williamson, "they could fall into that trap." Regarding the ClearCorrect vs. ITC case, in which the Federal Circuit ruled that the ITC does not have jurisdiction to block the import of infringing digital files, Barney believes that this decision could have a much larger impact than people realize since so much of technology is now digital.