Posts Tagged: "Injunctions"

As the end of 2013 approaches and I look back on what has transpired I am saddened to see that through the year patent rights have continued to erode. Make no mistake about it, at every turn patent rights are eroding. You might think that there has been some collective, open-air discussion about whether this is a good idea. Nope! It seems government you get is the government you can afford, and those who have the ear of decision-makers on Capitol Hill are the extraordinarily well funding big tech companies that want to weaken patent rights or do away with them altogether. Indeed, there has been scant consideration paid to the effect of weakening patent rights. The erosion of patent rights is exceptionally alarming given the fact that the Founding Fathers thought it was self evident that a strong patent system was essential for America. The Founders believed the importance of patent rights to be so self evident that little debate was had on the topic. How the pendulum has swung!

1. Reed Tech takes over USPTO Contract from Google. 2. Pharma Patent Settlements Saved $25.5 Billion for US Health System. 3. Coffee Analysis Smart Phone App for that Perfect Brew. 4.FDA Approves Brain Wave Test to Assess ADHD in Children. 5. CAFC Copaxone® Patent Ruling Allows May 2014 Generic Launch. 6. A Permanent Injunction in a Patent Infringement Case! 7. Post-Grant Proceedings Treatise Publishes.

In TiVo v. Echostar, Echostar lost on infringement of TiVo’s patented DVR functionality. Judge Folsom issued an injunction and ordered that Echostar stop offering the service and disable all storage to and playback from the hard disk. Unfortunately for Echostar, they did not appeal the wording of the injunction and took no action against the disablement provision. Instead they designed around it by downloading new code to get the set-top box to operate in a different way, in what appeared to be a pretty clean design-around. TiVo filed a contempt motion. Echostar was sanctioned on the grounds that there were not “colorable differences” and their design-around infringed. The dissent argued that not only were there colorable differences but moreover the differences established non-infringement. After two years of back-and-forth and one too many trips to Judge Folsom, the original 70 million that Echostar had to pay for the initial infringement rose to 300 million because of Echostar doing what they thought would get them out of infringing.

One of the factors considers the presence of irreparable injury, which is harm not quantifiable or remediable as money damages. For the factor to be satisfied – for an injunction to issue – it must be determined that damages associated with ongoing infringement are economically incalculable. This factor, unpopular as it may be among some observers, has regularly been pointed to by Courts as conclusive in their decisions to issue or deny injunctions. Yet the factor is often analyzed only superficially, and even unpredictably.

Yesterday, the Judge Koh of the United States District Court for the Federal Circuit denied Apple’s request for a permanent injunction in their ongoing patent war over smartphones with Samsung. The denial of the injunction will allow Samsung to continue to sell phones found to infringe Apple’s patents. How can that make sense to anyone? The patentee, who has already won, must establish entitlement to an order to exclude ongoing and future infringement under a four-factor test that balances equities? What good is a patent? Why did the Patent Office even bother reviewing the patent in the first place then? Why do we pretend that there is an exclusive right in the first place? And the most ignorant elements of the anti-patent community have the audacity to refer to a patent as a monopoly? Give me a break!

The discussion was lively, perhaps even explosive. You could nearly see sparks fly when Chief Judge Rader continued to pepper Seth Waxman with question after question about his opinion on the propriety of parties lobbying the White House in order to obtain a favorable amici brief from the Department of Justice. Rader zeroed in on the slippery slope and obviously is not pleased with the mixing of law and politics, saying: “this is a cause for concern… Politics and law have a divide.” It is indeed troubling that the White House under both President Bush and President Obama have allowed lobbying by parties who seek a favorable DOJ amici brief. Interpretations of the law shouldn’t be for sale, or appear to be for sale to the largest donors.

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay v. MercExchange there have been 131 cases where a permanent injunction has issued and 43 cases where a permanent injunction has been denied. Some have tried to pass this off as not much of a departure from the practice prior to the Supreme Court’s decision. Such a viewpoint is, however, not correct. Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision it was virtually unheard of for a district court to deny a victorious plaintiff a permanent injunction in patent infringement case. So the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay v. MercExchange has been one that has significantly altered the patent litigation landscape and, therefore, is easily one of the most important Supreme Court patent cases in recent memory.

Realistically, I understand full well that it is unlikely that Congress will bother themselves with reform efforts that are sensible, at least at the moment. It is also unlikely that innovators will be adequately represented in any reform efforts once they do arise. It seems that the power structure in Washington, D.C. believes that the term “innovator” and “big business” are synonymous, which surely they are not. It is also unlikely the Senate will move beyond the legislation Senator Leahy wants so badly but can’t seem to move. Thus, if we really want sensible reform that actually raises up the Patent Office and guarantees the value of patents for innovators we need to be ever vigilant.