BarbriSFCourseDetails

Course Details

This CLE webinar will guide patent counsel on enablement and the USPTO's new Guidelines for Assessing Enablement. The panel will also examine the decisions that have applied Amgen v. Sanofi (U.S. 2023) as well as the Wands factors used in the enablement determination.

Faculty

Description

On Jan. 10, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued "Guidelines for Assessing Enablement in Utility Applications and Patents in View of the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Amgen Inc. et al. v. Sanofi et al." The Guidelines apply regardless of the technology. The Guidelines note that the Wands factors will continue to be used to determine if the "amount of experimentation required to enable the full scope of the claimed invention is reasonable."

The new Guidelines were prompted by the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi. The decision made clear that "full scope" enablement is required but did not explain fully what that means nor how to determine whether it has been met in other factual contexts and how practitioners should best proceed when drafting, defending, or challenging patent claims. The courts have addressed enablement in several cases since the Amgen decision.

Given the new guidelines and recent decisions, patentees and patent challengers should carefully keep them in mind when drafting or challenging patents.

Listen as our authoritative panel of patent attorneys examines enablement. The panel will briefly review the Supreme Court's decision in Amgen and will discuss the cases that have applied it. The panel will also examine the USPTO's recent guidelines for assessing enablement.

Outline

  1. Brief review of Amgen decision--how we got to where we are
  2. USPTO guidelines for assessing enablement
  3. Post-Amgen Federal Circuit enablement decisions
  4. Wands factors
  5. Best practices

Benefits

The panel will review these and other critical issues:

  • What insights do the guidelines provide on determining reasonableness of experimentation?
  • What steps should counsel take to meet the enablement requirement when drafting patent applications?
  • How can patentees and patent challengers leverage the guidelines and recent decisions in challenges based on enablement?