Posts Tagged: "Patent Litigation"

Friday, February 4, marked the deadline for submission of comments on the latest iteration of the Joint Department of Justice (DOJ)-U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)-National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary FRAND Commitments. The request for comments came on the heels of President Joe Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, which asked the three agencies to review the 2019 statement. In perhaps one of the most surprising submissions, a bipartisan group of former presidential administration officials jointly commented that the new version of the Policy Statement is “disconnected from the realities of SEP licensing,” “unbalanced,” and would “disadvantage the United States on the global stage.”

On February 3, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, holding that the lower court did not abuse its discretion or clearly err in its factual findings. Myco Industries, Inc. started marketing, the AB Max, a device for treating blepharitis in February 2019. The following month, BlephEx, LLC filed a patent application, which issued as U.S. Patent No. 10,449,087 (the ‘087 patent) on October 22, 2019. The ‘087 patent discloses “an instrument for removing debris from an eye during the treatment of an ocular disorder.” The day the ‘087 patent issued, BlephEx sued Myco in the Eastern District of Michigan, alleging that Myco’s AB Max infringed claim 16 of the ‘087 patent. Shortly thereafter, the district court enjoined “Myco and those acting on its behalf from, inter alia, selling, distributing, or offering to sell or distribute the AB Max Product.” Myco appealed.

On February 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed and remanded a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granting a motion to enforce PlasmaCAM’s (Plasmacam) version of an agreement with Fourhills Designs, LLC, and Thomas and Martha Caudle (collectively “CNC”). On appeal, the CAFC held that CNC’s version of the agreement more accurately reflected the understanding between the two parties regarding a settlement over Plasmacam’s claim that CNC infringed U.S. Patent No. 7,071,441 (‘441 patent), for which Plasmacam has an exclusive license.

For a long time, the courts in England have been a forum of choice for the resolution of disputes between international parties, with the promise of an experienced judiciary and a cost-efficient approach to discovery and expert testimony. The English Patents Court is no exception, with multi-jurisdictional patent disputes often featuring an English action. In addition to the availability of specialist judges and legal teams, the ability to obtain some discovery when needed (but without the extensive, onerous and costly approach to discovery in the United States), to cross-examine experts at trial and to obtain declaratory relief make the UK an attractive jurisdiction. The thorough and reasoned judgments that can prove useful in parallel litigation across Europe and the general availability of injunctions are also key drivers for patentees.

As we enter the second month of 2022, the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” and the famous line, “I’m not dead,” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, come to mind to describe two issues we’ll be watching closely this year relating to litigation involving small and large molecule therapies. In the first instance, Amgen recently petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Federal Circuit’s affirmance invalidating several patent claims based on the lack of enablement for genus claims. This case comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s denial of cert. in Idenix Pharms. LLC v. Gilead Sci. Inc., 941 F.3d 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2019) on similar issues. Amgen now hopes for a better result.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today vacated and remanded two decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on related inter partes reviews (IPRs) brought by Apple against Qualcomm, explaining that the Board’s determination that “prior art consisting of patents or printed publications” includes applicant admitted prior art (AAPA) was incorrect. The CAFC nonetheless remanded the case for the PTAB to decide “whether Apple’s petition nonetheless raises its § 103 challenge on the basis of prior art consisting of patents or printed publications.” Apple petitioned the PTAB to review the claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,063,674. In two separate decisions, the PTAB found several claims unpatentable under Section 103, basing its finding on a ground raised by Apple that relied in part on AAPA and a prior art patent. Apple also challenged the claims as unpatentable under Section 103 based on two prior patents and one publication, but the Board said that Apple had not proven unpatentability on this ground.

Few lawyers have tried patent eligibility, 35 U.S.C. Section 101, to a jury. Our research found just four such cases since the Supreme Court created its muddled two-step test in Alice v. CLS Bank. In every one of those, the jury issued a pro-ineligibility verdict, while none resulted in a final Section 101 determination either way. Understanding how that issue has been handled at and after trial is important for practitioners with cases where Section 101 is at issue, which has become increasingly common.

