Posts in District Courts

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Tuesday affirming a judgment of non-infringement entered by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in a dispute concerning generic versions of the topical pain patch ZTlido. The panel of Judges Reyna, Mayer, and Hughes, ruling per curiam, upheld the district court’s construction of the term “dissolving agent” and its determination that Aveva Drug Delivery Systems’ proposed generic product did not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision on Tuesday, authored by CAFC Chief Judge Moore, vacating a district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction (PI) for Socket Solutions, LLC that had barred Import Global from manufacturing, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing into the United States its Neat Socket® product.

The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday denied a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Amazon.com Services LLC requesting that a district court proceeding be stayed pending the outcome of a separate proceeding against Google involving one of the same patents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Friday affirming a grant of summary judgment of noninfringement entered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The appeal, brought by the Regents of the University of Michigan against Leica Microsystems, Inc., concerned the construction of claim language describing a “supercontinuum” white light pulse used in fluorescence detection technology.

As an expert witness on intellectual property litigations, I have noticed over the past few years parties with poor arguments in software copyright and software trade secret cases, both plaintiffs and defendants, have been taking advantage of technologically outdated protective orders to gain an unfair advantage. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where probably the majority of software IP cases take place, has a Model Protective Order for Litigation Involving Patents, Highly Sensitive Confidential Information and/or Trade Secrets that has become a de facto standard for software IP cases around the country. It is antiquated and needs to be updated.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today reversing a jury verdict from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware that had found Boston Scientific Corporation (BSC) liable for infringing a patent owned by the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System (UT) covering drug-releasing biodegradable polymer fibers. The Federal Circuit concluded that BSC was entitled to judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on both invalidity and non-infringement.

In the space of a few months, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts delivered two decisions that, read together, change how patent applicants and their counsel should approach the deceptively simple question of who invented what. Fortress Iron, LP v. Digger Specialties, Inc., No. 2024-2313 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 2, 2026), holds that if an inventorship error cannot be corrected under 35 U.S.C. § 256, the patent is invalid — full stop, no intent required. Inline Plastics Corp. v. Lacerta Group, Inc., No. 1:18-cv-11631 (D. Mass. Nov. 13, 2025), holds that if an inventorship omission was intentional, the entire patent family is unenforceable for inequitable conduct — the Therasense penalty at full weight.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today affirming in part and reversing in part a district court ruling that had found four patents covering digital picture frame technology ineligible under 35 U.S.C. Section 101. The court remanded one patent claim to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for further proceedings and affirmed the ineligibility finding as to the remaining three patents at issue.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today affirming a district court’s dissolution of a preliminary injunction (PI) and denial of a temporary restraining order (TRO) in a Schedule A design patent dispute over foldable fans. Circuit Judge Hughes wrote for the majority, joined by Circuit Judge Prost, while Circuit Judge Stoll dissented from the portion of the opinion addressing the merits of the design patent analysis.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Woodway USA, Inc. v. LifeCore Fitness, Inc., vacating a grant of summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of LifeCore Fitness, doing business as Assault Fitness. The court found that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California relied on an overly restrictive claim construction, vacating and remanding the decision for further proceedings.

Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi in the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, last week granted in part and denied in part a professional trumpet player’s motion for leave to amend his complaint that challenges Apple’s APPLE trademark for entertainment services. Judge DeMarchi concluded that the standard had only been met in limited respects and ruled that Bertini may pursue two narrow fraud claims, while his remaining theories were rejected.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a per curiam decision today in Tramec Sloan LLC v. Surti, dismissing an appeal brought by patent owner Tarun N. Surti after finding it lacked jurisdiction to review the district court’s order. Chief Judge Moore and Circuit Judges Lourie and Hughes decided the case per curiam, and no concurring or dissenting opinion accompanied the ruling.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Dental Monitoring SAS v. Align Technology, Inc., affirming a district court ruling that found several patent claims covering deep learning based dental image analysis invalid as directed to ineligible subject matter under Section 101. Dental Monitoring SAS owns U.S. Patent 11,049,248 and U.S. Patent 10,755,409, both of which relate to dental arch image analysis. The ‘248 patent covers “a method for assessing the shape of an orthodontic aligner using a deep learning device,” while the ‘409 patent covers a method for acquiring and analyzing an image of a dental arch using the same type of device.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today denied a request for mandamus relief by Lambeth Magnetic Structures, LLC, who asked the CAFC to direct the  U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania to vacate its order staying a patent infringement suit pending resolution of an ex parte reexamination (EPR) of the asserted patent claims.