Posts Tagged: "patent infringement"

Stryker Corporation was awarded $70 million in lost profits after a jury found that Stryker’s patents were valid and willfully infringed by Zimmer. The district court affirmed the jury’s verdict, awarded Stryker treble damages for willful infringement, and awarded Stryker attorney’s fees. Stryker’s patents concerned portable, battery-powered, and handheld pulsed lavage devices used in orthopedic procedures to deliver pressurized irrigation for medical therapies, including cleaning wounds.

Schlumberger raised Rutherford’s potential conflict of interest to the court in April 2014, and subsequently filed a motion to disqualify Dynamic’s counsel. The district court found that Rutherford’s work at Schlumberger was substantially related to her current work at Acacia. The court found that because the accused features of Petrel existed in the older versions that Rutherford was exposed to, and because she was involved at Schlumberger in efforts to license Petrel to other companies, the evidence created an irrebuttable presumption that she acquired confidential information requiring her disqualification.

The court decided to award enhanced damages in this case because of egregious behavior on behalf of Samsung, including attempts to copy the technology and demonstrably false testimony given by Samsung. For example, Samsung’s representatives testified under oath that they only became aware of Imperium IP’s patents in June 2014, when the infringement action was first brought to court. Depositions and other discovery proved this to be incorrect. One witness who worked at ESS Technologies, the company to which the ‘884 patent was first assigned, testified that Samsung sought specific information on anti-flicker and flash technology. It was also proven that Samsung had previously attempted to purchase the patents-in-suit from Imperium, concealing its identity through a patent broker. Instead of June 2014, the court found that Samsung knew about Imperium’s patents since at least April 2011.

On Wednesday, August 17th, respiratory health device developer ResMed Inc. (NYSE:RMD) of San Diego, CA, announced that it had filed multiple legal actions against Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (NZE:FPH) of Auckland, New Zealand. ResMed is alleging that multiple Fisher & Paykel products are infringing upon multiple patents and is seeking an injunction banning the importation of those products. ResMed filed actions with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California (S.D. Cal.) as well as courts in Germany and New Zealand.

The analysis of unique patent numbers asserted each year surprisingly suggested a decline since 2010. This is an important measure, because it shows that the rise in the number of lawsuits reported by many studies is the result of only a few players (plaintiffs) who had to file many cases due to AIA and joinder rules. Additionally, although it was assumed by many experts that the number of patents per case will increase over time in order to reduce the risk of invalidation through IPR, that number has not changed significantly. In fact, it dropped last year.

The information the FTC has been collecting regarding patent assertion entities is extensive. Along with standard corporate information, the FTC is making a survey of each patent in PAE portfolios going back to 2008 to investigate the date of patent acquisition, the patent’s maintenance fee status as well as the assertion history for all patents upon which the PAE has attempted to enforce its rights. Firms are also being asked to describe their business model, the methods used to organize their patent portfolios and the aggregate costs of patent acquisition and assertion. The FTC has sent information requests to 25 PAEs in order to build its evidence.

The Federal Circuit again addressed whether Pulse’s domestic sales activities were either a sale or an offer for sale in the U.S. While the patent statute does not define “sale,” the Court has previously held that it carries its ordinary meaning, including the transfer of title or property. Further, a “sale” must be understood in view of the strong policy against extraterritorial liability for patent infringement. Here, no sale occurred in the U.S., because the final formation of a contract and all elements of performing the contract occurred outside the U.S.

Under the Federal Circuit’s reading of Halo, companies can no longer rely solely on reasonable litigation-inspired defenses to prevent a finding of willfulness… The Federal Circuit also found that the district court abused its discretion in failing to issue a permanent injunction. While there is a public interest in safer generators, there is also a public interest in the security of patent rights. The patent owner presented evidence that it had sufficient production abilities to satisfy market demand for the product. Finally, in similar contexts, Congress has expressly indicated that permanent injunctions may issue to prevent infringement of other life-saving goods like pharmaceuticals.

During 2016’s second quarter, plaintiffs filed a total of 1,282 patent infringement cases in U.S. district court. This is a 33 percent increase in the 958 patent cases filed during the first quarter but data suggests that the second quarter tends to see the highest level of infringement cases over all other quarters according to Lex Machina data scientists Brian Howard. “We would expect a jump up from the first quarter,” he said. The first quarter was also a trough for patent infringement cases after last November’s massive number of 847 patent cases, just more than 100 cases less than the entire docket for this year’s first quarter. “The rise we’ve seen puts this year on track with 2011 or 2012 rather than the last two years,” Howard said.

On one hand, LifeTech argues that the Federal Circuit ruling was in conflict with the text and structure of the Patent Act as well as the presumption of extraterritoriality. Expanding the reach of the extraterritoriality in patent law, it claims, would distort the incentives for multinational companies to supply components from facilities in the United States, potentially causing long-term economic damage and disrupting the international system of national patents. On its side were the Solicitor General and amici curiae who also believe that if the ruling were upheld, it would likely interfere with modern global supply logistics and disproportionately burden U.S. manufacturers with global operations.

In light of Commil, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Federal Circuit… First, the Court concluded that Warsaw’s non-infringement theory was objectively unreasonable. Second, the Court concluded that NuVasive had presented sufficient evidence such that a jury could conclude that Warsaw knew it was inducing doctors to infringe NuVasive’s patent. In a concurrence, Judge Reyna expressed several concerns about the court’s reasoning in reaching this conclusion.

The chance of a court tripling damages for patent infringement has significantly increased. The Supreme Court, Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., et al. and Stryker Corporation, et al. v. Zimmer, Inc., et al., granted district courts more discretion to award enhanced damages for willful patent infringement. However, the Court’s recent decision could have unintended consequences. The Supreme Court’s relaxation of the requirements for willful infringement could be a game changer for patent trolls.

According to multiple reports, the Caltech patents-in-suit are incorporated into both the 802.11n and 802.11ac wireless connectivity standards, which are used by Apple products to communicate digital information. This latest patent infringement lawsuit is part of a growing trend where universities find themselves forced to file suit in U.S. district courts in order to protect their patent rights. They are forced to sue because those that infringe the patents refuse to take licenses on reasonable terms, they refuse to negotiate, and they refuse even to return calls. They choose to infringe with eyes wide open because they feel like they can. This is the face of what is called efficient infringement.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion with large ramifications for patent holders and potential infringers alike. Deciding the consolidated cases of Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc. and Stryker Corp. v. Zimmer, Inc., the Court ruled that enhanced patent damages are appropriate to punish an infringer’s egregious, deliberate, or flagrant patent infringement. The Court rejected the Federal Circuit’s Seagate test, which had provided an accused infringer with a complete defense to a charge of willfulness (and thus enhanced damages) if the infringer was able to construct, even years after the infringement began, a reasonable argument that the patent was invalid or not infringed, even where the infringer in fact had acted in bad faith. The Court also lowered the required burden of proof from clear and convincing evidence to a preponderance of the evidence. At the same time, it seems clear that mere negligence is not enough to establish entitlement to enhanced damages. While the Supreme Court referred to the 180 years of enhanced damages jurisprudence since the Patent Act of 1836 as setting forth the appropriate approach, it may take several years of additional litigation for predictability to emerge from today’s decision.

Earlier today, in a unanimous decision delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., the United States Supreme Court did what much of the patent world expected it would do, which is overrule the Federal Circuit’s “unduly rigid” test for the awarding of enhanced damages for willful damages put in place by In re Seagate Technology, LLC, 497 F. 3d 1360, 1371 (2007)(en banc).