Bloomberg post: "a strong preference by the Supreme Court to tell the Federal Circuit that it should stop thinking of itself as Lord of the Patents"

The Bloomberg post Ready for a Patented Supreme Court Smackdown? echos the conventional wisdom that the Supreme Court took Teva v. Sandoz to take the CAFC behind the woodshed:


Last year’s patent decisions revealed a strong preference by the Supreme Court to tell the Federal Circuit that it should stop thinking of itself as Lord of the Patents, and that "supreme” means just what it sounds like. Look for the court to continue pushing that message this year. The Federal Circuit may be special -- but the Supreme Court is more special. Just ask the justices.



The Bloomberg post acknowledges that Teva is destined for a loss


Oddly, none of this may help Teva: The solicitor general's office has also advised the Supreme Court justices that the appeals court’s ultimate decision was based more on its interpretation of the law that its non-deferential determination of the facts, and thus that their intervention may make no practical difference. The solicitor general clearly knows the court’s main interest is not to resolve the case in favor of Teva, but to show the Federal Circuit who’s boss -- a result the solicitor general is willing to embrace.



Teva v. Sandoz is about indefiniteness of a claim term not defined in the specification, and thus how one of ordinary skill in the art would contrue said term. That is what Teva's expert spoke to. That was the legal issue.