Posts Tagged: "collateral estoppel"

In a precedential decision issued Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a district court decision that Uniloc USA, Inc., Uniloc Luxembourg, S.A. and Uniloc 2017 all lacked standing to sue Motorola and Blackboard for patent infringement because it was collaterally estopped by a previous decision in its case with Apple. But in a separate precedential ruling, the CAFC said Uniloc’s non-exclusive license with Fortress Credit Co, LLC was terminated by agreement prior to Uniloc’s patent suits against Google, eliminating Fortress’ ability to sublicense the patents-in-suit and maintaining standing for Uniloc.

Three amici filed briefs last week in Jump Rope System’s petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision upholding a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding of unpatentability. Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund and the Fair Inventing Fund filed briefs in support of the jump rope company while DivX filed in support of neither party .

Jump Rope Systems, the inventor of a novel jump rope system, is petitioning the Supreme Court to clarify “whether, as a matter of federal patent law, a determination of unpatentability by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review proceeding, affirmed by the Federal Circuit, has a collateral estoppel effect on patent validity in a patent infringement lawsuit in federal district court.”

The inventor of a novel jump rope system (the Revolution Rope), Molly Metz, is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court through her company, Jump Rope Systems, LLC, to seek clarification of the collateral estoppel doctrine as applied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to bar a patent infringement suit in district court where the CAFC has affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding of unpatentability. Jump Rope Systems is arguing that the CAFC’s decision in  XY, LLC v. Trans Ova Genetics, L.C. (2018) conflicts with the Supreme Court decisions in B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Indus., 575 U.S. 138 (2015); Medtronic, Inc. v. Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC, 571 U.S. 191 (2014); and Grogan v. Garner, 498 U.S. 279 (1991).

On August 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Best Medical International, Inc. v. Elekta Inc. affirming rulings by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated patent claims covering a method and apparatus for radiation therapy of tumors. The appellate court, which issued a modified version of the opinion today to correct some minor formatting problems, also determined that Best Medical International (BMI) lacked standing to appeal the PTAB’s invalidation of claim 1 of BMI’s patent.

The Federal Circuit recently issued an opinion affirming the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) invalidating a VirnetX patent challenged by Apple. The Court held that VirnetX was collaterally estopped from relitigating whether a prior art reference was a printed publication. The Court further declined to address VirnetX’s argument that inter partes review (“IPR”) procedures could not be retroactively applied to patents filed before enactment of the America Invents Act (“AIA”) because VirnetX failed to preserve that issue for appeal.

How the Federal Circuit could rule that Alice did not change the law governing § 101 is a bit of a mystery. Applying the same two-step test seems a convenient way of dodging reality. At a time when there is real momentum gathering for a legislative solution to § 101 why did the Federal Circuit choose to perpetuate a myth that Alice did nothing to change the law? Outcomes are unquestionably different as the result of Alice, and if outcomes are different how exactly is it possible that the law did not change? If the law remained the same why was Alice a clear pivotal moment in software patent history? Saying Alice did not change the law shows just how out of touch and insulated from reality the Federal Circuit has become.

Collateral estoppel is not limited to identical patent claims or claims within a single patent and may preclude a contradictory construction of a claim term already construed in an inter pates review of a related patent, particularly when both patents provide identical lexicography for the disputed term.

In SimpleAir v. Google, The district court found claim preclusion applied because the patents at issue had the same title and specification as previously litigated patents, SimpleAir files a terminal disclaimer to overcome obviousness-type double patenting, and Simple Air could have included the newly asserted patents in its previous actions. However, the district court never compared the claims of the patent at issue to the claims of the previously litigated patents.

Google also argued that, if claim preclusion did not bar SimpleAir’s infringement claims, than the Kessler doctrine barred them. This doctrine, stemming from a 1907 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kessler v. Eldred, has been used to protect a party’s rights to continue a practice accused of infringement if an earlier judgment found that essentially the same activity did not infringe the patent. While the Federal Circuit has relied on the Kesler doctrine to bar patent assertion against similar activities or products found not to infringe, the doctrine has not been applied to bar a broader set of rights than would have been barred by claim preclusion.

IntegraSpec was denied the opportunity to make its case here because of collateral estoppel based on the reasoning that they already had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the dispute. What exactly does “full and fair” mean? Figuring out what the means in the context of Rule 36 disposals is complicated. We do know, however, what “full and fair” cannot mean. The term “full and fair” cannot mean “equal.” While the Federal Circuit continues to want to say that cases decided using the Rule 36 summary mechanism are “no less carefully decided,” the fact is that litigants in Rule 36 cases receive less consideration by the Court; this truth is factually indisputable. It takes a certain amount of time to decide the answers to the questions presented, but it also takes a certain amount of time to explain those answers in a written decision. To think the act of writing the decision is purely ministerial and makes no difference strikes me as pure nonsense.

A Federal Circuit Rule 36 judgment can be a valid and final judgment for purposes of preclusive effects. Additionally, district court findings affirmed by a Rule 36 judgment can have preclusive effect as long as each is “necessary” to the final appellate judgment. The Federal Circuit did not address the Circuit split regarding the preclusive effect of independent, alternative holdings.

Apparently, despite the fact that there are strict page limits imposed at the Federal Circuit, Soverain was somehow supposed to fully brief all of the issues directly raised by Newegg, as well as all of the issues an activist Federal Circuit could possibly imagine. To call this a ridiculous burden doesn’t begin to scratch the surface. The Federal Circuit is depriving Soverain of property rights without due process, period. The lack of process afforded Soverain both in the Newegg case and in the Victoria Secret case should shock everyone.