Posts Tagged: "ITC"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision on Friday in Apple Inc. v. International Trade Commission, affirming a final determination that Apple violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The CAFC determined that the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) correctly concluded that Masimo Corporation and Cercacor Laboratories, Inc., proved that Apple violated Section 337 through the sale and import of certain Apple Watch models, ultimately “finding no error in the Commission’s domestic industry determination, its validity rulings, or its infringement findings.” The CAFC also held that the asserted patents were not unenforceable due to prosecution laches.

Every day, Americans rely on technologies that were unimaginable just a generation ago – from advanced medical devices and artificial intelligence–powered applications to connected consumer electronics. These breakthroughs did not emerge in a vacuum. They are the product of an innovation ecosystem shaped by policy choices. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)—an agency with the extraordinary power to block imports and, in turn, influence the direction of American technology policy—has drifted out of that balance. To align with the Trump Administration’s intellectual property priorities and pro-investment agenda, the ITC is in urgent need of reform.

In a precedential ruling authored by Judge Stoll, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) said on Thursday that International Trade Commission (ITC) decisions that contain mixed findings of violations and no violations have distinct appeal windows as to the notices of appeal for the different findings.

For Section 337 investigations before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), 2025 was a year of contrasts. As one example, the Federal Circuit’s long-awaited decision in Lashify, Inc. v. ITC reduced the burden for satisfying Section 337’s domestic industry requirement, under which ITC complainants must show adequate U.S. investments in practicing or exploiting the asserted intellectual property rights. But this lower threshold did not immediately result in increased Section 337 complaint filings. For much of 2025, uncertainty concerning U.S. trade policy and federal government operations likely depressed ITC complaint filings.

Practitioners in the high-stakes world of the International Trade Commission (ITC) are familiar with the formidable power of a Section 337 remedial order. The threat of a cease-and-desist order, backed by civil penalties of up to $100,000 a day or twice the value of imported goods, is a powerful deterrent. For years, the process for enforcing these penalties has been a settled feature of ITC practice. But a recent Supreme Court decision, Jarkesy v. SEC, has introduced a new constitutional question that ITC litigators might want to watch out for.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued a precedential decision in Brita LP v. International Trade Commission, affirming the International Trade Commission’s (ITC’s) finding that claims of a Brita patent for a water filtration system are invalid for lacking adequate written description and lack of enablement. The opinion was authored by Circuit Judge Prost and joined by Judges Reyna and Chen.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a pair of precedential decisions involving appeals from U.S. federal agency determinations on the patent rights of North Carolina-based energy demand response developer Causam Enterprises. The Federal Circuit affirmed the invalidation of Causam’s patent rights and mooted further infringement proceedings after finding that inconsistent positions on patent ownership taken by respondent ecobee in alternative forums did not present a constitutional due process issue.

This Monday, Irvine, CA-based memory technology developer Netlist filed a complaint  with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging rampant infringement of its patent rights by dynamic random access memory (DRAM) devices manufactured by Samsung, including those used in Google products. The complaint is Netlist’s latest action against Samsung following a breached joint development agreement and two jury verdicts entered in U.S. district court awarding Netlist more than $420 million for Samsung’s infringing memory modules.

On Friday, August 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a ruling in HC Robotics v. International Trade Commission affirming agency determinations that HC Robotics’ material delivery solution infringed upon robotics delivery patent claims owned by OPEX Corporation. In so ruling, the Federal Circuit dismissed HC Robotics’ argument that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) erred in construing several claim terms from patents asserted by OPEX in the Section 337 infringement proceeding.

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.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today holding that it does not have jurisdiction to review appeals outside of final decisions on the merits from the International Trade Commission (ITC) that affect the entry of articles…. Realtek appealed the ITC’s denial of its motion for sanctions against Future Link, arguing that both the ITC ALJ and the Commission itself violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by rejecting the sanctions request. The ITC and Future Link argued that the CAFC did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal and that Realtek did not have standing.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed I speak with F. Scott Kieff, former Commissioner on the International Trade Commission, and Joshua Hartman, head of Merchant & Gould’s ITC practice group. Our conversation, which took place on June 4, focused on the landmark ruling by the Federal Circuit in Lashify, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, which was a big win for small business patent owners. We discuss the consequences of the Lashify ruling and the politics of the decision, including whether the decision fits within an America First view of domestic and global markets. Kieff also discusses the historical evolution of the ITC, why it was initially created, and how it is purposefully deadlocked politically to require cooperation.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) filed a combined petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc on Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), arguing that the court’s March precedential decision vacating a Commission determination on the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement “overlooks the cardinal rule that statutory language must be read in context.”

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition seeking to clarify “whether the sale of an end product made by secret use of a claimed process places the process itself on sale, rendering the process unpatentable under the AIA’s on-sale provision.” The petition was an appeal from the August 12,2024, precedential decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Celanese International Corp. v. International Trade Commission (ITC) affirming the ITC’s ruling that process patents owned by Celanese were invalid due to secret sales of products made by the claimed process prior to the one-year on-sale bar, codified at 35 U.S.C. § 102(a).