Pivotal Patent Decisions of Late 2024 and Their IP Strategy Fallout

82 questions on pivotal patent decisions of late 2024 and their IP strategy fallout, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Has any institution rescued patent eligibility from the Alice/Mayo stalemate?
• How can waiting nine months to file an IPR be fatal?
• How did Allergan v. MSN Laboratories limit Cellect?
• How did the dispute in LKQ v. GM arise?
• How does functionality limit design-patent protection?
• How does IPR strategy differ for challengers and patent owners?
• How does LKQ change an obviousness challenge to a chair design in practice?
• How does LKQ change design-patent valuation and licensing?
• How does USPTO guidance shape patent practice even though courts are not bound by it?
• How does written description reinforce enablement?
• How do obviousness-type double patenting and patent term adjustment collide?
• How has discretionary-denial policy swung since 2020?
• How is design-patent infringement judged?
• How must the specification work harder after Amgen?
• How should a patentee build the apportionment story before suit?
• How should applicants draft for the technical-improvement narrative?
• How should partial-design claiming be weighed against the § 289 recovery?
• How would an over-broad enzyme claim fare under Amgen?
• Is the LKQ trajectory settled or still moving?
• What are the Fintiv factors?
• What are the seven currents that were reworking patent strategy out of 2024?
• What are the two forms of utility-patent damages?
• What broader lesson does the CRISPR inventorship dispute carry?
• What contradiction made the Rosen-Durling test unstable?
• What did Amgen claim, and why did Sanofi call it an over-claim?
• What did Apple v. Omni Medsci raise about PTAB reply arguments?
• What did Samsung v. Apple decide about the "article of manufacture"?
• What did the en banc Federal Circuit hold in LKQ Corp. v. GM?
• What did the REGENXBIO appeal test about engineered cells?
• What did the Supreme Court hold in Amgen v. Sanofi?
• What did the USPTO's 2024 AI guidance address?
• What discretionary doctrines besides Fintiv can defeat an IPR petition?
• What does Alnylam v. Moderna illustrate about claim construction?
• What does the withdrawn terminal-disclaimer rulemaking teach?
• What earlier case law and USPTO practice does Amgen build on?
• What happened after LKQ was decided?
• What is a claim ladder, and why is it the durable fix?
• What is a design patent, and how does its claim work?
• What is apportionment, and why does it dominate modern damages law?
• What is a Sotera stipulation, and why does it matter?
• What is inter partes review, and why is it powerful for challengers?
• What is patent eligibility under § 101, and what are the three judicial exceptions?
• What is § 1498 immunity, and why does Arlton v. AeroVironment matter to contractors?
• What is the accused infringer's damages playbook?
• What is the Alice/Mayo two-step?
• What is the combined risk profile created by LKQ and § 289?
• What is the core portfolio playbook for this more demanding era?
• What is the enablement requirement, and what is its test?
• What is the product-of-nature doctrine, and where is its line drawn?
• What is the through-line of the 2024 watch list?
• What is the two-track defense to a design-patent assertion?
• What makes 35 U.S.C. § 289 so unusual a remedy?
• What must a design-patent owner now prove to defend against obviousness?
• What should design-patent owners and prosecutors do differently after LKQ?
• What signal did the en banc EcoFactor proceedings send?
• What single direction unites the 2024 patent developments?
• What structural question does Micron v. Longhorn IP raise about state anti-trolling laws?
• What technical question did Merck v. Aurobindo raise about reissued patents?
• What tools do courts use to enforce apportionment?
• What two limits on Amgen are routinely overstated?
• What was at issue in Vidal v. Elster?
• What was at stake in the Cellect certiorari petition?
• What was at stake in United Therapeutics v. Liquidia?
• What was the rationale for Fintiv, and what did critics say?
• What was the Rosen-Durling test, and why was it so favorable to design-patent owners?
• When is a trade secret the better instrument than a patent?
• Why audit an existing portfolio against the new law, and how often?
• Why does Chestek PLLC v. Vidal matter to patent applicants even though it is a trademark case?
• Why does the institution decision matter so much in an IPR?
• Why have comparable licenses become the most persuasive royalty anchor?
• Why is a discretionary denial effectively unreviewable?
• Why is LKQ a gift to accused infringers?
• Why is § 101 a cheap early-exit weapon, and what is the Berkheimer trap?
• Why is the Alice/Mayo test criticized as unpredictable?
• Why is the diagnostic-method context especially harsh under § 101?
• Why is the reasoning of Vidal v. Elster the headline rather than its holding?
• Why should an applicant prosecute to the guidance but litigate to the case law?
• Why should a patentee pressure-test broad claims before asserting them?
• Why should a patent strategist care about a trademark case?
• Why should a survey of patent developments be read as a trajectory rather than a box score?
• Why should litigation and PTAB strategy be planned together?
• Why was late 2024 an inflection point in patent law rather than an ordinary year?