Weintraub’s patent attorneys have extensive technical and legal backgrounds that they use to provide outstanding strategic advice and patent prosecution services to our clients. Our attorneys’ patent prosecution practice covers a wide variety of fields, including STEM applications, such as electronics, wireless communications, aeronautical applications, microcontrollers, software, biotechnology, medical devices, biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, genetics and genomics, immunology, agricultural and industrial chemistry, pharmaceuticals, mechanical, as well as other creative fields such interior design and apparel.
We file and prosecute U.S. patent applications, Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications, and applications in countries across the globe. By combining experienced litigators with experienced patent prosecutors, we strive to obtain patents with the maximum protection available for an invention, with a focus on making sure our clients’ patents will withstand challenges. Our clients include large organizations, start-ups, and individual inventors, both domestic and foreign.
We handle proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (USPTO), including appeals from rejections of patent applications and challenges to issued patents through ex parte reexaminations, inter partes reviews (IPRs), post grant reviews (PGRs), and covered business method reviews.
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 41 of its attorneys have been recognized in the 2025 editions of The Best Lawyers in America® and Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. 32 Weintraub attorneys are included in the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, of which six…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 25 of its attorneys have been recognized in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, and eight attorneys have been named to the 2024 edition of the Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. Three attorneys have also named “Lawyer of…
Weintraub Tobin is pleased to announce that 38 of its attorneys have been included on the 2021 Super Lawyers and Rising Star lists for outstanding attorneys in Northern California. In addition, 4 Weintraub Tobin attorneys received special recognition on Northern California and Sacramento “Top” lists. Weintraub attorneys represent 16 percent…
Jo Dale Carothers was recently quoted in a Law360 article after a recent Precendential Opinion Panel decision for patent petitions for inter partes review (IPR) on whether copyright and ISBN are sufficient evidence for printed reference material as having been “publicly available”. Jo Dale speaks about the ruling stating, “I…
SACRAMENTO, CA (November 1, 2019) – Weintraub Tobin, a leading California full-service law firm, was honored to be recognized with eight first-tier rankings in the 2020 edition of U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms.” The complete list of rankings is published on the U.S. News website. Best Lawyers…
SACRAMENTO, California – Weintraub Tobin congratulates its 14 attorneys who have been included in Sacramento Business Journal’s Best of the Bar 2019. Attorneys selected to the 2019 Best of the Bar list include Gary L. Bradus, Kay U. Brooks ,Dale C. Campbell, Christopher Chediak, Janet Z. Chediak, Jim Clarke,Edward J.…
Weintraub is pleased to announce that Jo Dale Carothers has been recognized as a 2019 San Diego Super Lawyer and Eric Caligiuri as a 2019 Rising Star. Jo Dale Carothers is a shareholder and chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property group. An intellectual property litigator and registered patent attorney, Jo…
Up until now, it has been nearly impossible for a plaintiff to recover enhanced (up to treble) damages in patent infringement cases. The current test for enhanced damages, set forth by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in 2007 in In Re Seagate Technology, LLC, 497 F.3d 1360 (2007), was…
Patent litigators and prosecutors have been waiting to hear whether the U.S. Supreme Court would require the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to apply the same claim construction standard as the district courts. The answer is “No.” For over 100 years, the USPTO has used the “broadest reasonable…
Download: WTWB Merger Press Release FINAL.pdf Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman Grodin Law Corporation and Waldron & Bragg, a professional corporation, have jointly announced the merger of their business law and litigation firms. The combined firm will be named Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman Grodin and have offices in Sacramento, Calif., San…
For a third year in a row, Weintraub Tobin is working to raise funds for cardiovascular diseases and stroke by partaking in the American Heart Association Heart Walk on Saturday, September 21 at William Land Park. Our attorneys and staff work hard during the summer months to gear up for…
On April 19, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) issued proposed modifications to the rules of practice for inter partes review (IPR) and postgrant review (PGR) proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board). According to the USPTO, the proposals are to…
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down many patents on the grounds that they are invalid as directed to an abstract idea, relying on the Supreme Court’s Alice decision. In In re Elbaum (Fed. Cir. 12/20/2023) 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 33719, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial…
In Thaler v. Commissioner of Patents, case number VID 108 of 2021, in the Federal Court of Australia, an Australian Federal Judge became the first known jurist to rule that inventions developed by artificial intelligence can qualify for patent protection. The case involved a patent application from Dr. Stephen Thaler, a…
In recent years, the Supreme Court has decided a number of cases, including Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad, and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, which involve the limits on patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. For example, in…
Patents protect inventions. However, patents protect only certain inventions. In order to be patentable, an invention must fall within one of four categories of patent-eligible subject matter: articles of manufacture, machines, processes, and compositions of matter. 35 U.S.C. §101. There are some things that are not patentable (i.e. are patent-ineligible…
5-4 Opinion Offers Judicial Workaround by Giving More Oversight to the USPTO Director In U.S. v. Arthrex, case number 19-1434; Smith & Nephew v. Arthrex, case number 19-1452; and Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, case number 19-1458, the Supreme Court of the United States recently held that Patent Trial and…
Quick answer: no! The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recently tangled with a patent application for an invention that did not have scientific support. The court affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejecting a patent application on these grounds. While this is not a common occurrence,…
The answer is “Yes” because the U.S. government has waived sovereign immunity for claims of patent infringement. This means the U.S. government can be sued for patent infringement in at least some instances. However, special rules and certain limitations apply as explained in 28 U.S.C. § 1498, which states, in…
In my last column, I discussed the first argument that should be made in overcoming an obviousness rejection made by the patent examiner in a patent application. If possible, the applicant should argue that the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness because the examiner did…
Most patent applications are initially rejected on obviousness grounds by the patent examiner in the US Patent and Trademark Office. That means that the examiner believes that the invention, as set forth in the claims in the application, would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the…
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure to challenge a patent in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). The IPR procedure was established by the American Invents Act, and was intended to be an improvement on the existing inter partes reexamination procedure. An IPR is brought before the…
