Apple Loses Bid for Full Court Redo of Patent Ownership Fight

The full Federal Circuit won’t reconsider an ownership dispute brought by Apple Inc. over two health sensor patents.

Omni MedSci Inc. alleged the Apple Watch infringed its U.S. Patent Nos. 9,651,533 and 9,861,286. Apple argued that Omni doesn’t own the patents because the inventor who sold them to Omni had automatically assigned them and other future inventions to the University of Michigan, the inventor’s former employer.

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with Omni that inventor Mohammed Islam didn’t automatically assign his rights to future inventions to the university, and therefore Omni had standing ...