Joseph Robinson & Robert Schaffer

The Federal Circuit recently affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissing a complaint for patent infringement on the grounds of res judicata. See Sowinski v. Cal. Air Res. Bd., No. 2019-1558, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 26616 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 21, 2020) (Before Newman, Lourie, and Schall, Circuit Judges) (Opinion for the Court, Newman, Circuit Judge). On November 24, 2015, Dr. Richard Sowinski, the owner of Patent No. 6,601,033 (the ’033 patent), sued the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and several individual and corporate defendants for infringement of the ’033 patent. After Dr. Sowinski failed to file a response to several motions to dismiss, the district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice and without leave to amend pursuant to Central District of California Local Rule 7–12. On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal, concluding that the Central District of California had considered all of the relevant factors and that there was no clear error of judgment.

The Federal Circuit recently vacated and remanded a district court’s grant of summary judgment invalidating patent claims owned by Nevro Corporation (Nevro). See Nevro Corp. v. Boston Sci. Corp., Nos. 2018-2220, 2018-2349, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 11170 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 9, 2020) (Before Moore, Taranto, and Chen, Circuit Judges) (Opinion for the Court, Moore, Circuit Judge). The district court found the “paresthesia-free” system and device claims to be indefinite because “infringement of these claims depended on the effect of the system on a patient, and not a parameter of the system or device itself.” Using this reasoning, the district court concluded that a skilled artisan could not identify the bounds of the system and device claims with reasonable certainty. The Federal Circuit disagreed.

The Federal Circuit recently reversed, vacated, and remanded a decision by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, finding that the District Court had abused its discretion when it granted a preliminary injunction enjoining BlephEx, LLC from making allegations of patent infringement without a finding of bad faith and with no adequate basis to conclude that allegations of patent infringement would be false or misleading. See Myco Indust., Inc. v. BlephEx, LLC, No. 2019-2374, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 10510 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 3, 2020) (Before Newman, O’Malley, and Taranto, Circuit Judges) (Order for the Court, O’Malley, Circuit Judge).

In November, the Federal Circuit issued an opinion reversing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (the PTAB or the Board) decision that claim 8 of IPR Licensing Inc.’s (IPRL) wireless communications patent—U.S. Patent No. 8,380,244 (the ‘244 Patent)—was unpatentable as obvious. The Board’s obviousness finding as to claim 8 was erroneous as it relied on a prior art reference that IPRL could neither anticipate nor rebut. Furthermore, its finding was, for the second time, unsupported by substantial evidence. See In re IPR Licensing, Inc. (Fed Cir. Nov. 22, 2019) (Before Newman, O’Malley, and Taranto, Circuit Judges) (Opinion for the Court, O’Malley, Circuit Judge).

The Federal Circuit recently affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court decision holding that Actavis Laboratories FL, Inc.’s (“Actavis’s”) generic Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) product infringed claims of patents owned by Nalpropion Pharmaceuticals (“Nalpropion”) and that the asserted claims were not invalid. The Court found that the district court did not err in finding that Nalpropion’s U.S. Patent No. 8,916,195 (“the ’195 patent”) was not invalid for lack of written description, but that the district court did err in finding that the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,375,111 (“the ’111 patent”) and 7,462,626 (“the ’626 patent”) were not obvious in view of the prior art.

The Federal Circuit recently vacated and remanded a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), finding that the PTAB applied the wrong legal standard for determining whether a reference was publicly accessible before the critical date of the challenged patent. The Court found that the asserted reference was publicly accessible because a person of ordinary skill in the art could, through the exercise of reasonable diligence, access the reference. The decision, authored by Judge O’Malley, held that a patent challenger does not have to establish that the asserted reference was actually accessed or received or available to a significant portion of those skilled in the art to show that the work was publicly accessible. 

The Federal Circuit recently affirmed a district court’s award of attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. In particular, the Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision based on the plaintiff’s inadequate pre-suit investigation of infringement in the related cases. See Thermolife Int’l, LLC v. GNC Corp., Nos. 2018-1657, 2018-1666, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 13135 (Fed. Cir. May 1, 2019) (Before Taranto, Bryson, and Stoll, J.) (Opinion for the Court, Taranto, J). Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford) and Thermolife International, LLC (Thermolife) are the owners and exclusive licensee, respectively, of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,891,459, 6,117,872, 6,646,006, and 7,452,916 directed to methods and compositions involving the amino acids arginine and lysine, to be ingested to enhance vascular function and physical performance. Thermolife, later joined by Stanford, brought suit alleging Hi-Tech, Vital, and multiple companies from the GNC family infringed the aforementioned patents. The parties agreed to bifurcate the proceedings: a consolidated trial on invalidity and enforceability would be held; and if necessary, separate proceedings on infringement would follow. The district court found the asserted claims of all four patents invalid as either being anticipated or obvious.

The Federal Circuit recently elected not to decide en banc “whether servers are a regular and established place of business, such that venue is proper under 35 U.S.C. § 1400(b). In re: Google LLC, No. 2018-152 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 5, 2019) (Before Prost, Chief Judge, Newman, Lourie, Dyk, Moore, O’Malley, Reyna, Wallach, Taranto, Chen, Hughes, and Stoll, Circuit Judges) (Dissent by Reyna, Circuit Judge, joined by Newman and Lourie, Circuit Judges). SEVEN Networks, LLC’s (SEVEN) patent infringement suit against Google arose in the Eastern District of Texas. SEVEN alleged Google’s servers, stored in a third-party ISP’s facility, where the allegedly infringing activities occurred, were a regular and established place of business, such that venue is proper under 35 U.S.C. § 1400(b). The district court denied Google’s motion to dismiss for improper venue. As a result, Google petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to dismiss or transfer the case for improper venue. On appeal, the panel majority found mandamus relief inappropriate because “it is not known if the district court’s ruling involves the kind of broad and fundamental legal questions relevant to § 1400(b),” and “it would be appropriate to allow the issue to percolate in the district courts so as to more clearly define the importance, scope, and nature of the issue for us to review.”