Posts Tagged: "Patent Litigation"

A normal (statistically) patent filings week saw 29 new Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings (including a pair of post grant reviews) and 67 district court patent complaints, with another 76 terminations. Among those cases, note: Peter Pedersen has continued to add defendants to what promises to be a wide-ranging assertion campaign based on a single patent covering organizing email lists; Samsung has settled a tranche of IPRs against Trenchant Blade Technologies (associated with Tanit Ventures, Inc., with old patents, presumably with a backend, from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC); Google filed more inter partes reviews (IPRs) against Jawbone (the failed company “zombie” NPE now controlled by Fortress); Samsung filed a PGR on the single design patent that has been asserted repeatedly by WePay Global Payments against generic graphical user interfaces (D930702); and various highlights, below.

On June 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded a decision by the United States District Court for the District of Delaware relating to the University of Massachusetts’ (UMass’) suit against L’Oréal S.A. and its American subsidiary L’Oréal USA, Inc. (collectively, L’Oréal), alleging patent infringement of both U.S Patent No. 6,423,327 (the ‘327 patent) and U.S. Patent No. 6,645,513 (the ‘513 patent). The district court held that it lacked personal jurisdiction over L’Oréal S.A. and that the patents were invalid based on indefiniteness. UMass on appeal challenged both of the district court’s holdings, arguing that they were entitled to jurisdictional discovery against L’Oréal S.A. and that the claim construction performed by the district court was improper.

The U.S. Department of Justice is encouraging the Supreme Court to grant certiorari to American Axle to clarify U.S. patent eligibility law. Thus, it appears that the chances are better than ever for this issue to get some much-needed attention…. After more than one year of waiting, the Justice Department filed their amicus brief on May 24, 2022. The Solicitor unequivocally stated that the Federal Circuit’s holding that the ‘911 claims are patent ineligible “is incorrect,” and that the appellate decision reflects “substantial uncertainty about the proper application of Section 101.” The Solicitor also noted that the Alice two-part test for patent eligibility enunciated by the Supreme Court in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), has produced confusion in lower courts, and has “fractured” the Federal Circuit. (See Solicitor’s brief at page 19). The Solicitor also acknowledged the admitted difficulty for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), inventors, businesses, and other patent stakeholders, in applying the Supreme Court’s precedents consistently with regard to patent eligibility under Section 101. The Solicitor urged that the Section 101 inquiry be guided by historical practice and judicial precedent. But Supreme Court precedent appears to be irreconcilable.

Two bipartisan members of congress, Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) and Representative Bill Posey (R-FL), sent a letter yesterday to President Joe Biden urging him to maintain the 2019 version of the  Joint Department of Justice (DOJ)-U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)-National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary FRAND Commitments. A comment period on the latest iteration, which was issued in 2021, ended on February 4. The new version of the Statement came on the heels of President Joe Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, which asked the three agencies to review the 2019 statement.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California from an appeal by Kingston Technology Company LLC, in which the district court held that Kingston willfully infringed U.S. Patent No. 6,926,544 (‘544 patent) and awarded $7,515,327.40 in compensatory damages. The CAFC said in part that the district court can judicially correct claims when there are “obvious minor typographical and clerical errors in patents” without changing the scope of the claim.  

On Wednesday, May 25, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal and a panel of academics from Silicon Valley participated in a 90-minute, live Q&A webinar regarding the state of the USPTO. I attended virtually. I am a five-time world jump rope champion and the only jump roper to design and patent a jump rope handle technology. I was granted my two patents (US 7,789,809 B2 and US 8,136.208 B2) in 2010/2012. I started my jump rope manufacturing business, JumpNrope, in 2010 here in Louisville, Colorado. I am proud to also say that I source all my jump rope parts and pieces from U.S. vendors. We make all our jump ropes by hand in Colorado. My technology not only changed the sport of jump rope by offering a precision speed jump rope handle, but it also changed the fitness industry. To date, hundreds of companies have infringed on my patent, including Rogue Fitness, the largest fitness distributor for CrossFit and Strongman. As detailed in my case, I believe that Rogue has willfully infringed on my patent since 2012 by selling tens of millions of dollars’ worth of infringing jump ropes per year.

