Butch Laker

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), with Judge Hughes writing for the court, dismissed defendant-appellant LG Electronics Inc. and LG Electronics U.S.A. Inc.’s (collectively, ‘LG’) request for interlocutory review due to lack of jurisdiction; the court said LG had failed to file within 30 days of the date at which the liability issues became final, resulting in an untimely appeal. In 2014, Mondis Technology, Ltd. (“Limited”) sued defendants for patent infringement over U.S. Patent No. 7,475,180(“the ‘180 patent”), which claims a “display unit configured to receive video signals from an external video source.” The district court granted Limited leave to join other plaintiffs, namely, Hitachi Maxell, LTD., NKA Maxell Holdings, LTD., Maxell, LTD., (collectively ‘Hitachi’) to address LG’s pretrial standing challenge. A jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey found LG infringed claims 14 and 15 of the ‘180 patent, the claims weren’t invalid, and the infringement was willful. The jury then awarded plaintiffs $45 million in damages. 

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the United States District Court for the Northern District of California’s final judgment of noninfringement of SpeedTrack’s (Plaintiff-Appellant) patent U.S. Patent No. 5,544,360 (the ‘360 patent). SpeedTrack sued online retailers AMAZON.COM, BESTBUY.COM, LLC, OFFICEMAX, INC., MACY’S, INC., MACYS.COM, LLC and many others for infringement of its category-based filing system. The ultimate decision weighed on the district court’s construction of claims and whether or not the ‘360 patent had a hierarchical structure. The district court construed the claims to not have a hierarchical structure and determined that defendants-cross-appellants did not infringe. The CAFC, with Judge Prost writing for the court, agreed.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) yesterday issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) titled “Changes To Implement Provisions of the Trademark Modernization Act (TMA) of 2020.” The Office is seeking input on the proposal, which would revise the rules in Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, parts 2 and 7, and will be holding public roundtables to explain the amendments and answer questions. Here are some of the key proposed changes.

Yesterday, the CAFC affirmed a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, where a jury found Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Inc. and Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Ltd. (collectively, Oxford) infringed all claims of Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc.’s (PacBio) patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 9,546,400 (the ‘400 patent) and 9,772,323 (the ‘323 patent), but also found the patents invalid for lack of enablement under 35 U.S.C. §112. The district court denied PacBio’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) and denied their request for a new trial due to Oxford’s alleged improper remarks made during opening, related to the COVID-19 crisis.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed a district court ruling denying a request for declaratory judgment by Covidien LP and Covidien Holding Inc. (collectively, “Covidien”) against appellee Brady Esch, a former employee who assigned a medical device patent to a company he founded. After a nine-day trial, the jury awarded Covidien nearly $800,000, finding Esch incurred in a breach of confidential information. Covidien subsequently moved for a declaratory judgment asking the court to require Esch to assign later inventions. The district court denied this request. The First Circuit was tasked with determining whether the district court abused its discretion. Finding it did not, they affirmed.