Inventorship Rulings Show Fed. Cir.’s Sympathy for a Good Story

A series of recent inventor-friendly patent decisions from the Federal Circuit shows that a good story can win over the court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued six opinions involving issues of who is listed as an inventor or owns a patent. Although this area of the law is very fact-dependent, the rulings generally have been favorable to inventors.

That’s likely because telling a story about the person who came up with an invention humanizes an area of the law that can be very technical, attorneys said. The court’s rulings on other patent issues, such as ...