On January 27, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed the decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to invalidate claims in two related patents, holding that the district court used the incorrect legal standard for indefiniteness. Nature Simulation Systems, Inc. (NSS) is the owner of United States Patents No. 10,120,961 (the ‘961 patent) and No. 10,109,105 (the ‘105 patent). Both patents relate to computer-implemented methods for building three-dimensional objects employing a computation method called “Boolean operation.” NSS brought an infringement action against Autodesk, Inc. in district court alleging infringement of claims 1 and 8 of the ‘961 patent and claim 1 of the ‘105 patent.

On January 21, inventor Martin David Hoyle and his company B.E. Technology filed a response in opposition to a consolidated motion to dismiss that was filed last November by defendants Michelle K. Lee, former Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a pair of officials at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and three administrative patent judges (APJs) who sat on PTAB panels invalidating Hoyle’s patent claims. Hoyle and B.E. Tech’s response brief argues that the motion to dismiss filed by the former and current USPTO employees is based on factual disputes that are inappropriate to decide on a motion to dismiss, and that plaintiffs have made out a sufficient due process claim under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971).

It was a light week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and in the courts (relatively speaking), with 49 new district court patent filings and 19 inter partes reviews (IPRs), both a bit less than recent averages. There were another 72 district court dismissals, including a number of WSOU, CallStat [Jeffrey Gross], and other file-and-settle entity dismissals filling up the docket. The Board issued seven new discretionary denials, discussed below, and the Apple/Ericsson 5G dispute continued to spill into the open in venues worldwide, with district court cases, IPRs, ITC, and European disputes filling out the docket. Magnetar filed another campaign in recent weeks and followed up with hitting Apple this week; a number of parties were denied institution against Express Mobile patents (though two of the five patents have been instituted, and more are pending on the others); and Vector Capital’s Monterey Research lost yet another set of claims in a challenge by AMD at the Board.

The third day of IPWatchdog’s PTAB Masters™ 2022 featured more from former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu, as well as panels covering topics such as avoiding obviousness mistakes, appellate strategies from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and other intricacies of PTAB practice from the experts. Panelists this afternoon also weighed in on today’s announcement that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court, opening the door for Biden to appoint a replacement.

On January 19, Qualcomm filed a brief in opposition to Apple’s petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing Apple failed to make the requisite evidentiary showing to obtain Article III standing. In 2017, Qualcomm filed suit against Apple, alleging Apple’s mobile devices infringed five of its patents, two of which are at issue here, U.S. Patent No. 7,844,037 (the ‘037 patent) and U.S. Patent No. 8,683,362 (the ‘362 patent). Apple counterclaimed, urging the court to invalidate those five patents. Additionally, Apple filed a simultaneous challenge to two of the patents through inter partes reviews (IPRs).

The first panel of Tuesday’s PTAB Masters™ 2022, titled “Discretionary Denials: Has the WDTX Been Neutered?”, presented data that reveals the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) seemingly stopped citing Fintiv as a reason to discretionarily deny inter partes review (IPR) proceedings for cases with parallel litigation in the Western or Eastern Districts of Texas (WD of TX/ ED of TX) during the last four months of 2021. While the PTAB issued a larger number of institution decisions overall in those months compared with previous months, and a larger number of cases citing Fintiv, there was also a relatively low number of cases across all jurisdictions in which discretion to deny was applied based on the Fintiv analysis.

The first day of IPWatchdog’s PTAB Masters™ 2022 program featured a welcome from Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, who told attendees that Congress should consider codifying some of the reforms made by former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu in order to better avoid “gamesmanship” at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Tillis specifically called out entities like OpenSky Industries, who last December petitioned the PTAB to institute an IPR proceeding challenging claims from one of two patents involved in VLSI Technologies’ $2.175 billion jury verdict for patent infringement against Intel, which was handed down in March 2021 in the Western District of Texas.

On January 19, consumer tech giant Apple filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) asking the agency to institute a Section 337 investigation against Swedish telecom firm Ericsson, asserting a trio of patents related to millimeter wave technology used by electronic devices communicating on mobile 5G networks. The Section 337 complaint is the latest salvo in a legal battle that highlights the mounting tension surrounding standard-essential patents (SEPs) and where infringement litigation fits into the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) obligations that standards-setting organizations (SSOs) impose upon SEP owners.