Posts in Federal Circuit

Pharmaceutical products are typically dosed as solids, liquids (e.g., solutions) or gases. In gases and liquids, the molecules are tumbling; in solids, however, the molecules are essentially frozen in place, forming three-dimensional networks. When those networks are ordered, they are called crystalline…. Where the same chemical compound can exist in multiple crystalline forms is called polymorphism, with each crystalline form called a polymorph. When the compound is an element, as with carbon, it is referred to as allotropism. Predicting whether a chemical compound will be polymorphic, what that polymorph might be, and the properties thereof are notoriously challenging feats. Because polymorphs or other crystalline forms can have significantly different drug solubility and dissolution properties, it is not surprising that they are often the subject of patent applications in the pharmaceutical arts. 

On March 2, amicus briefs were presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of petitioner Universal Secure Registry’s (USR’s) appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), which challenges that court’s application of the Alice/Mayo framework on Section 101 subject matter patent eligibility in invalidating patent claims owned by USR. Both amicus filings urge the Supreme Court to rein in the Federal Circuit’s expansive application of Alice/Mayo, which has gone far beyond the original bounds intended by the Court. One of those briefs is made even more persuasive by the fact that it was authored by Judge Paul R. Michel, the former Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit.

On March 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)’s determination that the civil penalty imposed on DBN Holding, Inc. and BDN LLC did not require modification or rescission following the subsequent invalidation of the asserted claims. The ITC imposed this civil penalty against DBN for violating a consent order that prohibited unfair trade acts of infringement involving the now invalidated claims.

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed a decision of the U.S.  District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia affirming the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director’s vacatur of ex parte reexamination proceedings based on the estoppel provision of the inter partes review (IPR) regime. In 2015, Vivint, Inc. sued Alarm.com for infringement of three patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,147,601 (the ‘601 patent), 6,462,654 (the ‘654 patent), and 6,535,123 (the ‘123 patent). In response, Alarm.com filed several petitions for IPR, which culminated in three final written decisions in 2017. On review, the CAFC affirmed the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that Alarm.com had failed to satisfy its burden of proving unpatentable claim 19 of the ‘601 patent, claim 18 of the ‘123 patent and claims 17,18, 22, 25, and 28 of the ‘654 patent.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in a patent infringement suit filed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) against Broadcom Limited, Broadcom Corporation, and Avago Technologies (collectively “Broadcom) and Apple Inc. As part of that decision, the CAFC affirmed the district court’s decision barring raising invalidity challenges based on known prior art after an IPR litigation. The court took the opportunity to overrule Shaw Industries Group, Inc. v. Automated Creel Systems, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2016) and clarify that estoppel applies to claims and grounds not in the IPR but which reasonably could have been included in the petition. On February 22, however, the CAFC published an errata to that opinion. While it did not include its reasoning for the clarification to the February 4 precedential opinion, the original opinion referenced the statute on estoppel, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), which addresses estoppel as a result of an IPR on a per claim basis rather than a per patent basis.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate officially confirmed Judge Leonard P. Stark to serve as a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit bench has great importance to the world of patent law as this is the U.S. federal court of appeal with specialized subject matter jurisdiction over all patent cases arising in U.S. district court and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Judge Stark was confirmed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 61-35 vote, reported to be one of the most bipartisan confirmation votes thus far into the Biden Administration. Perhaps chief among Judge Stark’s qualifications that inspired such confidence in his nomination at the Senate was his previous position as U.S. District Judge for the District of Delaware. Serving as the Chief Judge of that district court since 2014, Judge Stark’s docket has seen more than 2,400 patent cases filed since he joined the District of Delaware back in 2010.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) agreed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) decision that the original claims of Zaxcom’s U.S. Patent No. 9,336,307 for Engineering Emmy® and technical OSCAR award-winning wireless microphone technology were unpatentable as obvious. However, the court upheld the substitute claims Zaxcom had proposed. Zaxcom appealed the PTAB’s decision on the original claims in May of 2020, arguing that the PTAB misconstrued the patent claims and failed to properly consider evidence of industry praise.

