Abbott Diabetes Care revives glucose monitoring patents
Client(s) Abbott Diabetes Care
On September 28, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated two determinations of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (the BPAI, also called the Board) that had rejected numerous claims of two Abbott Diabetes Care patents directed to glucose monitoring methods and devices. The Federal Circuit's decision in these reexamination proceedings thus revives Abbott Diabetes Care's patent claims and returns the cases to the BPAI for further proceedings under the correct constructions of the patent claims at issue.
In two reexaminations initiated after Abbott Diabetes Care had sued a competitor for infringing its '752 and '509 patents, the Board had determined that most of the claims of these two patents were drawn to unpatentable subject matter - alleging that the claims were either anticipated by, or obvious over, prior art patents and literature. On appeal to the Federal Circuit, Jones Day prevailed on behalf of Abbott by convincing the court that the Board had misconstrued one of the relevant terms in the patents ("electrochemical sensor") and had misapplied its own correct construction of another term ("substantially fixed").
Greg Castanias (Washington) argued the case for Abbott Diabetes Care. The Jones Day team representing Abbott Diabetes Care in the Federal Circuit included Thomas E. Friebel (New York).
In re Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Nos. 2011-1516, -1517 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 28, 2012)
