The Impact of Teva Pharmaceuticals on Patent Claim Construction
When patent owners seek to enforce their rights in court, a critical question is often the scope of the patent. Defining the boundaries of a patent is called patent claim construction and it is central to the operation of the patent system. It guides both infringement and validity analysis. In January 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision clarifying the rules to be followed by federal courts when constructing patent claims. The case is Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Sandoz. BCLT Faculty Director Peter Menell co-authored an amicus brief (with Professor Jonas Anderson, a former BCLT Fellow, and Professor Arti Rai) cited by the Supreme Court. On February 27, 2015, Professor Menell participated in a webinar for federal jurists and their clerks by the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) exploring the background and significance of the Court’s decision. On this page, we collect a series of resources, including the FJC webinar, about the Teva decision.
Resources
- Federal Judicial Center webinar, Feb. 27, 2015
- Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Sandoz, Supreme Court opinion
- Jonas Anderson & Peter S. Menell, Restoring the Fact/Law Distinction in Patent Claim Construction (forthcoming Northwestern Univ. L. Rev. online) (commentary about the Teva decision)
- Peter S. Menell, Jonas Anderson, & Arti K. Rai, Taming the Mongrel: Aligning Appellate Review of Claim Construction with its Evidentiary Character in Teva v. Sandoz (amicus brief submitted in Teva Pharmaceuticals)
- Jonas Anderson & Peter S. Menell, Informal Deference: A Historical, Empirical, and Normative Analysis of Patent Claim Construction, 108 Northwestern Univ. L. Rev. 1 (2014)
- Peter S. Menell, Reconsidering Cybor: A Hybrid Standard of Appellate Review of Patent Claim Construction Rulings, (amicus brief submitted in the Federal Circuit’s en banc Lighting Ballast case)