Posts in Courts

Recently, Denmark-based footwear maker ECCO filed a suit alleging claims of patent infringement against Manhattan Beach, CA-based shoemaker Skechers. The suit, filed in the federal district for Delaware, asserts a series of patents owned by the Danish shoemaker which cover aspects of golf shoes which have been commercially successful for ECCO in recent years. According to ECCO’s complaint, the alleged claims of infringement by Skechers involve the particular cleat arrangement as well as the structure of the cleats used in the sole in the golf shoes, which are covered by ECCO’s patents.

On June 1, 2018, the new patent local rules went into effect in the District of Massachusetts following a substantial overhaul that began over one year ago.  In January 2017, the judges in D. Mass. formed a committee which included ten local patent litigators to advise the court on revising its practices specific to patent litigation in the district.  The final draft of the proposed rules was released for public comment from December 2017 through February 2018, giving other patent litigators in the district and interested parties a first glimpse of the new rules and the ability to weigh in on their implications.  This week the court announced its final version of the rules, which will apply to all cases for which a scheduling order as yet to issue. 

In Zeroclick, LLC v. Apple Inc., before Judge Jimmie Reyna, Judge Richard Taranto, and Judge Todd Hughes, Zeroclick appealed a district court’s interpretation of the claims as containing “means plus function” limitations under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6, arguing that the district court erred by imposing a means plus function analysis. The Court agreed with Zeroclick finding that the district court failed to give appropriate weight to the rebuttable presumption created by the absence of the word “means” within the claims, vacating and remanding the case to the district court.

The moving target rejections were largely due to the fact that the examiner’s first clear explanation that she was relying on structural identity, and not inherency, appeared in the examiner’s answer. Judge Reyna explained: “[T]he equivocal nature of the examiner’s and Board’s remarks throughout the examination of the ‘989 application, including whether inherency was the basis for the rejection, clouded the issues before Durance.”

Ericsson petitioned for inter partes review of the ’408 patent, and the PTAB upheld its validity. Without separately analyzing the challenged dependent claims, the PTAB held that claim 1 was not anticipated or obvious. On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed with respect to claim 1 and vacated and remanded as to the remaining claims. Judge Wallach dissented, saying he thought the majority improperly substituted its own factual findings for those of the PTAB.

The Federal Circuit’s recent venue decisions represent important developments in the interpretation of the patent venue statute. The application of these decisions will have immediate effects on defendants in patent infringement cases, and particularly those who are often subject to suit in popular districts like the Eastern District of Texas and the District of Delaware. While many open questions remain—perhaps most notably the treatment of domestic unincorporated associations—the Federal Circuit continues to delineate the scope of the patent venue statute.

The recent Tinnus opinion further defines the meaning of “regular and established place of business.” See Tinnus Enters. v. Telebrands Corp., Case No. 6:17-CV-00170-RWS (E.D. Tex. May 1, 2018). The opinion provides additional guidance to practitioners defining “residence” under TC Heartland, Micron, and Cray: teleworking employees are not enough, but leased retail space in brick-and-mortar stores might be.

On Friday, June 1st, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in In re: Durance striking down a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that affirmed a patent examiner’s obviousness rejection of a microwave vacuum-drying apparatus and associated method. The Federal Circuit panel consisting of Judges Alan Lourie, Jimmie Reyna and Raymond Chen…

On appeal to the Federal Circuit, Zeroclick argued that the district court erred in construing those two terms as means-plus-function limitations, an argument with which the Federal Circuit panel agreed. “Neither of the limitations at issue uses the word ‘means,’” Circuit Judge Hughes writes in his majority opinion. “Presumptively, therefore, [Section 112(f)] does not apply to the limitations.” Although Apple argued in the district court that the claims must be construed under Section 112(f), it provided no evidentiary support for its position. Although the court compared Apple’s arguments to Zeroclick’s objections, Judge Tigar did not point to any record evidence supporting the ultimate conclusion on Section 112(f) grounds.

Appellants were generic drug manufacturers who filed Abbreviated New Drug Applications (“ANDAs”), seeking approval for generic versions of Vimpat®. As a result, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ultimate conclusion that the asserted claims were not invalid.

U.S. patent policy has collapsed at the hands of a Supreme Court preoccupied with a boogeyman not present in a single dispute they were asked to adjudicate. This means this Supreme Court has allowed a carefully crafted PR narrative to influence virtually every patent decision over the last 12 years when many in the industry believe the patent troll nothing to be nothing more than an opportunistic phantom created by a relatively small number of companies hell-bent on weakening patents to the point where they are simply not enforceable… But today we have come full circle. The United States increasingly forbids patents on cutting edge biotechnology, medical, software, analytics, big data mining, artificial intelligence and other innovations. For this we have only the Supreme Court to thank.

On Friday, May 11th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila entered an order deciding motions made in a copyright case involving competing musical productions based on the fictional story of the fictional folk hero Zorro. Judge Davila’s orders allows copyright infringement claims asserted by a writer who developed a Zorro musical in the 1990s to move forward against Zorro Productions, the entity which had licensed the Zorro character to entertainment companies going back to the late 1940s. This case is in the Northern District of California.

In Vanda, Chief Judge Prost, one of the judges on the CellzDirect panel, dissented from the majority’s decision that found claims patent eligible for not being directed to a judicial exception in step one of the Mayo/Alice test. What differences between the claims in Vanda and those in CellzDirect led Judge Prost to dissent? Can these differences shed further light on the characteristics necessary for a claim to be found not directed to a patent-ineligible concept in step one?

Of the many lingering issues left in TC Heartland’s wake for domestic corporations, a Federal Circuit panel resolved several of them recently. In In re ZTE (USA), No. 2018-113, the court addressed two of the most common issues dogging appeals over the application of § 1400(b): whose law governs burden, and where does that burden lie. In In re Bigcommerce, No. 2018-120, the court addressed the territorial bounds mapped by the phrase “judicial district” in § 1400(b). Judge Linn authored both. 

On Wednesday, May 30th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit entered a decision in Tinnus Enterprises v. Telebrands Corporation which reversed and remanded an earlier decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to invalidate a patent covering the award-winning Bunch O Balloons toy developed by inventor Josh Malone. The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Kathleen…