Federal Circuit Appeals from the PTAB and ITC: Summaries of Key 2022 Decisions

As part of the recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took steps to return to normal operations. It began requiring live oral arguments in August 2022 and, by November, members of the public could attend.

Turning to the statistics, the number of appeals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) stayed relatively the same as in 2021. The spike in appeals from the Court of Federal Claims that appeared last year has disappeared, with the number now returned to historical levels. The number of appeals from district court also rebounded to the 2020 level. Pendency for Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) appeals increased in 2022 to the highest ever, at more than 16 months.

Download the full report by clicking the Download PDF button or view the individual articles by clicking on the titles below in the Table of Contents.

View Sterne Kessler’s 2022 Federal Circuit year-in review-webinar on demand here.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Data and Trends: AIA PTAB Appeals to the Federal Circuit (Infographics)
• Kyocera Senco Indus. Tools v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 22 F.4th 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Moore, Dyk, Cunningham)
• DBN Holding v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 26 F.4th 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Moore, Newman, Reyna)
• Thaler v. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Moore, Taranto, Stark)
• Tiger Lily Ventures Ltd. v. Barclays Capital Inc., 35 F.4th 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Lourie, Bryson, Prost)
• California Institute of Technology v. Broadcom Ltd., 25 F.4th 976 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Lourie, Linn, Dyk (concurring-in-part and dissenting-in-part))
• Intuitive Surgical, Inc. v. Ethicon LLC, 25 F.4th 1035 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (O’Malley, Clevenger, Stoll)
• Nippon Shinyaku Co. v. Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc., 25 F.4th 998 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Newman, Lourie, Stoll)
• Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 35 F.4th 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Moore, Reyna, Chen)
• Atlanta Gas Light Co. v. Bennett Regulator Guards, 33 F.4th 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Newman (dissenting), Lourie, and Stoll)
• Best Medical Int’l, Inc. v. Elekta Inc., 46 F.4th 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Hughes, Linn, and Stoll)
• Intel Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 21 F.4th 801 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (Prost, Taranto, Hughes)
• Hunting Titan, Inc. v. DynaEnergetics Europe GmbH, 28 F.4th 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Prost (concurring), Reyna, Hughes)
• In re McDonald, 43 F.4th 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Newman, Stoll, Cunningham)
• Almirall, LLC v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, 28 F.4th 265 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Lourie, Chen, Cunningham)
• Polaris Innovations Ltd. v. Brent, 48 F.4th 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Prost, Chen, Stoll)
• Google LLC v. IPA Technologies Inc., 34 F.4th 1081 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (Dyk, Schall, Taranto)