Posts Tagged: "Northern District of Illinois"

Hospira Patent Claims that Previously Survived IPR Held Invalid

While the claims-in-suit had previously survived validity challenges in an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and in a District of Delaware case, Aly credited additional testimony and evidence in this case with leading Judge Pallmeyer towards finding that the claimed advance was inherent to the invention in the prior art. “In IPR, there’s a limited record so there’s not a lot of testing to examine, and two tests were submitted in the Delaware case,” Aly said. While that could have been enough, he noted that, in the Fresenius Kabi case, multiple companies had done more than 20 tests, all of which showed that the claimed advances were inherent to the stable product.

CAFC Upholds Section 101 Invalidity Finding on Rule 12(b)(6) Motion, Nixing Patents Covering App Management

On Monday, April 9th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the invalidity of a series of patents asserted against the American subsidiary of Japanese consumer electronics firm Funai. The patents, owned by Illinois-based Maxon, LLC, covered electronic means for improving user control over subscription entertainment content but the claimed technologies were deemed to be invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the basic statute governing the patentability of inventions. The decision was issued by a panel comprised of Chief Judge Sharon Prost and Circuit Judges Todd Hughes and Kara Stoll.

McDonald’s Payment Devices Do Not Infringe Digital Rights Management Patents

The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Richard Taranto noted that “the matter at hand reveals a gap in our jurisprudence on what constitutes ‘use’ under § 271(a).” The Federal Circuit found no controlling precedent on the definition of “use” of a claimed system when the accused infringer must act to put the claimed system into service but does not appear to possess any element of the claimed system. Further, the panel felt that McDonald’s had overstated the Federal Circuit’s holding in Uniloc as the appellate court concluded that a single party can still use a system and directly infringe a patent even when that system requires multiple parties to function. “Therefore, Uniloc only broadened the scope of potential direct infringers under § 271(a),” the Federal Circuit found.

Wrigley sues Chicago area e-cig firm over Doublemint, Juicy Fruit liquid vapor products

Chicago-based chewing gum company Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company filed a trademark infringement suit against e-cigarette seller Chi-Town Vapers LLC of Bensenville, IL. The suit targets Chi-Town for marketing certain e-cigarette materials which bear a striking resemblance to chewing gum products manufactured by Wrigley. The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (N.D. Ill.).

Is TC Heartland All Good News for Patent Litigation Defendants?

Joint-defense groups lower costs and increase efficiencies for all defendants in the groups. Certain prominent patent litigation boutiques and Big Law departments have skillfully made a business of being retained by many of the accused infringers in a single multi-defendant case. Even if counsel is not shared among defendants, the benefits of joint-defense groups inure greatly to small- and medium-sized companies that gain the benefit of top-notch defense teams retained by larger tech companies, without having to pay for them. Joint-defense groups also leverage economies of scale to accomplish more at lower costs for everyone. For instance, filing four or five IPR petitions may be feasible when those costs are spread around a group, but prohibitive for any individual defendant. In short, the pre-TC Heartland framework provided significant cost-savings and efficiencies to defendants, and in particular, small- and medium-sized companies.