Patent Law Digest, 2017 Edition

The Patent Law Digest began in 1991 and appeared annually as a single volume in paper-bound form until 2008. In 2008, a three-volume hardbound edition appeared as the 25th Federal Circuit Anniversary Edition. The 2009 edition resumed the pattern of an annual paper-bound edition. The Digest also appears online at Lexis.com.

The Patent Law Digest functions in part to supplement with recent cases the 25th Anniversary Edition and to supplement the Federal Circuit Guide and Supreme Court Guide, which appear as volumes at the end of the treatise, Chisum on Patents.

The Digest also covers the 2011 American Invents Act (AIA). References to the AIA are added, as pertinent, at the beginning of sections for the abstracts.

Prior editions of the Digest included the America Invents Act of 2011: Analysis and Cross-References (3d ed. March 2013), a section-by-section analysis of the AIA and the implementing rules by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). That Analysis is not carried forward in this edition, but it appears in the Chisum on Patents treatise, placed before Chapter 1 in the * Volume.

On the ever-important evolving case law, this 2017 edition includes:

• All Supreme Court decisions and en banc Federal Circuit decisions from 1982 to the end of 2016. The 2017 Supreme Court decisions are summarized below.

• Federal Circuit panel decisions rendered in 2014, 2015, and 2016.