Posts Tagged: "claim construction"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday, March 7, vacated a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that had held unpatentable certain claims to CoolIT Systems, Inc.’s patent. U.S. Patent 9,057,567 is titled “Fluid Heat Exchange Systems” and is directed to a system for fluid heat transfer to cool electronic devices. On appeal to the CAFC, CoolIT argued that the PTAB erred in construing one of the claim terms, “matingly engaged” and that even under the PTAB’s construction, the asserted prior art did not meet the matingly engaged limitation.

On February 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a pair of precedential rulings in Promptu Systems Corp. v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, vacating a final judgment of infringement after reversing part of the district court’s claim construction rulings. The entire U.S. patent community, however, should take notice of the Federal Circuit’s sua sponte order informing future litigants that evading briefing limits by incorporating much larger documents by reference will likely result in sanctions.

On February 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Weber, Inc. v. Provisur Technologies, Inc. that vacated rulings by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) nixing validity challenges by American grill maker Weber against Provisur’s commercial food slicer patent claims. The Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB on claim construction and also found that the Board misapplied CAFC precedent on the level of public dissemination required before printed publications can qualify as prior art.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision vacating and remanding a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that a patent for a climate control system was not proven unpatentable by Google LLC and Ecobee, Inc. In so doing, the court clarified how to determine when a court or the PTAB has implicitly construed a claim.

For decades, patent litigators have followed what can best be described as a forced march seeking to construe patent terms and thereafter litigate infringement and/or validity issues based on those constructions. We all know the drill: exchange contentions; flag contested claim terms; brief their constructions; apply the facts to the court’s constructions; and grind out infringement and validity evidence like so much sausage. Rarely do litigants ask courts to take a step back and construe an asserted claim “as a whole,” and rarely do courts do so if they have not been asked. But sometimes the lack of a holistic claim analysis can lead to a shock to the system at trial, at which time one narrowly construed term can steamroller another broader construed term. The result can be the loss of an infringement claim or an invalidity defense. Such losses may or may not be avoidable, but facing the music earlier can save everyone a great deal of time and resources.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential decision today affirmed two decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated some claims and upheld others of a patent owned by Personal Genomics Taiwan, Inc. Based on the PTAB’s claim construction, which the CAFC agreed with, the decision held that Pacific Biosciences had failed to prove the prior art taught the limitation of the preamble phrase of claim 1 in one inter partes review, (IPR) but did prove a different prior art reference taught the limitation in the other proceeding.

On December 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in K-fee System GmbH v. Nespresso USA, Inc., reversing a claim construction ruling and summary judgment of noninfringement issued by the Central District of California. In construing the claim term “barcode” de novo, the Federal Circuit found that the district court erred in finding that its definition expressly excluded “bit codes” in light of the patent owner’s representations during European patent opposition proceedings.

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.”

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.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) held in a precedential decision today that an inter partes review (IPR) petitioner must be given the opportunity to present evidence of anticipation or obviousness under a new claim construction when that construction is first proposed by a patent owner in its response following the institution decision. The court ultimately vacated the decisions and remanded to the PTAB to reconsider.

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Medytox, Inc. v. Galderma S.A. affirming a final written decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) invalidating Medytox’s patent claims covering methods for treating patients with botulinum toxin and denying a revised motion to amend patent claims. On appeal, the Federal Circuit rebuffed several challenges, including an Administrative Procedures Act (APA) challenge to the PTAB’s motion to amend pilot program, holding that the PTAB’s change in claim construction was not arbitrary or capricious, nor did it prevent Medytox from litigating construction issues.

On April 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Sequoia Technology, LLC v. Dell, Inc. reversing part of a District of Delaware ruling invalidating digital storage patent claims owned by Sequoia under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Although the ruling restores Sequoia’s rights to the patent claims at issue in the case, the Federal Circuit affirmed portions of the district court’s claim construction order that had supported a finding that Dell and other defendants did not infringe upon Sequoia’s asserted patent claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential opinion today affirmed a district court’s judgment that AT&T Mobility LLC did not infringe an inventor’s wireless communications technology patent but held that AT&T had forfeited its chance to prove the patent is invalid on appeal. Joe Salazar’s U.S. Patent No. 5,802,467 is titled, “Wireless and Wired Communications, Command, Control and Sensing System for Sound And/or Data Transmission and Reception.” After unsuccessfully suing HTC Corp. for infringement in 2016, Salazar sued HTC’s customers, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, in 2019, alleging certain phones sold by the companies infringed his patent. A jury ultimately found that the companies did not infringe but that the patent was not invalid as anticipated.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential ruling Monday that vacated and remanded a district court ruling on patent infringement in a case between Amazon and AlterWAN. The circuit judges vacated the ruling, which found Amazon did not infringe on two AlterWAN patents for internet network technology. Based on two of the district court’s claim constructions, the parties entered into a stipulation of non-infringement; however, AlterWAN appealed the case and contested the district court’s construction of two terms relevant to the patent claims. The CAFC found the stipulation to be vague and lacking detail, and thus vacated the ruling and sent it back to the district court.