The Patent Trial and Appeal Board correctly determined that claims 1-8 of a patent for a method for drilling holes for dental implants, held by Sirona Dental Systems GmbH, were unpatentable as obvious in light of prior art, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled. Further, the petitioners, Institut Straumann AG and Dental Wings Inc., failed to demonstrate that claims 9-10 of the challenged patent were unpatentable, as the Board correctly found. However, the Board erred when it denied Sirona’s contingent motion to amend the claims of its patent, and that ruling of the Board was vacated, and the dispute remanded with instructions to the Board to reconsider in light of recent precedent (Sirona Dental Systems GmbH v. Institut Straumann AG, June 19, 2018, Moore, K.).
Case date: 19 June 2018
Case number: Nos. 17-1341
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
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