Posts Tagged: "Finjan Holdings"

In Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Systems, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, and remanded the case to the district court. Notably, however, the Federal Circuit found no error in the district court’s subject matter eligibility determination, meaning the claims of Finjan’s ‘844 patent were patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. Perhaps more remarkable, the claims of the ‘844 patent relate to virus-screening and were determined to be not abstract. Still more remarkable, the author of this Federal Circuit decision was Judge Dyk, who is not know as a zealous advocate for software patent eligibility.

The Federal Circuit decided that Finjan had not presented substantial evidence that Blue Coat infringed the ‘968 patent. The court also agreed with Blue Coat that Finjan failed to apportion damages awarded for the ‘844 patent to the infringing functionality… This finding by the Federal Circuit reverses $7.8 million in damages related to infringement of the ‘968 patent awarded in district court. The Federal Circuit ruling on apportionment of damages awarded for the ‘844 patent will also cut into the largest portion of Finjan’s damages award.

On May 12th, it was announced that Finjan had secured $10.2 million in a round of Series A investment financing in a private transaction involving both Halcyon Long Duration Recoveries Management and Soryn IP Group… The role that patents played in Finjan’s business activities was discussed heavily near the beginning of the conference call. Hartstein noted how Finjan had been successful in navigating changes to the patent landscape wrought by legislative, judicial and other changes, especially administrative changes at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “These challenges are threatening a number of business models and we’ve recently seen several companies significantly pivot just to survive,” Hartstein said.

Finjan Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: FNJN), the parent of wholly-owned subsidiary Finjan, Inc., announced several weeks ago that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) issued the final rulings on attempts by Symantec Corporation’s (NASDAQ: SYMC) to invalidate 8 different Finjan’s patents through inter partes review (“IPR”). In total, Symantec filed 11…

That Finjan would prevail in six separate IPR institution decisions relating to the same patent litigation seems an extraordinary long shot. While Finjan has not said it in a press release or to me directly (see more later), allow me to notice that this speaks volumes both about the relative strength of the Finjan patents and the relative weakness of the Symantec invalidity case against these patents. If the PTAB wasn’t even willing to take another look in a proceeding that is so hopelessly stacked against the patent owner these patents are about as rock solid from a validity standpoint as they could possibly be.

“I don’t think investors care about names,” Croxall said. “I think they care about results. I have the troll conversation, but it is never with investors. Are they getting smarter about the risk of going to trial? I think they have… I think you get punished more for losing than rewarded for winning.” Croxall also acknowledged that the troll issue seems to have penetrated into the jury box. Hartstein would later agree that public IP companies get punished at least twice as much with a litigation loss as compared with a litigation victory.

It is quite surprising to see that with all of the work being done to strengthen the patent systems across Europe with the creation of the Unified Patent Court, we see The Economist recently publishing a number of authorless articles calling for dramatic curtail of patent rights – on the edge of abolishment… We are currently witnessing some patent owners enforcing their patent rights exclusively using the European courts, some of these are companies based in the United States. Now with the Unified Patent Court on the horizon, it is expected that we will see more enforcement actions in London, and Europe more broadly. This again is a clear sign that Europe sees value in a strong patent system and recognizes the importance of a patent owners ability to enforce those rights.

LES is focused on licensing standards, which will also define best practices to separate patent owners with good behavior from bad behaviors. The committees also contemplate establishing template documents for transactions. The overall idea is that these standards, best practices, and template documents will become the foundation for an accreditation process. And so, yes, we absolutely encourage anyone to join the discussion as it’s being framed now but all participants need to recognize that to meet the standards and accreditation requirements you are going to be accountable yourself to the standards that are defined by these programs.