Posts in Federal Circuit

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.

On June 2, Dr. Stephen Thaler filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. naming as defendants both the United States Copyright Office (USCO) and Shira Perlmutter, in her official capacity as Register of Copyrights and Director of the USCO. The complaint marks the start of a new phase of Thaler’s attempts at obtaining a copyright registration for “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” an AI-generated work that is the output of Thaler’s AI system known as Creativity Machine. Thaler is requesting the district court issue an order that would require the USCO to set aside the Review Board’s decision and reinstate the application for registration of the work. Thaler is also seeking an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. The case is Stephen Thaler v. Shira Perlmutter and The United States Copyright Office (1:22-cv-01564) (June 2, 2022).

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 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.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential trademark decision upholding a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) ruling that sustained two oppositions filed by Barclays Capital Inc. against Tiger Lily Ventures’ applications for registration of the standard character mark “LEHMAN BROTHERS.” The court also affirmed the dismissal of Tiger Lily’s opposition to Barclays’ application for registration of the LEHMAN BROTHERS mark and dismissed Barclays’ cross-appeal.

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.

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.

On May 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an order in In re: Google, LLC granting petitions by Google, Waze and Samsung seeking writs of mandamus to direct the Eastern District of Texas to transfer a trio of patent infringement suits brought by patent owner AGIS Software Development to the Northern District of California. Although the Federal Circuit’s order is non-precedential, it continues the appellate court’s recent penchant for exercising mandamus relief in venue issues that some commentators have found questionable, at best.

The United States Solicitor General has 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. The Supreme Court asked for the views of the Solicitor General in May of 2021 and the response has been highly anticipated. The SG’s brief says that inventions like the one at issue in American Axle have “[h]istorically…long been viewed as paradigmatic examples of the ‘arts’ or ‘processes’ that may receive patent protection if other statutory criteria are satisfied” and that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit “erred in reading this Court’s precedents to dictate a contrary conclusion.”

On May 20, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Kaufman v. Microsoft Corp. affirming a jury verdict of $7 million in reasonable royalty damages against Microsoft’s Dynamic Data for generating web applications. The Federal Circuit denied various claim construction arguments advanced by Microsoft on appeal, including several raised on the proper meaning of “automatically generating” within the preamble to asserted claim 1, and reversed the Southern District of New York’s denial of prejudgment interest to Kaufman.

On May 13, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed Bennett Regulator Guards, Inc.’s (Bennett) challenge of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision to vacate the institution of an inter partes review (IPR), citing a lack of jurisdiction, since the PTAB’s decision was based in part on its reconsideration of whether the petitioner was time barred from petitioning for IPR under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b). Judge Pauline Newman dissented.

On May 11, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the claim construction and decision of the United States District Court for the Central District of California to exclude evidence relating to damages but vacated its infringement determination and remanded a case alleging that Hulu, Inc. infringed Sound View Innovations, Inc.’s patent for data streaming technology. Sound View is the owner of expired U.S. Patent No. 6,708,213 (the ‘213 patent), which discloses “methods which improve the caching and streaming of multimedia data (e.g., audio and video data) from a content provider over a network to a client’s computer.” In June 2017, Sound View sued Hulu, alleging that its “Hulu Streaming Video on Demand products” infringed six Sound View patents, though only claim 16 of the ‘213 patent remained at issue on appeal.