Posts in District Courts

The American stock exchange Nasdaq filed a complaint for patent infringement against electronic-based trading platform provider IEX Group in the District of New Jersey. Nasdaq is seeking enhanced damages for willful infringement of a series of patents covering auction and order processing as well as other technologies which Nasdaq alleges would have been known to the founders of IEX, who were former Nasdaq employees.

On February 20th, Clearwater Beach, FL-based restaurateur Frenchy’s Corporate filed a suit alleging trademark infringement against the owners and operators of Frenchy’s Pizzeria & Tavern, located less than an hour’s drive away from Clearwater in Port Richey, FL. The suit, filed in the Middle District of Florida, aims to protect Frenchy’s Corporate trademark rights to the unregistered trademark “FRENCHY’STM” under…

A resounding en garde was declared by California craft beer brand Stone to MillerCoors, the second largest beer company in the United States, over the alleged taking of their brand recognition. On February 12, 2018 Stone Brewing filed a federal complaint alleging trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution, and California unfair competition. The complaint requests preliminary and permanent injunction, declaratory relief, and both actual and treble damages on the basis of willful trademark infringement by MillerCoors… A particularly interesting factor in this case is likelihood of irreparable harm. MillerCoors may find room for defensive maneuvers due to recent shifts in the standard for proving irreparable harm.

On February 2, 2018, in Sophos Inc. v. RPost Holding, Inc., Judge Denise Casper became the latest judge to declare a case “exceptional” under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and award the declaratory judgment plaintiff, Sophos, the opportunity to recover its attorneys’ fees.  The court’s decision in Sophos comes as the four year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Octane Fitness v. ICON Health & Fitness rapidly approaches.  After Octane Fitness, many predicted a large uptick in the number of fee-shifting motions filed and their success rate in patent cases.  This article explores the fallout from Octane Fitness after four years on the books and any trends that have emerged in the courts.

In invalidating the Idenix patent, the Delaware district court effectively overturns what had been the largest award for royalty damages in a U.S. patent infringement case ever handed out. After a two-week trial in December 2016, the jury had awarded Index $2.64 billion in damages, which was based on finding Gilead infringed the Idenix patent – U.S. Patent No. 7,608,597 — by selling the hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments Harvoni and Sovaldi.

“One thing that I find curious is that Cloudflare claims to have 150 patent assets on the same type of technology,” Verlander said. Such assets include U.S. Patent No. 9342620, titled Loading of Web Resources, and U.S. Patent No. 9369437, entitled Internet-Based Proxy Method to Modify Internet Responses. “It seems to me that Cloudflare should be quite concerned. If the technology covered by the ‘335 patent isn’t patent-eligible, all of Cloudflare’s patent assets may be worthless and I imagine that their investors must be worried about that. They may have won the battle but they could lose the war because if they’re correct, competitors could jump right into the market and copy Cloudflare’s technology.”

So uncreative did Judge Michael Fitzgerald find Taylor Swift’s 2014 hit Shake It Off, he dismissed a copyright infringement case filed against her. In his opinion Judge Michael Fitzgerald explained the allegedly infringing lyrics used by Swift lacked even the modest level of creativity required for copyright protection… “The concept of actors acting in accordance with their essential nature is not at all creative; it is banal,” Fitzgerald worte. “In the early 2000s, popular culture was adequately suffused with the concepts of players and haters to render the phrases ‘playas … gonna play’ or ‘haters … gonna hate,’ standing on their own, no more creative than ‘runners gonna run,’ ‘drummers gonna drum,’ or ‘swimmers gonna swim.’”

In Atrix Software v. Green Shades Software, Aatrix sued Green Shades for infringement, and Green Shades moved to dismiss. The district court granted the motion, holding: (1) claim 1 of the ‘615 patent was not directed to any tangible embodiment and was not patent-eligible subject matter under § 101; and (2) under the Alice/Mayo two-step analysis, the remaining claims were for abstract ideas without inventive concepts and were also ineligible. Aatrix appealed. The Federal Circuit vacated the district court’s decision, reversed its denial of Aatrix’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, and remanded for further proceedings… Allegations in a patent infringement complaint that create a factual dispute about whether the claimed invention contains an inventive concept will defeat a motion to dismiss under § 101. For software inventions, such allegations include improvements in how a computer functions. An amended complaint to make such allegations should generally be allowed.

Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL) filed a lawsuit alleging trademark infringement in the Southern District of New York against Grand Rapids, MI-based oral healthcare company Ranir LLC. At issue in the case are toothbrushes being sold by Ranir which allegedly infringe upon the “360°” trademark, which is owned by Colgate… Since releasing the 360° branded line of toothbrushes and oral care products, Colgate has pursued federal trademark registrations to cover the use of the brand in commerce.

The technology covered by the ‘073 patent has been incorporated into the series of Bakugan rollable toys developed by Spin Master and released in 2007 in conjunction with the Japanese-Canadian anime adventure series Bakugan Battle Brawlers. According to Spin Master’s complaint, the Bakugan toy series has been a major success for the company, earning $1 billion in sales in just over a decade. Bakugan is a combination of the Japanese words for “to explode” (baku) and “sphere” (gan) and Spin Master’s toys were designed to be spherical, rollable toys which would “explode” into a character when the toy came into contact with a magnetic component. Spin Master’s toys remained popular through a number of Bakugan spin-off series and the company planned to reboot the toy brand for release along with a new anime series to be released in the 2019-20 time frame.

Turning to the injunction, Infineon was enjoined from undertaking certain activities concerning products in the Exclusive Field that practice the licensed patents. The Court vacated this provision because it lacks the specificity required by FRCP 65(d). The Court found that this sentence of the injunction “is, in essence, an injunction prohibiting infringing acts—but without reference to any particular, adjudicated infringing product,” and “[i]ndeed, no product has yet been adjudicated.”

The Federal Circuit reiterated that the on-sale bar does not exempt commercial agreements between a patentee and its supplier or distributor. It is the commercial character of the transaction that is more relevant than the parties involved when assessing whether there was a commercial offer for sale.

Microsoft argued that Corel willfully infringed the ’828, ’036, ’237, ’140, ’532, and ’865 patents. The asserted Microsoft patents are directed to graphic user interfaces used in Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office. Microsoft asserted that it has given its interfaces, including menus and toolbars, a distinctive look and feel, which Corel copied into the accused products, including WordPerfect X7. WordPerfect X7 even includes an option to use the product in the “Microsoft Word mode.” See Complaint para 3-5. Similarly, Quatro Pro X7 offers the option to use the product in the “Microsoft Excel mode.” See Complaint para. 6-8.

Chicago, IL-based wireless power solutions provider NuCurrent filed a complaint alleging trade secret misappropriation and patent infringement against Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics (KRX:005930). The case, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, alleges that wireless charging technologies incorporated by Samsung into their Galaxy S7 and S8 product lines copies technology which was presented to them by NuCurrent under the terms of a confidentiality agreement.

Earlier today Alphabet subsidiary Waymo settled with Uber in the midst of a trade secret infringement trial. This lawsuit originated when Waymo brought suit against Uber in 2017, alleging that a former Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski, who was hired by Uber to lead Uber’s self-driving car project, took with him thousands of confidential documents… The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a separate, criminal investigation into the alleged theft of trade secrets. Levandowski has claimed a Fifth Amendment privilege and has not spoken about the events leading to this dispute.