Posts Tagged: "US Patent Law"

I Dissent: The Federal Circuit’s ‘Great Dissenter,’ Her Influence on the Patent Dialogue, and Why It Matters

Today, Judge Newman is the Federal Circuit’s most prolific dissenter, and her dissents are important. Former Chief Judge Paul Michel noted that “Judge Newman may hold the record for the most dissents. But her dissents have great force and often persuade other colleagues over time.” Judge Kimberly Moore concurred, saying “[w]hat people may not realize is that many of her dissents have later gone on to become the law—either the en banc law from our court or spoken on high from the Supremes.” She noted that “Merck v. Integra comes to mind. It’s a case where she wrote a very strong dissent. The Supreme Court took it and not only changed the state of the law to reflect what she had written, but they cited her outright in the opinion.”

Recent court rumblings about a narrow scope of IPR estoppel

An Inter Partes Review (IPR) is an important tool for companies that face frequent patent infringement challenges. An IPR is essentially a mini-litigation focusing solely on patent validity conducted before a panel of administrative patent judges sitting in the Patent Trial and Appeal board (PTAB). Once an IPR is initiated, a decision on validity is issued within one year. The narrow focus, fast timing, and lower cost of an IPR, along with certain legal advantages that make proving invalidity easier in an IPR than in a district court, make it an attractive alternative to district court litigation when good invalidity arguments are available.

Briefs supporting Life Technologies draw battle lines in battle over extraterritorial application of US patent laws

The U.S. government weighs in on Life Technologies’ side because “the application of U.S. patent law to participation by U.S. exporters in foreign markets also raise issues concerning the competiveness of American companies abroad and the respective roles of the United States and other nations’ patent laws.” The government argues that the Federal Circuit has not given a workable definition to determine when a component is sufficiently important or essential as to be “a substantial portion of the components.” The government also argues that, in legislating § 271(f), Congress’s purpose was to outlaw evasion of a U.S. patent by conduct that tantamount to manufacturing the patented invention in the U.S. for export. The government argues that there is no clear expressed Congressional intent for § 271(f) to reach supplying a single staple article: when the product is made abroad except for such a staple article, Congress left that predominantly foreign conduct to be regulated by foreign law. Finally, the government argues that the presumption against extraterritoriality requires the courts to assume both that “legislators take account of the legitimate interests of other nations” and “foreign conduct is generally the domain of foreign law.”

Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corporation: What No One Is Telling the Supreme Court

In its upcoming term, the Supreme Court will once again consider the extraterritorial effect of U.S. patent law; specifically, whether “the Federal Circuit erred in holding that supplying a single, commodity component of a multi-component invention from the United States is an infringing act under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(1), exposing the manufacturer to liability for all worldwide sales.” Life Tech. Corp. v. Promega Corp., No. 14-1538. Petitioners (all subsidiaries of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which I shall collectively call “Life”) urge the Court to hold the statute requires “all or a large percentage closely approximating all” of the components of the invention to have been made in the United States. Though Promega Corporation has yet to respond, the Court should decline Life’s invitation. This does not mean, however, that the decision of the Federal Circuit, Promega Corp. v. Life Tech. Corp., 773 F.3d 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2014), should be affirmed. Rather, though none of the briefs filed in the case have said so, the Supreme Court should reverse because the single, commodity component at issue cannot, as a matter of law, even under Promega’s interpretation of the statute, comprise a “substantial portion” of the components of the invention.