Recent IP Law Highlights

The course of IP law took convoluted turns in 2019, as many of the biggest cases involved issues outside the boundaries of traditional IP law. Both the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit grappled with cases involving constitutional law, sovereign immunity and administrative law, explain Finnegan attorneys in this Today’s General Counsel article. The writers examine four cases in particular. One of them, AVX Corporation v. Presidio Components Inc., dealt with the issue of standing per Article III, as applied in a case on appeal from an inter partes review decision. The petitioner in this case lost its appeal, as the Federal Circuit held that “competitor standing” does not necessarily provide Article III standing. In another case, Regents of the University of Minnesota v. LSI Corporation, the Federal Circuit rejected the University’s claim that the doctrine of sovereign immunity shielded it from inter partes review.