J&J’s Auris Wins New Shot to Challenge Intuitive Surgical Patent

Johnson & Johnson’s Auris Health Inc. will get another chance to convince an administrative patent tribunal to nullify an Intuitive Surgical Operations’ patent relating to robotic surgery systems after a federal appeals court disagreed with the panel’s reasons for finding the patent was valid.

General skepticism in an industry around combining earlier inventions into a new one isn’t enough to prove that a patent isn’t obvious, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a precedential opinion that split the panel. The ruling may create an inflexible rule regarding how to weigh industry skepticism in obviousness inquiries, ...