On June 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in ClearOne, Inc. v. Shure Acquisition Holdings, Inc. affirming a final written decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which found that a substituted claim  offered by the patent owner, Shure, was not invalid due to an indefinite claim term. The Federal Circuit also affirmed the PTAB’s decision denying ClearOne’s request to file a motion for sanctions against Shure for the patent owner’s alleged violation of the duty to disclose material prior art.

As we have previously explained, many implementers wish to require patent owners to establish (1) the need for licenses, and (2) that any terms offered are in fact fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND), but without having to make any commitment to accepting FRAND licenses, and without ever losing entitlement to the same. With respect to the latter, recall, for example, Apple’s position it its case with PanOptis, namely that PanOptis had “no legal right under U.S. law to impose on Apple an obligation to negotiate a license to Plaintiffs’ portfolios of declared-essential patents or forfeit any defenses for failing to do so” (Apple Inc.’s Motion to Dismiss Count VIII for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction, Optis Wireless Technology, LLC, Optis Cellular Technology, LLC, Unwired Planet, LLC, Unwired Planet International Limited, and PanOptis Patent Management, LLC v. Apple Inc., Civil Action No. 2:19-cv-00066-JRG (E.D. Texas, June 22, 2020)) [hereinafter Optis v. Apple]. Basically, such implementers want the option of capping their exposure at FRAND rates if ever found to infringe. We refer to this as an implementer wanting to have its FRAND cake and eat it too.

Last week, the United States Solicitor General recommended granting review in American Axle & Manufacturing v. Neapco Holdings, a case many in the patent community hope will provide clarity on U.S. patent eligibility law. IPWatchdog asked stakeholders to weigh in on whether the SG took the right approach and what this latest development means for the fate of U.S. patent eligibility. Here is what they had to say.

On May 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. (Arthrex II) affirming both a final written decision issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) invalidating patent claims owned by Arthrex, as well as several arguments raised by Arthrex challenging the denial of Director review decided by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Commissioner for Patents. The opinion, authored by Chief Judge Kimberley Moore, reasoned that the USPTO did not violate the U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate in Arthrex I despite the fact that no presidentially-appointed, senate-confirmed Director was in place at the USPTO when the agency denied Arthrex’s request for Director review.

“For 200 years, the world was getting along just fine without a policy statement on SEPs [standard essential patents],” said Andrei Iancu earlier this week at Patent Litigation Masters™ 2022, discussing Biden Administration attempts to revisit the 2019 SEP policy agreement among the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Department of Justice (DOJ). “Standard essential patents are patents too… the regular rule of law should apply.” Iancu, former USPTO Director, and current partner at Irell & Manella, went on to say that the real goal of those constantly chipping away at patent rights is simple: “Weaken patents so that the big entities can have freer reign to get bigger, to infringe patents in a less encumbered way.”

Day two of IPWatchdog’s Patent Litigation Masters Program yesterday included panels on IP Finance, Mega Verdicts in Patent Litigation, Expert Witnesses and the Fintiv Saga. During the latter panel, former U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Kathleen O’Malley joined other speakers to discuss the effects of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) Fintiv decision, a controversial precedential PTAB opinion that outlined factors for the Board to consider in choosing whether to discretionarily deny institution of an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding. Todd Walters of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney presented statistics showing that the rate of denials due to Fintiv has recently fallen off a cliff.

On May 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) from an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding where the PTAB concluded that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent No. 9,844,379 B2 (the ‘379 patent) were unpatentable as obvious. Ethicon on appeal contended that the PTAB improperly placed the burden of proof on them and that the PTAB’s finding of reasonable expectation of success when the asserted prior art was combined was unsupported by substantial evidence. Ethicon owns the ‘379 patent, which relates to an endoscopic surgical stapling tool. The supposed novelty of the ‘379 patent is “the use of both an I-beam firing member and a no-cartridge safety lockout, such that the lockout blocks the advancement of an I-beam firing member when there is no staple cartridge loaded in the stapling assembly.” The safety mechanism is particularly helpful for endoscopic procedures that require a surgeon to work with reduced visual and tactile feedback when compared to open surgery.