- Eli Lilly And Company v. Teva Pharmaceuticals International GmbHNo claims unpatentablePTAB · Mar 31, 2020 · IPR2018-01711 · APJ James A Worth · IPR · Final written decision
The Board held claims 1–18 of the ’907 patent not unpatentable over Olesen, Tan, and Queen under §103, finding Lilly had not met its burden.
RulingsFinal written decision- Skill levelSkill level board ownOther
“appreciable difference in the parties’ respective definitions of a person of ordinary skill in the art. Inst. Dec. 8. Accordingly, we determined for purposes of our Institution Decision that a person of ordinary skill in the art” slip op. at 13
- Claim Construction › Threshold & procedure › Whether a term needs construction (O2 Micro)Term construed board ownOther
“2. “effective amount” The term “effective amount” is recited in all of the independent” slip op. at 18
- Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successMotivation not foundNot shown unpatentable
“Reply. In fact, Petitioner argues that “[t]he prior art expressly recognized the downside of treating migraine patients with CGRP inhibitors having a short half-life,” citing to a report that CGRP8-37 (a peptide fragment of CGRP) “‘proved ineffective in migraine treatment’ due to ‘its low potency and short half-life.’” Pet. 31 (citing Ex. 1031, 323; Ex. 1014 ¶ 124) (emphasis by Petitioner). Accordingly, we find that Petitioner has not sufficiently established that a POSA would have been motivated to humanize an anti-CGRP antibody fragment.” slip op. at 93
- ExcludeMotion to exclude, grantedMotion to exclude, deniedGranted in part
“the cross-examination of Dr. Ferrari as beyond the scope of Dr. Ferrari’s direct testimony. Mot. Excl. 9. Upon review of the Ferrari Declaration, Exhibit 2268, we agree that questions on cyclic AMP were beyond the scope of the Ferrari Declaration. Accordingly, we grant this aspect of the motion.” slip op. at 159
Patent outcomesUS 9,884,907 not shown unpatentableClaim construction§ 103 obviousnesscites KSR · GrahamPatents in suitUS 9,884,907 - Guardant Health, Inc. v. Foundation Medicine, Inc.Rehearing deniedPTAB · Nov 8, 2017 · IPR2017-01170 · APJ Richard J Smith · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Patent Owner’s rehearing request, leaving instituted review of claims 65, 66, 72, 73, 75–77, and 80–85 based on its reasonable-likelihood determination.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“DISCUSSION When rehearing a decision on petition, the Board reviews the decision for an abuse of discretion. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). An abuse of discretion occurs when a “decision was based on an erroneous conclusion of law or clearly erroneous factual findings, or . . . a clear error of judgment.” PPG Indus. Inc. v. Celanese Polymer Specialties Co., 840 F.2d 1565, 1567 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (citations omitted). A request for rehearing “must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where each matter was previously addressed.” 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d).” slip op. at 2
- Claim Construction › Intrinsic evidence (Phillips canons) › Lexicography (patentee as own lexicographer)Term construed board ownDecided for petitioner
“According to the ’830 patent, the term “bait” is defined as including “a nucleic acid molecule . . . which can hybridize to (e.g., be complementary to), and thereby allow capture of a target nucleic acid.” Ex. 1001, 28:47–50. Patent Owner acknowledges that “both primers and baits hybridize to a complementary portion of the target nucleic acid.” Req. Reh’g. 3 (citing Prelim. Resp. 30). However, Patent Owner does not explain or otherwise persuasively address why the subject nucleic acids in Shah are not included within that definition of “bait.” We did not overlook Patent Owner’s explanation of why, in its view, “primers” are not “baits.” Rather, at this stage of the proceeding, we found such explanation unpersuasive as we stated in the Decision. Dec. 13. (stating “we are not persuaded that the definition of the term ‘bait,’ as set forth in the ’830 patent, does not include primers”). Moreover, because we did not overlook Patent Owner’s explanation, we find no basis to reconsider the disclosures of Shah.” slip op. at 4
- Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successDecided for petitioner
“We did not overlook and/or misapprehend Patent Owner’s argument. We expressly addressed that argument with respect to bait sets (i) and (ii) by stating that “we find that choosing bait sets that select somatic mutations that appear at a frequency of about 5% or less and at a frequency of about 10% or higher is taught or suggested by the combined teachings of Levin and Shah.” Dec. 17 (emphasis added); see also Dec. 20 (“Having considered the arguments and evidence, we are persuaded at this stage of the proceeding that Petitioner has sufficiently shown that the limitations of claim 65 are taught or suggested by, or would have been obvious in view of, the combined teachings of Levin and Shah.”). Moreover, contrary to Patent Owner’s argument, the fact that the Decision may not recite the words “used together” does not indicate that we overlooked and/or misapprehended Patent Owner’s argument. See Novartis AG v. Torrent Pharms. Ltd., 853 F.3d 1316, 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (stating “this court has said on multiple occasions that failure to explicitly discuss every issue or every piece of evidence does not alone establish that the tribunal did not consider it”) (citing cases).” slip op. at 5
- Obviousness (§103) › Graham factors (scope of art, differences, level of skill)Decided for petitioner
“We did not overlook and/or misapprehend Patent Owner’s argument; rather, we considered it and found it unpersuasive. See Dec. 13 (stating “on this record, we find that Levin’s disclosure of multiple baits would include multiple bait sets”). In particular, we found that Levin teaches the use of multiple bait sets, not one bait set as argued by Patent Owner. See id. Furthermore, Patent Owner’s argument that all of the baits in Levin were “designed in precisely the same way” was based on Levin’s statement that “[b]aits were designed in a tiling fashion with minimal overlap to span the entire protein-coding region of each transcript.” See Prelim. Resp. 28 (citing Ex. 1010, 2). However, that statement suggests the design of multiple different baits that would include multiple different bait sets.” slip op. at 6
Claim construction§ 103 obviousnessPatents in suitUS 9,340,830
Holdings, summaries, rulings, issues, outcomes, winners and claim constructions shown for a decision were generated by a large language model reading the opinion. They are a guide to the decision, not the decision. Confirm every one against the court's own text before relying on it. Outcomes read from the patent owner’s side. Party names are extracted from the decision and are missing on about 900 short Director denials and scans, which carry the trial number instead.