Posts Tagged: "district of delaware"

Apple and Samsung Settle Patent Dispute Proving Patent Litigation Doesn’t Hinder Consumer Access

On Wednesday, June 27th, a pair of orders of dismissal, one entered in the District of Delaware and the other entered in the Northern District of California, marked the official end of the patent war which played out between consumer tech giants Apple and Samsung for the better part of the past decade. This legal dispute, which was brought to courts in 10 different countries and even went to the U.S. Supreme Court, is notable because it undermines the argument that major patent infringement battles harm tech consumers through added costs and blocking innovation.

Patent Litigation Shows Shift Towards Delaware, Decrease in High-Volume Plaintiff Filings

Legal data analytics provider Lex Machina recently published a post featuring data points regarding the filing of patent infringement cases in the year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands. In that decision, the Court held that the patent venue statute (28 U.S.C. § 1400(b)) meant that domestic companies could only file patent infringement suits in the judicial district where they were incorporated. Lex Machina’s one-year data update shows that TC Heartland has toppled the Eastern District of Texas as the top forum for patent infringement filings among U.S. district courts. The decision has also affected the filing behaviors of high-volume plaintiffs (HVPs), or those entities filing 10 or more patent infringement cases in U.S. district courts within one calendar year.

ECCO Accuses Skechers of Stealing Soles, Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit in Delaware District Court

Recently, Denmark-based footwear maker ECCO filed a suit alleging claims of patent infringement against Manhattan Beach, CA-based shoemaker Skechers. The suit, filed in the federal district for Delaware, asserts a series of patents owned by the Danish shoemaker which cover aspects of golf shoes which have been commercially successful for ECCO in recent years. According to ECCO’s complaint, the alleged claims of infringement by Skechers involve the particular cleat arrangement as well as the structure of the cleats used in the sole in the golf shoes, which are covered by ECCO’s patents.

Hatch-Waxman Litigation: 60 Percent Increase in ANDA Lawsuits from 2016 to 2017

In 2017, U.S. district courts saw a total of 417 patent infringement suits related to ANDA filings made by drugmakers with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking to bring generic versions of brand-name pharmaceuticals to the U.S. market. This total number of ANDA cases was below recent highs set in 2014 (437 cases) and 2015 (475 cases) but it was also a significant increase over the 324 ANDA cases filed in 2016. Going back to 2009, 2017 saw the third-highest number of ANDA cases in a single year. The fact that ANDA litigation is rising is pretty consistent with the number of ANDA applications being received by the FDA. In 2017, the FDA approved a record number of ANDAs with 763 such approvals that year; the agency attributed this uptick to an increased number of agency hires.

Spotify, SoundCloud and Deezer Music Apps Sued for Infringing Music Organizer and Entertainment Center Patent

Patent owner MOAEC Technologies filed suits alleging claims of patent infringement in the District of Delaware against a series of music entertainment app providers including Spotify, SoundCloud and Deezer. The suits claim that music services offered by all three defendants infringe upon a patent covering a music library collection technology invented by the founder of MOAEC… MOAEC’s suits also include language in an apparent attempt to preempt any patent validity challenges under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the basic statute governing the patentability of inventions, under the Alice/Mayo framework.