Posts Tagged: "US Supreme Court"

Justices Won’t Consider Whether CAFC’s Claim Construction Constitutes a Judicial Taking

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition that asked it to consider whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) “construction of petitioner’s patent claim was unforeseeable and unjustifiable under the circuit’s prior decisions,” thereby constituting a judicial taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The petition was an appeal from the CAFC’s April decision affirming a district court’s judgment that AT&T Mobility LLC did not infringe an inventor’s wireless communications technology patent but also holding that AT&T had forfeited its chance to prove the patent invalid on appeal.

USPTO Tells SCOTUS to Skip Intel’s Challenge to Fintiv Framework

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) responded last week to a petition for certiorari that is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision that said appellate review of whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) discretionary denial rules for inter partes review (IPR) are “arbitrary and capricious” is precluded by Section 314(d) of the patent statute.

Google Escapes $20 Million Judgment as SCOTUS Denies Petition on CAFC Reissue Standard

Just a few weeks after Google waived its right to respond, the Supreme Court denied a petition challenging a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision that held a Texas district court erred in ruling against the search engine and tech behemoth. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found the inventors of a method for protecting computers from malware—Alfonso Cioffi and Allen Rozman (the patent is now assigned to Melanie, Megan and Morgan Rozman)—had proven that Google’s Chrome web browser infringed their reissue patents RE43,500, RE43,528, and RE43,529 and that the claims were not invalid. After a first time at the Federal Circuit in which the case was remanded to the district court, a jury awarded Cioffi, et. al. $20 million in past damages and the district court in post-trial review rejected Google’s “original patent defense.”

SCOTUS Declines to Consider Joint Inventorship Petition

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.”

Assessing the Arguments: Practitioners Predict Likely Loss for TRUMP TOO SMALL Applicant

Oral arguments were held yesterday in Vidal v. Elster, with most observers concluding that the justices are unlikely to grant trademark applicant Steve Elster’s bid to register the mark TRUMP TOO SMALL for t-shirts. Unlike the Court’s recent prominent trademark decisions in Matal v. Tam and Iancu v. Brunetti, there seemed to be little controversy on the part of the justices in Vidal v. Elster over whether the First Amendment is implicated here. Below is a roundup of comments from trademark practitioners on what they thought stood out during the oral arguments.