Posts Tagged: "Patent Litigation"

It was a typical week for patent filings at both the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and in district courts, with 25 new PTAB petitions (five post grant review and 20 inter partes review) and 53 new district court complaints filed. At the PTAB, there were three procedural denials under Section 325(d) (and denying patent owner’s request to deny under Fintiv) in IPRs filed by Nokia Corp. against optical networking patents owned by Alexander Soto and Walter Soto and asserted by inventor owned-NextGen Innovations, LLC.

The Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing today featuring witnesses who weighed in on the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act, which was introduced in June by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI). Today’s was the sixth hearing of the IP Subcommittee this year. The goal of the PREVAIL Act is to reform the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in a number of ways.

On November 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Allgenesis Biotherapeutics Inc. v. Cloudbreak Therapeutics, LLC, dismissing Allgenesis’ appeal after an unsuccessful challenge to Cloudbreak’s patent claims at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The Federal Circuit ruled that Allgenesis lacked Article III standing to bring the appeal for failing to establish an injury in fact stemming from potential infringement liability or the impact of the PTAB’s priority determinations on the scope of Allgenesis’ patent rights.

On August 22, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued yet another decision reinforcing what can only be described as the “lead compound” rule for challenging pharmaceutical and other chemical compound patents on the basis of obviousness…. The Federal Circuit has been utilizing the “lead compound” construct since around 2000. The Sun panel cited an earlier decision which couched the construct as something the court “ordinarily” employs. Otsuka Pharm. Co., Ltd. v. Sandoz Inc., 678 F. 3d 1280, 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2012). That earlier decision cited yet an earlier decision which stated that the “lead compound” methodology is used “in general.” Esai Co. v. Dr. Reddy’s Labs., Ltd., 533 F. 3d 1353, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2008).

If you’re a regular reader of IPWatchdog, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that two different U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC or Federal Circuit) panels recently issued inconsistent, irreconcilable opinions. But what just happened over the last month is particularly concerning. Specifically, within the span of six days, the Federal Circuit held that: “A computer” means one and only one computer when a subsequent claim element recites “the computer” (Finjan v. Sonicwall); and “A sample stream” means one or more sample streams when a subsequent claim element recites “the sample stream” (ABS Global v. Cytonome/ST).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari to HIP, Inc. in a case that asked the Court to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) standard for determining joint inventorship. The petition, filed in August, asked the Court to resolve what it called “an indisputable conflict between the express language of Section 116(a) of Title 35, informed by the legislative history of its 1984 amendments, and requirements the Federal Circuit has imposed on the joint inventions statute since the 1984 amendments.”

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. vacating an infringement judgment against Mylan in the Northern District of West Virginia. The Federal Circuit remanded the case for further consideration of extrinsic evidence from chemistry textbooks to determine the proper meaning of the claim term “a pH of 13 or higher.”

It was another slow week for patent filings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and a typical week in district courts, with 52 district court complaints filed and 22 new PTAB petitions. There was a new discretionary denial, a bunch of litigation-provoked high-profile PTAB challenges, and some notable new litigations. There was another Fintiv discretionary denial this week: here, a Chinese patent owner, Ningde Amperex Technology Ltd., benefited from the Board’s discretionary denial rules in a petition brought by another Chinese battery company. The case, IPR2023-00585, leaves unaddressed the questions raised about the validity of U.S. Patent 11329352.

An interesting tale of intrigue and woe is being written in the decade-long relationship between Google and Sonos. The most recent chapter ended with the district court finding the Sonos patents at issue in their patent litigation against Google were unenforceable due to laches because Sonos had the audacity to file a continuation and seek claims supported by—and actually incorporated from—an earlier filing. According to the district court, because Sonos could have filed those claims in the continuation earlier, that created a laches defense for Google.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision holding that a Delaware district court erred in its claim construction of a term with respect to Malvern Panalytical, Inc.’s patents. Specifically, the CAFC said the district court erred by relying heavily on the patent prosecution history statements for a related patent that had been cited in the information disclosure statement (IDS) during supplemental examination of one of the patents-in-suit to inform its construction of the term in question.

On Thursday, October 26, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a limited exclusion order (LEO) and cease and desist order against Apple, potentially barring the technology company from importing Apple Watches into the United States. The ITC found Apple violated section 337 by importing Apple Watches that infringed on two Masimo patents that covered technology related to reading blood-oxygen levels.

It was a slow week at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with just 18 new petitions—all inter partes reviews (IPRs); in district court, a slightly below average 54 new patent filings and 48 terminations rounded out the count. District courts saw continued filings in several large campaigns. Unwired Global Systems LLC (associated with high volume plaintiff, Jeffrey Gross) adds another seven defendants to its campaign, asserting a single patent related to home area network middleware interfaces and inventor-controlled Optimum Imaging Technologies LLC filed suit against six defendants asserting patents related to, not surprisingly, digital imaging, bringing the total number of defendants to seven.

Yesterday, Google waived its right to respond to a petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court filed by the inventors of a method for protecting computers from malware. The inventors, Alfonso Cioffi and Allen Rozman (the patent is now assigned to Melanie, Megan and Morgan Rozman), are appealing a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision that reversed a district court ruling and $20 million verdict for the inventors. The CAFC held that the Texas district court erred in ruling that four claims across the three patents were not invalid and agreed with Google’s argument that the claims were invalid under the “original patent requirement” because they contained reissue claims not disclosed in the original patent.

Innovation has been the driving force behind our country since its inception. So much of our nation’s success has flowed from U.S. ingenuity and innovation. Yet much remains to be done on this front. Indeed, in a few short years, we will be celebrating the Semiquincentennial (also called the Sestercentennial)—250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We need the same approach moving forward, and we have the opportunity to do so with pending legislation, which brings me to a chance to reflect on some important questions of intellectual property and innovation policy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled on Monday that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California erred in granting judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) that the relevant claims of Cyntec Company, Ltd.’s patents were not invalid as obvious and in denying Chilisin Electronics Corp.’s Daubert motion to exclude testimony from Cyntec’s damages expert. However, it affirmed the district court’s judgment of infringement.