Mosaic ImmunoEngineering Inc (CPMV)

[ehwest]

Overturning Judges

In its Supreme Court appeal, Teva argued that the Federal Circuit, which specializes in patent cases, should have deferred to a trial judge’s reading of the patent.

The Federal Circuit’s longstanding approach is to review patents without giving any weight to the trial judge’s interpretation. In February, a divided 6-4 court affirmed that policy in another case, which may have led to the high court taking this case, said David Long, a patent lawyer with Kelley Drye in Washington.

The definition of a term or phrase in a patent is key to all that follows in a case, be it legal arguments over its validity or presentation to a jury of what the patent covers. The appeals court overturns patent interpretations by trial judges 32 percent of the time, according to a study published in September by American University Professor J. Jonas Anderson and University of California at Berkeley Professor Peter Mennell.