Posts Tagged: "Apple"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday vacated and remanded a final written decision from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding. The court concluded that the Board erred by denying petitioner Apple Inc. an adequate opportunity to respond to a new claim construction argument raised by patent owner Smart Mobile Technologies LLC after the IPR was instituted. Apple challenged U.S. Patent No. 9,191,083, owned by Smart Mobile, which is described as a “portable and wireless enabled” network box designed to transmit and receive multiple data streams simultaneously. The technology at issue involves using a “plurality of antennas” to handle these simultaneous data streams. After instituting the IPR, the Board ultimately determined that Apple had not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged claims of the ‘083 patent were unpatentable as obvious.

Taking their cue from the recent Bartz v. Anthropic saga, the authors of a neuroscience book and professors at the State University of New York filed a class action complaint on October 9 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that Apple Inc. committed mass copyright infringement by using pirated books to train its artificial intelligence systems. Plaintiffs Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik claimed that Apple built its Apple Intelligence platform, including its OpenELM and Foundation Models, by making unauthorized copies of copyrighted works without permission or compensation.

On Wednesday, Irvine, CA-based health technology company Masimo Corporation filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and several U.S. government officials, challenging ex parte rulings allowing consumer tech giant Apple to restore pulse oximetry functionality to several smartwatch models. This functionality had previously been found to infringe Masimo’s patents by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), leading Masimo to question why the CBP utilized proceedings normally reserved for exceptional circumstances after Apple committed hundreds of billions to expand advanced manufacturing and supply chain capacity in the United States.

Fintiv, Inc. has filed a complaint against Apple, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, alleging “corporate theft and racketeering of monumental proportions” due to Apple’s misappropriation of Fintiv’s mobile wallet technology. Fintiv’s complaint charges that Apple blatantly stole its trade secrets for mobile wallet technology from Fintiv’s predecessor, CorFire, under pressure to develop a mobile digital wallet and an inability to do so on its own.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential ruling in Optis Cellular Technology, LLC v. Apple, Inc. vacating infringement and damages judgments awarded to Optis by the Eastern District of Texas. The CAFC also reversed summary judgment rulings upholding Optis patent claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, found that other claims did not invoke means-plus-function analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6), and ruled that the district court’s jury instructions deprived Apple of its right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment—a constitutional argument that has not fared as successfully for patent owners protecting their intellectual property rights in administrative proceedings.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday, May 16, reversed a district court’s decision granting summary judgment of non-infringement for Apple. The CAFC found that, under the district court’s broad construction of the term “widget,” Fintiv, Inc. had presented enough evidence to “create a genuine issue of material fact that a widget exists in the accused products,” and therefore potentially infringed.

The UK Court of Appeal today ruled that Apple must pay Optis Cellular Technology LLC $502 million for a worldwide fair reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) license to its 4G standard essential patents (SEPs) patents. With interest and fees, the total amount exceeds $700 million. Optis sued Apple in 2019, and a May 2023 ruling by Mr Justice Marcus Smith at the High Court of England and Wales awarded $56.43 million to Optis as a lump sum reasonable royalty for Apple’s infringement of the SEPs, a total that pales in comparison with damages verdicts that Optis has earned in litigation against Apple elsewhere.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Wednesday affirming a district court’s finding for PayPal Holdings, Inc. that certain claims of Fintiv, Inc.’s patents for a mobile wallet payment system were invalid as indefinite. Fintiv sued PayPal for infringement of its U.S. Patent Nos. 9,892,386; 11,120,413; 9,208,488; and 10,438,196. Following claim construction, the district court found that the “payment handler terms” in the claims were indefinite, and specifically that the asserted claims were “means-plus-function” terms that failed to disclose adequate corresponding structure.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a precedential decision reversing a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that found on remand from the CAFC claims of Qualcomm’s patent for integrated circuit devices were unpatentable. The decision relates to two inter partes review (IPR) petitions brought by Apple, Inc. against Qualcomm’s U.S. Patent No. 8,063,674 in 2018.

Last week, oral hearings concluded at the UK Court of Appeal in the ongoing patent licensing dispute between wireless communication developer Optis and consumer device giant Apple over 4G standard essential patents (SEPs) owned by Optis and practiced by Apple devices. While a ruling is not expected for another month or so, several signs point to the Court of Appeal adjusting the May 2023 ruling by Mr Justice Marcus Smith at the High Court of England and Wales in a way that increases the damages for patent infringement that are ultimately awarded to Optis.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today in a precedential decision upheld a mixed Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that found some claims of Gesture Technology’s patent on camera sensing technology for handheld gaming and other devices to be unpatentable, but others not proven unpatentable. The inter partes review (IPR) was brought by Apple, Inc., which appealed the Board’s partial finding of unpatentability.

Consumer device giant Apple has earned trillions of dollars and cornered near monopoly levels of market share by implementing a corporate strategy focused on gaming proceedings in the federal judiciary and administrative agencies with the intent to devalue patent rights. That is the major takeaway from a recently launched campaign raising awareness into the alleged growing chokehold that Apple has gained over the global innovation industry over the past two decades, and the resulting stagnation in the cellular mobile communications ecosystem.

Professional trumpet player Charles Bertini has for now lost his latest bid to cancel trademark rights owned by Apple, Inc. covering the use of the company’s name in connection with entertainment services. Bertini filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of California in June 2024. It was the latest effort in his nearly decade-long battle to obtain a federal trademark registration for APPLE JAZZ, a mark Bertini has used to market live entertainment since 1985.

On August 30, SoftView LLC filed a petition for en banc rehearing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), arguing that the court’s recent decision incorrectly applied the doctrine of collateral estoppel/issue preclusion to a series of amended claims. In the original ruling, which was covered in a separate article, the CAFC held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) properly applied the estoppel provision of 37 CFR § 42.73(d)(3)(i) in invalidating SoftView’s amended claims submitted in inter partes reexaminations based on a prior inter partes review (IPR) decision.