Chad Ruback, a solo appellate lawyer in Dallas, talks about appellate court arguments and predicting how a court will rule, based on questions the justices ask during oral arguments.

For two decades the Federal Circuit has debated inequitable conduct, with two lines of cases holding claimants to vastly different standards of proof. The result: double the number of inequitable conduct claims. Now a Federal Circuit judge is calling for his colleagues to bridge the schism, once and for all.

As usual, there was plenty of news about tech patents last week, including the latest developments in the Apple/Samsung fight. But the most interesting story was about a portfolio of patents for grape varieties that's held by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.