Posts in District Courts

In a press release issued on Tuesday, Genevant Sciences and Arbutus Biopharma announced they have entered into a global settlement with Moderna, Inc. that could result in a payment of up to $2.5 billion. The announcement stated that the settlement resolves all U.S. and international patent litigation concerning the unauthorized use of Genevant’s and Arbutus’ lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology in Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines. The agreement came just days before a highly anticipated jury trial was scheduled to begin in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday filed a joint Statement of Interest preferencing strong injunctive relief for patent owners over courts valuing patents. The brief comes just a few months after the two agencies filed a joint statement of interest at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) arguing that exclusion orders should be the presumptive remedy for infringement there.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision in Global Tubing LLC v. Tenaris Coiled Tubes LLC vacating a district court’s summary judgment rulings on both inequitable conduct and a Walker Process fraud claim. The court determined that genuine disputes of material fact precluded summary judgment on both issues and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential decision on Friday reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment that REGENEXBIO, Inc.’s patent claims were ineligible as directed to a natural phenomenon. The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware found that REGENXBIO’s and the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania’s gene therapy patent claims were directed to a natural phenomenon and therefore patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. But the unanimous CAFC reversed that decision, thereby reviving REGENEXBIO’s infringement suit against Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. and Sarepta Therapeutics Three, LLC.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday issued a precedential decision finding Sony’s Playstation controllers and consoles did not infringe Genuine Enabling Technology’s (GET’s) patent for computer input devices. GET alleged that Sony directly and indirectly infringed its U.S. Patent No. 6,219,730 via certain Playstation products. Specifically, GET said that the products’ Bluetooth module “synchronized user input from controller buttons with input from controller sensors,” thereby meeting the claims’ “encoding means” limitation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday issued a precedential decision in Willis Electric Co. v. Polygroup Ltd., affirming a jury verdict that found Polygroup liable for patent infringement. The CAFC upheld the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota’s decision to deny Polygroup’s post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on obviousness and for a new trial on damages. As a result, the ruling included an award of nearly $42.5 million in damages to Willis Electric Co., Ltd. Chief Judge Moore authored the opinion, joined by Judge Stark and District Judge Oetken.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware on Tuesday granted in part and denied in part a motion for summary judgment in Arbutus Biopharma Corp. v. Moderna, Inc., narrowing the invalidity defenses that Moderna can assert at a jury trial. U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson precluded Moderna from challenging several Arbutus patents on obviousness and derivation grounds but found that Moderna had raised a genuine factual dispute regarding enablement that must be resolved by a jury.

A magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware today issued a Report and Recommendation to grant a motion by VideoAmp, Inc. to dismiss The Nielsen Company (US) LLC’s complaint against it for infringement of Nielsen’s patents related to audience measurement systems because the patents are directed to ineligible subject matter… According to today’s opinion, the ‘402 patent is “generally directed to associating identified user data with media being displayed.”

The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware on Wednesday granted a case-dispositive motion for judgment in favor of Apple Inc., finding the single patent claim asserted by Immervision, Inc., invalid for lack of enablement. In a memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika adopted a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation that Immervision’s claim was an impermissible “single-means claim,” a seldom-invoked doctrine of patent law. The ruling, which Judge Noreika noted would be case-dispositive, concluding the patent infringement suit that Immervision had brought against Apple.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday issued a decision that affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a patent dispute between Maquet Cardiovascular LLC and Abiomed Inc. The Federal Circuit agreed with the lower court that certain claims of one Maquet patent were not infringed by Abiomed’s Impella heart pumps, but revived Maquet’s infringement allegations on five other patents after finding the district court had improperly construed key claim terms.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday in part reversed a district court’s decision upholding GoTV Streaming, LLC’s patents as eligible, finding instead that they were invalid under Section 101. While the opinion, authored by Judge Taranto, also reversed the district court’s finding that the claims were invalid for indefiniteness, the panel found they were directed to an abstract idea and therefore vacated the district court’s summary judgment of no inducement and its denial of GoTV’s motion for a new trial on damages, ordering the district court to enter judgment for Netflix, Inc., ending the case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday affirmed a district court’s summary judgment ruling that six patents owned by Innovaport LLC are invalid for claiming ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Federal Circuit agreed that the patents, which are directed to systems and methods for providing in-store product location information, claimed an abstract idea without adding a sufficient inventive concept to make them patent-eligible.

he U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday affirmed a Western District of Texas decision granting Walmart, Inc. summary judgment that Q Technologies’ content sharing patents are invalid as patent ineligible. The opinion was authored by Judge Lourie. Q Technologies owns U.S. Patent 9,635,108, 10,567,473 and 10,594,774, all of which are titled “Systems and Methods for Content Sharing Using Uniquely Generated Identifiers” and share a common specification.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Tricam Industries, Inc. in a patent infringement suit brought by Little Giant Ladder Systems, LLC. The decision held that Tricam’s ladders did not infringe Little Giant’s patent, either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents, and that the district court correctly construed the key claim term “cavity.”