 
Chen Wins European Inventor of the Year Award 
Spanish Crown Prince Felipe de Bourbon and Princess Letizia with Steven Chen at the 2010 European Inventor Award Ceremony
Haynes and Boone, LLP intellectual property lawyer Steven Chen has won the European Patent Office’s Inventor of the Year Award for his work on powerful chipsets designed to enhance the availability, accuracy and effectiveness of GPS technology.
Mr. Chen and his co-inventor Sanjai Kohli were among 12 total nominees and only three in the Non-European Countries category.
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USPTO Rules on Deposing Non-U.S. Resident Executives in Trademark Proceedings 
Purvi Patel 
David Bell
Trademark attorneys Purvi Patel and David Bell received a ruling from the USPTO clarifying that companies with no U.S. operations cannot easily be forced to travel to the U.S. for oral depositions in a TTAB proceeding.
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May 2010
HP v. Acceleron: Staring up the Patent Infringement Gun Barrel Without Risking Your Company’s Life
Patent Reexamination: Trends for the 2010s  
In the past year, patent reexamination saw yet another rise in filings, with inter partes requests growing to from 168 in 2008 to 258 in 2009. This article highlights statistics showing the continued importance of reexamination, particularly in an overall litigation strategy. Additionally, recent cases are reviewed that may impact future reexaminations and litigations.
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Overview of the Proposed Patent Reform Act of 2010   
Members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee reached bipartisan agreement on patent reform legislation, which is being referred to as the Patent Reform Act of 2010. This article summarizes the main changes to U.S. patent law included in the proposed legislation. Highlights include changes on first-inventor-to-file, inventor’s oath or declaration, damages, post-grant review proceedings, supplemental examination, residency of federal circuit judges, “micro entity” definition, funding agreements, travel expenses test program, best mode requirement, district court pilot program and effective date, and rule of construction.
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Federal Circuit Hints at Future Limits on Patent Damages in i4i v. Microsoft Opinion 
Late last year, the Federal Circuit affirmed a jury award of $200 million in damages for patent infringement against Microsoft. In doing so, the Court provided insight into the proper calculus of damages for patent infringement involving reasonable royalty calculations. Patent litigators should take note, as the questioning at oral argument may provide insight into the best way to prove up or attack a large award for patent infringement damages.
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In Giving Crocs its Patent Bite Back, Has the Federal Circuit Increased the Value of all Design Patents? 
On February 24, 2010, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a 2008 ruling by the International Trade Commission, found that Crocs’ design patent was infringed, and provided a guide for determining design patent infringement under the ordinary observer test.
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Obviousness-Type Double Patenting as an Invalidity Defense  
In case you missed it, there was actually an unstated deadline for filing a terminal disclaimer. To be effective, a terminal disclaimer must be filed before expiration of the patent being disclaimed over. But even a belated terminal disclaimer may not be enough to support an obviousness-type double patenting defense under certain circumstances according to the Federal Circuit. Interestingly, the court need not have addressed terminal disclaimer deadlines at all in view of the ultimate holding that the claims were not invalid for obviousness-type double patenting. In Boehringer Ingelheim Int’l GMBH v. Barr Labs., Inc, the Federal Circuit found a terminal disclaimer filed after expiration of the patent being disclaimed over to be ineffective but decided for other reasons that the claims of the patent in-suit were not invalid for obviousness-type double patenting.
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Reissue Denied for Adding Single Dependent Claim 
Reissue is a limited post-issuance procedure to correct certain types of patent errors. A precedential opinion by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) holds that a reissue application cannot be filed to add a dependent claim “simply as a hedge against possible invalidity of the original claims” because a proper reissue requires the presence of an actual error in the patent.
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