Session 1: Year in Review: Federal Circuit and SCOTUS Update - A whirlwind summary of the most important developments in Supreme Court and Federal Circuit case law over the last year.

Session 2: The Appointments Clause, Severability, and Forfeiture in Arthrex - The Federal Circuit’s decision in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 941 F.3d 1320 (2019), purported to save the power of the USPTO’s administrative patent judges to conduct inter partes review by abrogating for-cause removal protection for those judges. This presentation examines the Appointments Clause concerns that motivated that abrogation, whether severing the for-cause removal protection was a proper response, and whether the Appointments Clause challenge should have been considered forfeit as not raised before the USPTO.

Session 3: Recent Developments in Claim Construction - The baseline of patent application preparation/prosecution, district court trials, Federal Circuit appeals, and AIA post-grant review proceedings, is claim construction. Review the important 2019-2020 claim construction cases and issues at the Federal Circuit and trial court levels, as well as at the PTAB. Examine the PTAB’s procedural and substantive claim construction “rules, practices, and etc." And discuss adherence to the APA by the PTAB under various circumstances, plus rule and practice changes to mandate PTAB consideration of claim constructions from other proceedings.

Session 4: Judicial Panel - Hear distinguished judges from the District Courts discuss their experiences hearing and trying patent cases.

Includes: Video Audio Paper Slides No Materials