Neapco’s Brief in Opposition to AA’s Petition for Cert.

On March 31, 2021, Neapco Holdings LLC filed its Brief in Opposition to American Axle’s Petition for Cert. If you need a refresher on the proceedings to date, please read (or re-read) the analyses I posted on Jan. 11, 2021 and on August 3, 10, 11 and 14 of 2021. The claims on appeal recite a method for manufacturing a shaft assembly of a driveline system by providing a hollow shaft member [the driveshaft, as for a car or truck], tuning a mass and a stiffness of at least one liner; and inserting the … liner into the shaft member; wherein the … liner is a tuned resistive absorber to attenuating shell mode vibrations and wherein the … line is a tuned reactive absorber for attenuating bending mode vibrations.

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Biden’s Nominee to the Fed. Cir. is Perkins Coie Litigator

Tiffany P. Cunningham is a partner in the patent litigation practice of Perkins Coie. Importantly, she has a degree in Chemical Engineering from M.I.T. before receiving her J.D. from Harvard. The Court is in need of a judge that is familiar with STEM issues, particularly in life sciences technology. Judges Lourie and Newman are not young anymore, leaving Judges Moore, Stoll and Chen as the only “young” judges with technical degrees (They are EE’s). Judge Prost holds a B.S. from Cornell but I can’t determine her major.

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In re: Board of Trustees of Stanford: “Big Data” Personalized Medicine is an Abstract Idea

In re: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, Appeal no. 2020-1012 (Federal Circuit, March 11, 2021) a three judge panel of Prost, Lurie and Reyna affirmed the ruling by the Board of Appeals that the claims of U. S. Serial No. 13/445,925 are patent ineligible, as directed to an abstract idea with no further inventive step. I tend to think of Judges Reyna and Prost as being in favor of a broad interpretation of the Mayo/Alice test and Judge Lourie as being less happy with the test but bound to apply it. However in American Axle, Lourie and Chen voted to rehear the appeal en banc while Judge Prost voted not to. Here, Judge Reyna wrote for the panel.

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Announcing “Mueller on Patent Law” from Fastcase

Guest post from Chisum Patent Academy:

The Chisum Patent Academy is pleased to announce the January 2021 publication of the two-volume practitioner treatise, Mueller on Patent Law, in print and electronic formats. The treatise is authored by our co-founder, Janice M. Mueller, and updated annually. A comprehensive yet accessible two-volume work, this well-organized resource provides concise and timely access to U.S. patent law in the twenty-first century. Rather than a historical encyclopedia, Mueller’s treatise is a carefully curated guide to understanding the current state of patent law and how it has developed during the Federal Circuit’s tenure.

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