On February 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the Eastern District of New York’s grant of summary judgment that inventor David Tropp’s patents were invalid because they claim ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The appeal was brought by Tropp against Travel Sentry, Inc. and other lock and luggage makers. The asserted claims relate to U.S. Patent Nos. 7,021,537 (the ’537 patent) and 7,036,728 (‘728 patent). Representative claim 1 of the ’537 patent relates to a method of making available a dual-access lock having a combination-lock portion and a master-key-lock portion. The dual-access lock allegedly enables travelers to lock their bags while still allowing luggage screeners to access luggage (with a marked lock) with a master key.

The CAFC on Friday, February 11, denied a petition for writ of mandamus filed by B.E. Technology in November of last year asking the court to intervene to “prevent an unconstitutional deprivation of B.E.’s property rights in the onslaught of IPR proceedings that have been brought to challenge the validity of its most critical patents.” B.E. has been embroiled in litigation with big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google for close to a decade now. The CAFC said in its denial that “B.E. has not shown a clear right to a different result here by relying primarily on a self-published article that is outside of the record.”

On February 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, explaining that the district court did not err in finding several Adapt Pharma patents obvious. The asserted claims relate to U.S. Patent Nos. 9,468,747; 9,561,177; 9,629,965; and 9,775,838 (collectively, the “patents-in-suit”). The patents-in-suit claim methods of treating opioid overdose by intranasal administration of a naloxone formulation, as well as devices for intranasal administration. Naloxone is the active ingredient in Adapt’s NARCANâ Nasal Spray and is an opioid receptor antagonist, thus helping reverse the effects of opioid overdose. The opinion was authored by Judge Kara Stoll; Judge Pauline Newman dissented.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today reversed the U.S. District Court for the District of Pennsylvania’s summary judgment that a medical device design patent was not invalid under the on-sale bar. Junker v. Medical Components, Inc. The district court found the patent was infringed and awarded damages in the amount of $1,247,910. But the CAFC held that a letter sent by the inventor’s business partner to Boston Scientific Corporation in 1999 represented a commercial offer for sale of the claimed design.

Judge Leonard Philip Stark was confirmed by the U.S. Senate yesterday to be the next judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, replacing Judge Kathleen O’Malley. O’Malley announced in July of last year that she will officially retire on March 11, 2022. Stark was confirmed by a vote of 61-35, which is reportedly one of the most bipartisan votes so far during President Joe Biden’s administration.

Imagine, as a patentee, that you assert your broadly claimed patent(s) against an alleged infringer, and your opponent takes you to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) via an inter partes review (IPR) petition, where they present sufficient evidence of obviousness such that you have to resort to (gulp) secondary considerations. While no dream situation for patentees, it is important to understand the patent owner’s evidentiary burden when confronting obviousness challenges using secondary considerations, such as commercial success, long-felt but unsolved needs, failure of others and unexpected results. Here are three recent Federal Circuit decisions that are informative with respect to successfully (or unsuccessfully) utilizing evidence of commercial success in countering an obviousness attack.

In its second appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) regarding the sealing of documents in several related cases against Apple, Uniloc scored a win when the CAFC said today that the United States District Court for the Northern District of California failed to comply with its original remand instructions, constituting an abuse of discretion. The appellate court for a second time ordered the district court “to make particularized determinations as to whether the third-party licensing information sought to be sealed should be made public.”

On February 4, 2022, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed two decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on related inter partes reviews (IPRs) brought by Quanergy against Velodyne, explaining that the Board’s decision to uphold the validity of the disputed claims was correct considering the objective evidence provided by Velodyne. Quanergy challenged multiple claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,969,558, covering a lidar-based 3-D point cloud measuring system best known for helping autonomous cars sense their surroundings. In its decisions, the PTAB held that several claims of the ’558 patent are not unpatentable as obvious.