Posts Tagged: "preliminary injunction"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Wednesday that Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter can resume office while her lawsuit plays out, following President Donald Trump’s decision to remove her from her post. Circuit Judge Walker dissented.Perlmutter filed a complaint against Trump on May 22, calling his attempt to remove her “unlawful and ineffective.” Trump first fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on May 9, two days before he fired Perlmutter, and named Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Todd Blanche, as acting Librarian of Congress.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday denied Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking her removal from office by President Donald Trump.Perlmutter filed a complaint against Trump on May 22, calling his attempt to remove her from her post “unlawful and ineffective.” Trump first fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on May 9, two days before it fired Perlmutter, and named Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Todd Blanche, as acting Librarian of Congress.

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. affirming the Northern District of West Virginia’s entry of a preliminary injunction preventing the sale of a biosimilar product approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and sold by Korean drug developer Samsung Bioepis. Applying its reasoning from Acorda Therapeutics v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals (2016), the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s finding that Samsung Bioepis’ application for biosimilar approval filed with the FDA provided sufficient minimum contacts with Northern West Virginia to support personal jurisdiction over the defendant.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today vacated and remanded a district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction to VPR Brands, LP, which accused Shenzhen Weiboli Technology Co. Ltd of infringing its ELF trademark for electronic cigarettes and associated products. VPR sued Weiboli in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging infringement via Weiboli’s distribution of its ELFBAR branded e-cigarettes, which VPR said were likely to cause confusion in the marketplace. The next day, VPR filed a motion for preliminary injunction against the ELFBAR products.

On July 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Natera, Inc. v. NeoGenomics Laboratories, Inc. affirming a grant of preliminary injunction that prevents NeoGenomics from making or selling its RaDaR oncology testing assay. The Federal Circuit’s opinion, authored by Chief Judge Kimberly Moore, found no legal error in the district court conducting an infringement analysis without claim construction, and no clear error in finding that NeoGenomics failed to raise a substantial question of patent validity.

Digital video company, DivX, scored a win in a Brazilian court after a judge ratified its expert report and enforced a previously-granted preliminary injunction against Netflix. DivX sued Netflix for infringement of its Patent No. PI 0506163-6, which is directed to a “deblocking” tool implemented in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)-encoded files. According to DivX, Netflix’s streaming in HEVC infringes the patent.

Unlike other jurisdictions, injunctions in Brazil are no equitable remedy. There is no discretionary power of the court to decide whether to grant a permanent injunction upon the finding of infringement at the end of the proceedings. Injunctive relief is the primary remedy, and it can only be substituted by financial damages at the election of the plaintiff. Preliminary injunctions, on the other hand, are subjected to the discretion of the courts—and must pass a test of balance of hardships.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision affirming the grant of a narrowly-tailored preliminary injunction to SoClean, Inc., a medical device company that makes CPAP machines, based on trademark infringement claims against Sunset Healthcare Solutions, Inc. SoClean alleged in 2021 that Sunset infringed its U.S. Trademark Registration No. 6,080,195. The registration covers the configuration of replacement filters for its sanitizing devices.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today held in a precedential decision that Thales DIS AIS Deutschland GMBH cannot stop Philips from seeking an exclusion order at the International Trade Commission (ITC) to enjoin Thales from importing its products relating to wireless network technology into the United States.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated and remanded a decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada denying Power Probe’s request for a preliminary injunction to bar future sales of Innova Electronics Corporation’s Powercheck #5420 device. The CAFC held that the district court erred in its preliminary claim construction, particularly in determining that “detecting continuity and measuring continuity are mutually exclusive.”

On December 1, Judge Alan Albright, sitting in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas, granted a preliminary injunction (PI) to Gonza LLC, finding that all four factors of the judicial test for injunctive relief favored Gonza. IPWatchdog is told it is one of only a handful of PIs Albright has issued. On July 28, 2021, Gonza LLC sued Mission Competition Fitness Equipment (MCF) in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas. Gonza sought both injunctive relief and damages arising out of MCF’s alleged infringement of its U.S. Patent No. 11,007,405 (the ‘405 patent). Gonza asserted that it developed the subject matter of the ‘405 patent, which discloses a neck exercise device with resistance bands that can be used to improve neck capabilities, during a period of over two years. In its complaint, Gonza contended that MCF released a knock-off device that used lower quality materials, but nonetheless infringed the ‘405 patent. Gonza argued that MCF’s infringement of their ‘405 patent created a loss of goodwill, eroded the market price, and caused extreme negative consequences for Gonza’s business.

At a time when most policymakers rightly argue that China and other countries need to do more to clamp down on intellectual property infringement, overturning the four-factor eBay test would impose new hurdles and increase the PAE problem that Congress and the Supreme Court have fought to address over that last two decades. The risk that an implementer engages in “efficient infringement” has made the ITC an increasingly attractive forum, for at least some patent owners and notably not PAEs. ITC exclusion orders and cease and desist orders are the last vestige of the exclusivity promised to the right patent owners at the time they are granted a patent. Compared to proposed sections of the STRONGER Patents Act, the ITC strikes a balance between offering at least some patent owners the ability to prevent infringers from engaging in the never-ending game of “efficient infringement” while frustrating PAEs attempts to abuse the exclusionary remedies offered.  Congressional action should be reserved for a time when there is clear evidence that the eBay decision is harming U.S. businesses and those U.S. businesses are unable to obtain the relief they need at the ITC. At this time, there is no such evidence.

How the likelihood of success on the merits should (or should not) be determined and the four factors balanced in a patent infringement case, are areas in which there has been significant disagreement among the judges of the Federal Circuit… Whether or not to grant the extraordinary relief of preliminary injunction to a patentee is a matter largely within the discretion of the trial court. This discretion is to be exercised in consistence with traditional principles of equity, grounded on well-articulated principles, and based on long-held precedents.  Grant or denial of a preliminary injunction by a trial court may be overturned only upon a showing of abuse of discretion by the trial court.  Failing to consider the totality of the preliminary injunction factors during review can lead to an outcome inconsistent with the requirements of equity.