On Jan. 23, a unanimous panel in Falana v. Kent State University affirmed a judgment by Senior Judge David Dowd Jr. of the Northern District of Ohio on the inventorship issue. The panel did not address Dowd’s exceptional case determination and attorney fees ruling on the ground that those issues were not properly before the Federal Circuit because they hadn’t been finalized.
In March 2008, Dr. Olusegun Falana sued the university and several other co-defendants claiming that he was a co-inventor of the defendants’ patent for “chiral additives for cholesteric displays.” Chiral additives are chemical compounds that can improve the color, contrast, and brightness of liquid crystal displays.
