Posts in District Courts

Why is Steven Anderson citing his case as a reason why Congress must create stricter venue rules when he hasn’t even filed a motion to transfer venue? Anderson being trotted out as the poster child for venue reform is curious given he does business in EDTX and is seldom sued. Is this some charade? …. The company has only filed a motion to dismiss based on invalidity of the asserted claims under 35 U.S.C. Section 101. In fact, Culver filed an answer with affirmative defenses three weeks after the Supreme Court decided TC Heartland which notes that “Culver’s does not contest whether personal jurisdiction over it properly lies in this District in this case… Culver’s admits that venue may be proper, but denies that venue is convenient in this District as to Culver’s. Culver’s admits that it conducts business in this District.”

In mid-June, this case was overturned on appeal after a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada (D. Nev.), entered a finding of judgement as a matter of law in favor of defendant DeVito’s fair use defense. As the judge noted, at most 145 creative words from the biography, constituting about 0.2 percent of the 68,500 words comprising that work, was the plaintiff’s basis for copyright infringement. “This factor strongly weighs in favor of a finding of fair use, at least where the ‘heart’ of the Work was not infringed,” the order reads. Further, the biographical nature of the work meant that uncopyrightable facts about DeVito’s life, and not the author’s writing style, comprised the heart of that work. As well, the 12 similarities between the biography and the musical accounted for 0.4 percent of the musical’s script and 0.2 percent of the running time, according to the recent court order.

In Nantkwest v. Matal, the Federal Circuit reversed the Eastern District of Virginia’s denial of the USPTO’s request for attorneys’ fees in connection with Nantkwest’s district court appeal of the PTAB rejection of its patent application. At issue was the correct interpretation of Section 145 of the Patent Act, namely the language “[a]ll of the expenses of the proceeding.” The Court held that Section 145 of the Patent Act requires the appellant to pay the USPTO’s attorneys’ fees, regardless of the outcome of the case.

If the Washington, DC rumor mill is correct Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will soon announce that Andrei Iancu will be the next Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Sources say an announcement could come as early as the beginning of July. Still, it has been difficult to determine whether those within the rumor mill, which have been in complete agreement on Iancu being the pick, is well informed or simply echoing what everyone else is saying. Regardless, at this point too many indicators are pointing toward Iancu being the pick, with rumors also circulating that he is currently being vetted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

So obviously the patent claims VirnetX has used to pursue infringers such as Apple and Microsoft are not the weak patents that opponents of the patent system claim are the scourge of the system. Well — not so fast! Just because an Article III federal district court confirms the validity of a patent doesn’t mean anything anymore. Indeed, federal courts have become subordinate to the PTAB, which is as ridiculous as it sounds but sadly true. A patent is not valid until an Article I executive tribunal says so, and absolutely no deference is paid to Article III judges of the United States federal courts.

Dunkin’ Donuts allegations center around a message displayed on windows at the Mike’s Coffee location: “North Now Runs On Mike’s”. Although Steve Copoulos, the owner of Mike’s Coffee, reportedly did not have Dunkin’ Donuts’ “America Runs On Dunkin’” slogan in mind when putting up the window display at Mike’s Coffee, a letter from Dunkin’ argued that the owner’s actions “are clearly designed to trade in on the goodwill and reputation associated with the America Runs on Dunkin’ trademark,” according to The Sun Chronicle.

Some of the reports most interesting findings involve which entities are most active at the PTAB as well as the law firms representing parties most frequently during PTAB proceedings… Statistics on administrative patent judges (APJs) at PTAB also render some interesting findings. The four most experienced APJs at PTAB each have more than 400 trials’ worth of experience while some APJs have far fewer cases in which they’ve served. Although the concentration of patent cases in the dockets of a few judges in U.S. district courts has been a topic of much discussion, statutory rules on requests for joinder in IPR proceedings may be naturally causing a concentration of PTAB cases in terms of judges deciding those cases. The PTAB report notes that it’s not unusual for judges to have 20 to 50 cases open at one time.

In two recent decisions following T. C. Heartland, district courts have applied two different methodologies in resolving motions to change venue… In the first decision a trial judge in the Eastern District of Virginia denied the venue motion, filed three days after T.C. Heartland but also on the eve of trial.  Cobalt Boats, LLC v. Sea Ray Boats, Inc. (June 7, 2017)… In the second decision, a district court in the Southern District of Ohio applied the standards in § 1400(b) and transferred the action because neither of two defendants resided in the district and neither had a permanent and continuous presence in Ohio.

The inventor of the two patents-in-suit is Dan Brown, Sr., president and founder of LoggerHead. He also teaches engineering at Northwestern University’s Segal Design Institute. Brown came up with the concept for the adjustable gripping tool, which LoggerHead markets as the Bionic Wrench, after watching his son try to work on a lawnmower with a pair of pliers. Realizing that there was no good tool to serve as a substitute, Brown worked for three years to create a suitable gripping tool while performing market research, evaluating sales channels and searching for an American manufacturer for the product, according to LoggerHead’s second amended complaint filed in the case.

Venadium LLC filed a series of five patent infringement suits against well-known entities in the insurance, hotel accommodation and industrial supply space. The suits, which have been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (N.D. Ill.), feature the assertion of a single patent techniques to combat online software privacy by protecting executable computer programs from unauthorized use.

The district court determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because Preston’s state-law claims did not arise under federal law and Nagel’s patent counterclaims did not present a justiciable case or controversy under Article III because the patent dispute was not imminent. Therefore, the district court remanded the case and Nagel timely appealed… The AIA and its strengthening of federal court jurisdiction over patent claims did nothing to override the rule that a district court decision to remand a case to state court is not appealable under §1447(d).

Rothschild sued ADS for patent infringement of Rothschild’s patent related to a home security system. The district court granted Rothschild’s motion to dismiss and denied ADS’s cross-motion for attorney fees, finding that Rothschild did not engage in conduct sufficient to make the action exceptional under 35 U.S.C. § 285. ADS appealed, and the Court reversed and remanded. The Court found that the district court abused its discretion citing three reasons.

In the Federal Circuit case of Checkpoint Systems v. All-Tag Sec, The Federal Circuit held that the district court erred in finding this case exceptional under 35 U.S.C. § 285, and it reversed its award of attorney fees to the defendants. The record showed that the plaintiff’s charge of infringement was reasonable and the litigation was not abusive or brought in bad faith.

despite the media widely lambasting Smartflash as a patent troll, inventor Patrick Racz actually created a company called Internet plc “to develop, manufacture, and commercialize the invention”; Smartflash was created as an entity to hold the intellectual property… One reason why this case might warrant an en banc rehearing includes the fact that the case was decided by a different judicial panel than the panel which heard Smartflash’s arguments in the case. The March 1st decision was handed down by a panel which included Chief Judge Sharon Prost, Judge Pauline Newman and Judge Alan Lourie. An order entered in the case last June, however, lists a Fed. Cir. panel which includes Judge Jimmie Reyna, Judge Richard Taranto and Judge Kara Stoll. It appears to be unclear why a wholesale change of judicial panel was made leading up to the March 1st decision of the Federal Circuit.