Posts in District Courts

Google tries to strike a “patent peace” with a new cross-licensing initiative for Android developers. The Federal Circuit is petitioned for review of a judgment in a patent case on the grounds that arbitration flouted public policy. A couple of Texas academic institutions square off in a patent battle over cancer treatments. Also, a House bill moves forward which would make the Register of Copyrights a Presidential appointee.

Plano, TX-based security tech provider Uniloc USA recently filed a pair of patent infringement suits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.) in which Uniloc asserts a series of patents directed at conference call and voice over Internet (VoIP) technologies. The defendants, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Internet services subsidiary Google and e-commerce giant Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), are the latest targets in a series of suits Uniloc has filed in the past year… Past Uniloc suits involving the above patents have been filed against Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), BlackBerry Corporation (NASDAQ:BBRY), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Snapchat, now Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP). Uniloc’s suit against Google is the fourth suit involving patents in the litigation campaign and the third filed against Google since the beginning of March.

Although Dupixent hasn’t been granted FDA approval as of yet, the drug has made it further than Amgen’s AMG-317, the code name for Amgen’s own IL-4 inhibitor developed during the 2000s, which failed in phase 2 clinical trials… The major impetus behind this suit was Sanofi-Aventis and Regeneron’s discovery that Amgen hired litigation counsel to assert the ‘487 patent and is also working on retaining experts. The plaintiffs believe that the only likely target for any potential Amgen infringement suit asserting the ‘487 patent would target Dupixent, “the only IL-4 inhibitor expected to come to market in the near future.”

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case that could create venue limitations on patent infringement actions. A major Korean consumer tech firm files its first patent infringement suits it has ever filed in the U.S. Chinese courts overturn a ban on a major American-designed smartphone. President Trump taps Jared Kushner to lead a new innovation office within the White House. And Marvel wins a partial summary judgment in a copyright dispute relating to Iron Man and whether the company stole the familiar Iron Man suit from another comic book character.

At the center of the legal spat is the proper assignation of a series of patents covering DNA sequencing technologies, which UC alleges were developed while the inventor was under an agreement obliging him to assign those patents to UC… Chen’s work in the UCSC biophysics lab led to the development of a series of inventions related to individually addressable nanopores, which can be used to characterize a nucleic acid sequence in a nucleic acid molecule. These inventions were described in patent applications filed by UC with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) listing Chen as an inventor… Instead of following his contractual obligations to assign his invention to UC, Chen allegedly filed patent applications and received patent grants assigned to medical technology firm Genia Technologies, a company he founded in March 2009 after leaving UCSC.

Meowingtons is seeking to prevent Zimmerman from using a series of marks employing the term “MEOWINGTONS” as well as the destruction of all physical and digital goods using those marks, including websites and social media profiles. Meowingtons also seeks a declaratory judgment that it is the senior user of the “MEOWINGTONS” mark… This action arise out of a petition for cancellation filed by Zimmerman near the end of last December at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). Zimmerman sought the cancellation of U.S. Trademark Registration No. 4711265, filed July 2014 to cover the use of the “MEOWINGTONS” mark for retail store and online retail store services featuring cat themed accessories and clothing.

In conclusion, the Court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that, under the totality of circumstances, this was an exceptional case, and affirmed the district court’s grant of § 285 fees… The Supreme Court’s totality of the circumstances analysis for fees under § 285 is a “holistic and equitable approach in which a district court may base its discretionary decision on other factors, including the litigant’s unreasonableness in litigating the case, subjective bad faith, frivolousness, motivation, and ‘the need in particular circumstances to advance considerations of compensation and deterrence.’”

The highest federal court in the United States declines to hear an appeal from tech giants on applying common sense to patent validity challenge proceedings. A group of pharmaceutical giants duke it out in a patent battle over a topical ointment for treating acne. The capital’s district court hears arguments in a case about compulsory copyright licenses. Also, President Trump signs a bill authorizing billions in funding for the nation’s space agency.

On Tuesday, March 21st, a pre-trial hearing will take place in a case involving patent infringement claims targeting the sale of mice having mutated genes which make them useful for research into Alzheimer’s disease… The original complaint filed in University of South Florida Board of Trustees v. The Jackson Laboratory, which is in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (M.D. Fla.), asserts a single patent: U.S. Patent No. 5898094, entitled Transgenic Mice Expressing APPK670N, M671L and a Mutant Presenilin Transgenes. Issued in April 1999, it protects a transgenic mouse with enhanced Alzheimer’s disease-related amyloid accumulation in its brain produced by selecting the offspring of two mice, one expressing the mutant presenilin encoded in its genes and the other expressing the APPK670N, M671L genetic sequence; this results in a mouse that develops accelerated deposition of amyloid beta in a period of weeks rather than nine months.

Waymo’s suit includes counts of infringement for each of the four patents asserted in the case. The suit also includes counts for violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act and state claims for violations of the California Uniform Trade Secret Act. Waymo is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions, damages for patent infringement including trebled damages for infringement of the ‘922, ‘464 and ‘273 patents and punitive damages among other forms of relief.

Efficient infringement causes distress and agony for innovators struggling to survive,, and widespread efficient infringement absolutely stifles innovation… Innovators today patent their technologies in the hopes of licensing to a tech company but recent legislation from Congress, most notably in the form of the America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA), has increased the difficulties of asserting patent rights. In this environment, it becomes economically viable for a large company to simply copy what it can from available technologies it hasn’t developed instead of actually licensing that technology.

A well-known patent monetization firm jumps back into the brokered patent market in 2016’s fourth quarter. A federal judge in New York allows arguments over whether American movie star Marilyn Monroe has become too generic for any trademark rights to continue. Sony files a patent infringement lawsuit over set-top boxes. Forever 21 files a declaratory judgment action calling Adidas a trademark bully. Cher wins a copyright dismissal over claims her 2013 album cover was infringing. The Supreme Court gears up to hear oral arguments in a case that examines the limits of the patent exhaustion doctrine. Plus a very busy week on Capitol Hill.

A panel of administrative patent judges (APJs) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision ending a series of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings targeting patents covering a popular multiple sclerosis (MS) treatment developed and sold by Ardsley, NY-based Acorda Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ACOR). The decision strengthens the patent portfolio covering Acorda’s Ampyra pharmaceutical even as competition from generic manufacturers has ramped up in recent months. The IPRs, instituted after petitions from the Kyle Bass-backed Coalition for Affordable Drugs (ADORCA), targeted four patents listed in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Orange Book.

Broadcom Ltd. filed a series of six lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging the infringement of a series of patents covering semiconductor technologies. The patent lawsuits target firms making and selling consumer audiovisual products or other articles which utilize system on a chip (SoC) semiconductors and similar processing equipment… Although most of the Broadcom suits assert multiple patents, there is only one patent asserted in each case: U.S. Patent No. 7,310,104, titled Graphics Display System with Anti-Flutter Filtering and Vertical Scaling Feature.

The fact that 36.7 percent of all patent cases filed in E.D. Tex. seems to be an exceptionally high degree of concentration in case filings, but the Lex Machina report further notes that 95 percent of civil litigation filed in E.D. Tex. is assigned to Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Of the 4,533 patent cases filed in U.S. district courts during 2016, a total of 1,119 cases were assigned to Judge Gilstrap alone. That means that, not only are more than one-third of all patent cases confined to a single district court, nearly 25 percent of all patent cases filed in the U.S. are assigned to a single ju