Posts in Litigation

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today affirming the dismissal of a pro se lawsuit brought by three inventors who contested the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) refusal to grant them reduced filing fees. The CAFC found that the inventors failed to adequately plead Article III standing, as their own representations to the USPTO undermined any claim of ownership in the disputed application.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday affirmed a district court decision awarding attorney fees and costs to Nextremity Solutions, Inc. for an infringement suit brought against it by Extremity Medical, LLC, but denying attorney fees and costs for the successful parallel inter partes review proceeding (IPR) Nextremity pursued. The opinion was authored by Judge Lourie.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in Bissell, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, affirming a final determination of the International Trade Commission (ITC) that found no import violation by redesigned vacuum products. The CAFC affirmed the ITC’s refusal to grant an exclusion order and also agreed that the Commission properly determined that Bissel’s products satisfied the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to grant certiorari to resolve whether the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) permits an unjust enrichment award without any showing of actual loss resulting from the defendant’s misappropriation of trade secrets. The defendant in Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. v. Computer Sciences Corp. has petitioned for certiorari, arguing that actual loss is a prerequisite for an unjust enrichment award. The petition challenges a Fifth Circuit decision affirming a $56 million unjust enrichment award and a $112 million punitive award in favor of Computer Sciences Corp. (“CSC”), measured by the costs Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) avoided through its trade secret theft rather than by any proven actual loss to CSC.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a published opinion in Malone v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office affirming the Eastern District of Virginia’s grant of summary judgment to the USPTO after finding that the agency properly withheld documents sought by US Inventor’s Josh Malone pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request related to administrative patent judge (APJ) paneling at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The Fourth Circuit found that decision drafts circulated to nonpanel APJs were subject to FOIA’s exemption for predecisional and deliberative documents and were not unprotected ex parte communications.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in TJTM Technologies, LLC v. Google LLC, affirming the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California’s dismissal of a patent infringement lawsuit and holding that the asserted patent claims are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The nonprecedential decision was authored by Judge Chen and joined by Judges Dyk and Stark.

A person recently approached me at church with excitement regarding a software process he developed. His company was so pleased with the result that it is filing a patent, listing him as the inventor. This person knew that I had some kind of patent backstory, so he asked for my thoughts. My name is Jeffrey A. Killian, and I am the patent applicant in the Federal Circuit Court case # 2021 -2113 (In Re: Killian). I took no pleasure in telling my  friend at church that his patent application will be rejected. Plus, the official notice will have my precedential case quoted all over his rejection. With friends at church like me, who needs enemies? 

Trademark claims against Netflix concerning its popular “Running Point” comedy series were recently dismissed at the pleadings stage due to a one-letter misarticulation of applicable First Amendment law. The case, soon to be litigated on appeal, highlights the need to clarify the contours of trademark liability arising from creative works. Pepperdine University filed the lawsuit last year against Netflix and co-defendants Warner Bros. and Kaling International, just one week before the “Running Point” series premiere.  Loosely based on the life of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, the series stars Kate Hudson as the owner of the fictional basketball team the Los Angeles Waves. The popular series, which amassed instant popularity and ranked as Netflix’s #1 TV show, was quickly ordered for a second season that premiered April 23, 2026.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday in a precedential decision authored by Judge Lourie affirmed a district court’s ruling determining certain claims of Enviro Tech Chemical Services, Inc.’s patent for a method of poultry treatment indefinite. Enviro Tech’s U.S. Patent No.10,912,321is titled “Methods of Using Peracetic Acid to Treat Poultry in a Chill Tank During Processing.” Enviro Tech sued Safe Foods Corp. for infringement of a number of claims of the patent in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Whether or not the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) wants to admit it, over most of the last generation there has been a secret examination docket. Not surprisingly, such a secret examination docket is strictly prohibited by federal law. A newly filed joint status report in Morinville v. USPTO brings this issue to the fore and underscores the lack of transparency and accountability of secret internal patent review programs at the USPTO. Procedurally, the latest filing seeks to expose the USPTO shadow docket through a new round of discovery, which is currently being considered by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., a case with broad implications for the generic industry’s practice of “skinny labeling” and the induced infringement standard for patent law and beyond. IPWatchdog reached out to members of the IP community for their initial takeaways from yesterday’s arguments.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Wednesday in Federal Express Corporation v. Qualcomm Incorporated, vacating a determination by the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims of a Federal Express Corporation patent were unpatentable as obvious. The CAFC also held that it could not review the PTAB’s refusal to determine whether all real parties in interest were identified in the petition for inter partes review (IPR).

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Hikma v. Amarin, a closely-watched case that in part asks the Justices to weigh in on whether a drugmaker calling its product a “generic version” while citing public sales information about the branded drug induces infringement of a patented use fully carved out by the generic’s label. Hikma’s petition also asks whether a complaint states an induced infringement claim if it fails to allege any instruction or statement by the defendant mentioning the patented use. While some Justices today questioned why the case was even before them, others seemed concerned about the potential impact of the case for the generic pharmaceutical industry.

Last week, Bloomberg Law broke the news that U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright of the Western District of Texas would leave the Western Texas bench by the end of this August. Nominated to the federal judiciary during the first Trump Administration, Judge Albright spent his relatively short time on the bench cutting a courageous pathway through patent law, which created some controversy in Congress, but notably has earned him a reputation of thoughtfulness and fairness in the application of patent law among plaintiff- and defendant-side lawyers arguing in his courtroom.