Annotated Patent Digest
First published in April 2005, the Annotated Patent Digest has quickly become a “go-to” resource for federal judges, patent practitioners, and legal commentators addressing matters of U.S. patent law. Spanning fifteen volumes, the Annotated Patent Digest provides comprehensive coverage of U.S. patent law principles and authority, including statutes; legislative histories; PTO regulations; pertinent MPEP provisions; and Supreme Court, Federal Circuit, CCPA, and district court precedent addressing both substantive and procedural aspects of litigating patents or procuring patents in the PTO.
By reviewing and analyzing on a daily basis every Federal Circuit published and unpublished patent-related opinion, and almost all U.S. federal district court patent cases published on Westlaw, Mr. Matthews keeps himself and the Annotated Patent Digest continuously updated on the most recent legal developments and trends in U.S. patent litigation.
West, a Thomson-Reuters business and the nation’s largest legal publisher, publishes the Annotated Patent Digest on its Westlaw database under the identifier “ANPATDIG.”
Judges from the Federal Circuit and the federal district courts have quoted from and relied on the Annotated Patent Digest in rendering rulings on patent matters. E.g., Leviton Mfg. Corp. v. Universal Security Instruments, Inc., 606 F.3d 1353, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (Prost, J., dissenting); Eli Lilly and Co. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., 557 F.3d 1346, 1351 n.* (Fed. Cir. 2009); Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, 2013 WL 1821593, *3 (M.D. Pa. Apr. 30, 2013); Music Group Services US, Inc. v. inMusic Brands, Inc., 2013 WL 1499564, *2 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 11, 2013); Clifton-Draper v. Pelam Intern., Ltd., 2013 WL 406908, *2 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 1, 2013); Vita-Herb Nutriceuticals Inc. v. Probiohealth LLC, 2012 WL 3903454, *7 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 6, 2012); Pictometry Int’l. Corp. v. GEOSPAN Corp., 2012 WL 3679208, *5 (D. Minn. Aug. 17, 2012); Proxyconn Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 2012 WL 1835680, *5 (C.D. Cal. May 16, 2012); High Point SARL v. Sprint Nextel Corp., 2012 WL 234024, *15 (D. Kan. Jan. 25, 2012); Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. v. Nagata, 2012 WL 177557, *7 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 23, 2012); WesternGeco L.L.C. v. Ion Geophysical Corp., 2011 WL 3608382, *10 (S.D.Tex. Aug. 16, 2011); Johnson Outdoors Inc. v. Navico, Inc., 774 F. Supp.2d 1191, 1196 (M.D. Ala. Mar. 2, 2011); August Technology Corp. v. Camtek, Ltd., 2010 WL 5560088, *2 (D. Minn. Nov. 17, 2010); Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., L.L.C. v. Dell Inc., 2010 WL 2733319, *7 (D.Utah Jul. 9, 2010); Hoskins v. Gunn Trucking, 2009 WL 2970399, *3 n.1 (N.D. Ind. Sept. 14, 2009); DR Sys., Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 2009 WL 2632685, *4 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 24, 2009); Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., LLC v. Dell, Inc., No. 1:05-CV-64 TS, 2008 WL 4862510, *2 n.12 (D. Utah Nov. 7, 2008); Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., L.L.C. v. Dell Inc., 2008 WL 4569895, *2 (D. Utah Oct. 9, 2008); Emcore Corp. v. Optium Corp., 2008 WL 3271553, *6 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 5, 2008); Renhcol Inc. v. Don Best Sports, 548 F. Supp. 2d 356, 361 n.3 (E.D. Tex. April 28, 2008); Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. v. Magellan Navigation, Inc., 512 F. Supp. 2d 1169, 1176 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 31, 2007); Amgen v. F. Hoffman-LaRoche, Ltd., 456 F. Supp. 2d 267, 283 (D. Mass. Oct. 20, 2006); Monsanto Co. v. Bayer Bioscience N.V., 2005 WL 5989796, *16 (E.D. Mo. Oct. 28, 2005). Non-U.S. lawyers and commentators have also relied on the Annotated Patent Digest when discussing aspects of U.S. patent law in judicial pleadings in non-U.S. courts and academic papers.
Based on his years of experience in crafting patent briefs and understanding what practitioners truly need from a treatise to draft-winning briefs, Mr. Matthews engineered the structure of the case cites of the Annotated Patent Digest to quickly provide a practitioner with sufficient information to know if a case likely has true merit for citing in a brief or a response to a PTO office action.
As a significant point of distinction, most treatises contain footnote string cites to support a stated legal proposition. These footnote string cites often do not include information critical to knowing whether the case is worth citing in a brief or to fully understand the factual context of when a given legal proposition properly applies. Indeed, many footnote string cites include a case cite and perhaps a quote stating the legal proposition, but upon reading the case it becomes evident that the court found an exception to the proposition or merely stated the proposition in passing dicta. Such case cites do not instill persuasive power to a brief.
In the Annotated Patent Digest, instead of footnote string cites, Matthews provides individual case cites having detailed parentheticals. Each case parenthetical typically includes three important elements: i) a quotable quote from the court stating the legal proposition; ii), a summary of the relevant facts and how the court applied the proposition in view of those facts; and iii) the ultimate outcome of the case. Armed with this information, a practitioner will quickly know whether a given case is likely to support a contention made in a brief, opinion, or PTO response.
As shown by the Chapter Listings (and with its 25,000 plus pages of text), the Annotated Patent Digest covers the full spectrum of issues encountered in litigating patents and a wealth of material applicable to prosecuting patent applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Of its forty-four chapters, thirty four are directed to substantive issues of patent law. The remaining ten chapters address procedural issues as applied specifically to patent litigation. In each chapter, the significant legal aspects of the subject matter are presented in numerous individual sections and organized with a comprehensive table of contents for ease of searching.