On February 23, 2018, in In re Silver, the Supreme Court of Texas conditionally granted mandamus relief and vacated the trial court’s order compelling production of emails between an inventor and his non-lawyer registered patent agent. In re Silver, Case No. 16-0682, 2018 WL 1022470 (Tex. February 23, 2018). The court held that a client’s communications with a patent agent, made to facilitate the agent’s provision of authorized legal services to the client, are privileged under Texas Rule of Evidence 503 (attorney-client privilege). The ruling marked the first time a state high court weighed in on the issue.
patent litigation
Federal Circuit “Blue Coat” Decision: Virus-Scanning Software Survives Alice Attack Applying “Enfish”
On January 10, 2018, the Federal Circuit added Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Sys., Inc., No. 2016-2520 (Fed. Cir.), to its Enfish jurisprudence and upheld the subject matter eligibility of a software patent directed to virus-scanning downloadable app code for known and suspected malware. As construed, the invention claims novel behavioral-based analysis of source code to identify; detection of potentially dangerous files results in creation of a new file attached to the app code which is then evaluated by the destination computer to determine whether to allow the app to be downloaded.
Partner Edward Manzo’s Book Cited By The Supreme Court
In a unanimous opinion today by the U.S. Supreme Court in Nautilus Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., Justice Ginsburg cited and quoted from Patent Claim Construction in the Federal Circuit, 2014 edition. Edward Manzo’s 1100-page book presents a comprehensive treatment of case law of the Federal Circuit on how courts should interpret the claims of the patent.
Patent Claim Construction in the Federal Circuit
The 2014 edition of Edward Manzo’s book, Patent Claim Construction in the Federal Circuit, was released April 30. The reference collects caselaw dealing with every aspect of patent claim construction by the Federal Circuit.