Federal appeals court restricts inequitable conduct defense for patent law

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] on Wednesday restricted [opinion, PDF] the use of the "inequitable conduct" defense for invalidating patents. Inequitable conduct previously allowed the judge to use his or her discretion in invalidating an otherwise valid patent if he or she believed the patent-holder had engaged in unfair practices when applying to the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) [official website], contrary to Rule 56 [text] of patent law. If it could…