Posts Tagged: "patent infringement"

On Friday afternoon, the IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors (IEEE SA BOG) announced they had taken action to update the Patent Policy for IEEE standards development. The updates, which will not go into effect until January 1, 2023, appear at first glance to be minimal, but will likely have an extraordinarily positive impact for patent owners.

The inventor of a novel jump rope system (the Revolution Rope), Molly Metz, is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court through her company, Jump Rope Systems, LLC, to seek clarification of the collateral estoppel doctrine as applied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to bar a patent infringement suit in district court where the CAFC has affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding of unpatentability. Jump Rope Systems is arguing that the CAFC’s decision in  XY, LLC v. Trans Ova Genetics, L.C. (2018) conflicts with the Supreme Court decisions in B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Indus., 575 U.S. 138 (2015); Medtronic, Inc. v. Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC, 571 U.S. 191 (2014); and Grogan v. Garner, 498 U.S. 279 (1991).

Novartis Pharmaceuticals announced today that it will appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) June decision invalidating its patent for a dosing regimen for its multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya to the U.S. Supreme Court, after the CAFC denied its request to rehear the case. The CAFC in June vacated a different three-judge panel’s January opinion upholding Novartis’ U.S. Patent No. 9,187,405. In the original ruling, Chief Judge Moore had dissented from the majority; in the rehearing, Moore authored the opinion vacating the January decision, with Judge Linn dissenting.

Technological standards promulgated by standards-setting organizations (SSOs) have greatly advanced the state of consumer technologies in areas like wireless communications. However, when dealing with infringing standards implementers, the remedies that one system of national courts provides can vary widely from another system. Navigating this complex system of global litigation and competing remedies against infringers was the subject of “Worldwide Litigation of SEPs: What the FRAND is Going On?,” a panel taking place on the third and final day of IPWatchdog LIVE 2022.

On September 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Arendi S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics Inc., authored by Circuit Judge Sharon Prost, affirming the District of Delaware’s dismissal of a patent infringement complaint filed by Arendi under the duplicative-litigation doctrine. The ruling highlights the importance of adhering to local rules on initial disclosures in Delaware, one of the most popular U.S. district courts for patent infringement litigation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on August 31 affirmed a district court’s ruling that Verify Smart Corp had failed to plausibly allege an agency relationship between Wells Fargo and Bank of America (the “Banks”) and a banking industry group’s subsidiary sufficient to prove the Banks enlisted the subsidiary to challenge a patent they were contractually prohibited from challenging themselves.

On August 31, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in INVT SPE LLC v. International Trade Commission (ITC) affirming the ITC’s ruling that Apple and other respondents in a Section 337 investigation did not infringe upon INVT’s patent claims covering wireless communications systems and that there was no Section 337 violation. While the Federal Circuit did side with INVT’s arguments that its patent claims were drawn to device capability and not actual operation, the CAFC opinion, authored by Circuit Judge Raymond Chen, found that INVT did not produce evidence that the accused devices possessed the capability covered by the patent claims.

Creative destruction, once a hallmark of progressive capitalism, is no longer working. Powerful companies that control software and silo valuable data are impeding innovation and threatening society. That is the conclusion of a recently published book, The New Goliaths: How Corporations Use Software to Dominate Industries, Kill Innovation, and Undermine Regulation. The author, James Bessen, vilifies the impact of software ownership and the ability of patents and other rights to effectively promote innovation and encourage competition.

Late last week, the parties to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Review of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) institution decisions in OpenSky Industries, LLC v. VLSI Technology LLC, IPR2021-01064 and Patent Quality Assurance, LLC v. VLSI Technology LLC, IPR2021-01229, filed their opening briefs. While OpenSky vehemently denied any abuse of the PTAB system, VLSI said the cases force the USPTO to answer the question “whether the Office should allow itself to be used to facilitate extortion.”

In its third precedential patent decision this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today affirmed a district court’s finding that Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) does not infringe two patents owned by Par Pharmaceutical, Inc., Par Sterile Products, LLC, and Endo Par Innovation Company, LLC (collectively, Par). The CAFC also affirmed the district court’s denial of declaratory judgment that the sale of the proposed generic product would infringe.

On August 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Click-to-Call Technologies LP v. Ingenio, Inc. finding in part that, as a matter of law, Ingenio was estopped from challenging the validity of a patent claim on grounds it could have reasonably challenged during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Although the impact of this precedential holding will likely be limited due to the “unusual procedural posture” of this case, which involves a partial IPR institution prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in SAS Institute, the Federal Circuit’s decision does underscore the circuitous nature of PTAB proceedings that often add many years to patent lawsuits filed in U.S. district court.

On August 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision in A. O. Smith Corp. v. Bradford White Corp. which affirmed rulings from the District of Delaware that A. O. Smith’s patent covering a hot-water heater system was both infringed by Bradford White and not invalid. The appellate court ruled that the district court’s construction of a contested limitation within claim 1 was supported by the patent’s specification. Judge Timothy Dyk concurred with the majority’s ruling but argued that the majority should have based its decision to affirm claim construction on evidentiary findings made by the district court.

To succeed on a claim of induced infringement, a patent owner must show that the accused infringer (1) actively encouraged infringement, (2) knew that the acts they induced constituted patent infringement, and (3) actuated direct patent infringement by those encouraging acts. In many courts, the knowledge requirement can be satisfied by service of a complaint for patent infringement itself. So, the accused infringer can start to incur liability at the onset of litigation. In the minority of courts, only pre-suit knowledge can satisfy the knowledge requirement. In those jurisdictions, the plaintiff must show the accused infringer knew about the alleged infringement before the onset of litigation. The amount of evidence required to show pre-suit knowledge at the pleading phase is an open question.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday reversed a district court’s denial of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) to Amazon of no induced infringement and vacated a jury verdict finding that it had induced infringement of Vocalife LLC’s patent for a method of enhancing acoustics. Judge Hughes authored the opinion. The asserted patent was U.S. Patent No. RE 47,049, which covers “methods and systems for ‘enhancing acoustics of a target sound signal received from a target sound source, while suppressing ambient noise signals.’” Vocalife filed suit against Amazon, claiming certain Amazon Echo products infringed the ’049 patent–specifically, Claim 1’s reference to “providing a microphone array system comprising an array of sound sensors positioned in a linear, circular, or other configuration” and “determining a delay . . . wherein said determination of said delay enables beamforming for said array of sound sensors in a plurality of configurations.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision affirming a California district court’s award of attorneys’ fees in part to Netflix, Inc. for Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC’s “improper” litigation conduct. The CAFC said that Realtime’s use of forum-shopping to blatantly avoid an adverse ruling amounted to “gamesmanship” that “constitutes a willful action for an improper purpose, tantamount to bad faith, and therefore [is] within the bounds of activities sanctionable under a court’s inherent power in view of the Ninth Circuit’s standard.” The opinion was authored by Judge Chen and Judge Reyna concurred-in-part and dissented-in-part.