Posts Tagged: "Judge Richard Linn"

The Federal Circuit granted a mandamus petition filed by Google and ordered a Texas federal court to transfer a patent infringement case to a federal court that covers Silicon Valley as requested by Google. This extraordinary remedy was delivered in the form of a non-precedential opinion authored by Chief Judge Prost and joined by Judge Lourie. Despite the Federal Circuit’s designation of the decision as non-precedential the Court should be prepared for the onslaught of mandamus petitions that will now be filed given that they have shown a willingness to step in and re-weigh transfer factors de novo.

In a December 22, 2016 decision, the Federal Circuit vacated a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“The Board”) in two inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. The Court reversed the Board’s decision that the claims at issue were unpatentable for anticipation and obviousness… The broadest reasonable interpretation of a patent claim does not extend to a legally incorrect interpretation. When the claim as a whole expressly excludes a particular result, a claim term cannot be interpreted so broadly as to encompass that result.

Earlier today the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Food Brands Group LLC. In deciding to hear this patent venue case the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) is the sole and exclusive provision governing venue in patent infringement actions… Ultimately, the question that the petitioner really wants the Supreme Court to address is whether the Eastern District of Texas, which is home to 20-25% of all patent litigations because it is perceived to be patent owner friendly, is a proper venue for patent owners to be choosing. If the Supreme Court issues a ruling that strikes down current patent venue rules there would be no need for patent venue reform efforts to continue in Congress. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court were to affirm the Federal Circuit in this case calls for legislative venue reform would likely become deafening.

While TecSec had urged the panel to reassign the case to a different judge on remand in part because the district court judge repeatedly held against TecSec, raised dispositive issues sua sponte, had been reversed on appeal for many of those issues, and had pre-judged a § 101 issue that has not yet been raised, reassignment is only appropriate in exceptional circumstances. “Here, reassignment is governed by Fourth Circuit law, which applies a three factor test for reassignment: 1) whether the judge would be reasonable expected to have substantial difficulty putting her views that were held to be incorrect out of her mind; 2) whether reassignment is necessary to preserve the appearance of justice; and 3) the degree of waste of judicial resources and duplication if the case were reassigned. See United States v. Guglielmi, 929 F.2d 1001, 1007 (4th Cir. 1991). Nothing in this case merits reassignment on remand.”

what is particularly interesting about this case is that Smith, who had prevailed at the district court and was awarded about $322,500 in damages, thought he could not challenge the correctness of a claim construction made by the district court. While Smith could not have filed a cross appeal in this case concerning the claim construction, Smith could have asserted ‘alternative grounds in the record for affirming the judgment.’ Because Smith did not raise any such alternate grounds on appeal, the Federal Circuit could not address the correctness of the district court’s claim construction.

The Court recognized that “‘[c]ommon sense has long been recognized to inform the analysis of obviousness if explained with sufficient reasoning.’” However, “there are at least three caveats to note in applying ‘common sense’ in an obviousness analysis.” First, common sense is typically invoked to provide a known motivation to combine, and not to supply a missing claim limitation. Second, while some cases have allowed use of common sense to supply a missing claim limitation, “the limitation in question was unusually simple and the technology particularly straightforward.” Third, common sense “cannot be used as a wholesale substitute for reasoned analysis and evidentiary support, especially when dealing with a limitation missing from the prior art references specified.”

O’Malley recognized that in Perfect Web the Federal Circuit did authorize the use of common sense to supply a missing claim limitation, but she pointed out that this was the only case where that has been done. O’Malley further explained that in Perfect Web that which was missing was “unusually simple and the technology particularly straightforward.” In fact, in Perfect Web, which dealt with sending e-mail to an e-mail list, the missing claim limitation was nothing more than merely repeating the step of resending e-mails in accordance with the claim. Thus, O’Malley explained that Perfect Web is properly considered an exception to allowing common sense to supply a missing claim limitation, rather than the rule.

In large part, the CAFC was concerned with the possible disruption of overturning long-standing PTO practice and the reliance placed on it by practitioners, and this respect and concern for practice is to the court’s credit. And to its credit, the CAFC said as much: the “Supreme Court has long recognized that a ‘longstanding administrative construction,’ at least one on which reliance has been placed, ‘provides a powerful reason for interpreting a statute to support the construc­tion…[h]ere, HTC’s position would disturb over 50 years of public and agency reliance on the permissibility of same-day continuations. We see no basis for denying the existence of a facially large disruptive effect were we now to repudiate the same-day-continuation policy.”

Twenty-five years ago, the Federal Circuit decided a case that transformed where (and how) patent infringement cases can be litigated.[1] By expanding the scope of where a corporate defendant “resides” for venue purposes, the court in VE Holding Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance greatly increased the number of states and courts in which many corporations can be sued for infringement. This decision has contributed to the development of forum-shopping and related litigation issues over the past several years. One company, TC Heartland, LLC, is now urging the Federal Circuit to overturn that precedent and restore more stringent venue restrictions through a writ of mandamus, and dozens of others are joining the debate.

This is as straightforward a certiorari candidate as any patent case can be. It is manifestly important: A host of judges and amici have stressed that the result below is untenable— invalidating previously irreproachable inventions and precipitating what Judge Lourie called “a crisis of patent law and medial innovation.” And this is the vehicle this Court needs to provide that clarification: Every opinion below agrees that this case tests Mayo’s uncertain limits by invalidating an otherwise plainly meritorious invention. Here, unlike Mayo, every intuition points towards patent-eligibility. And yet the Federal Circuit felt compelled by Mayo to condemn this meritorious patent—and, a fortiori, the patents underlying an entire, vital field of American healthcare innovation.

The law of patent eligibility is created by the nine least qualified people to make such a determination; the Justices of Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court arbitrarily chooses which of its own prior decisions to follow and ignore, refuses to read and enforce the laws passed by Congress even when the statue is but a single sentence (as is 101), and they openly legislates from the bench by creating judicial exceptions to patent eligibility where no such statutory prerogative exists. If the Federal Circuit will not step up and do the right thing and limit the lawless Mayo decision, which instructs lower courts to ignore the patent statute and drive 100% of the analysis into 101, the U.S. will forfeit our lead in the biotechnology and medical device industries. That will be bad for the economy, but far worse for public health.

According to Limelight, the district court’s construction of “tagging” was limited to using a “pointer” or “hook” to prepend or insert a virtual server hostname into a URL. The Court rejected “prepending” as a claim limitation because even though the ‘703 patent described prepending as a preference, there was no indication from the claims or prosecution history that tagging was limited to this preferred embodiment. The Court found no error in the jury instructions and held that Limelight was bound to the stipulated construction of “tagging” originally read to the jury.

The Federal Circuit held that the structure and language of §122(a) indicate that Congress intended the exceptions to confidentiality to be narrow and reviewable. §122(a) contains two portions: a mandatory clause follows by two exceptions. The word ‘shall’ in the first portion of the provision made it mandatory for the PTO to maintain the confidentiality of patent applications. In addition, the word ‘necessary’ in the first exception indicated a narrow exception and afforded the agency no discretion. In light of this, coupled with the language of the second exception, the Court concluded that the PTO’s determination of “special circumstances” in the second exception is reviewable.

Even though the Board is generally not bound by the district court’s construction of claim terms, it does not mean that “it has no obligation to acknowledge that interpretation or to assess whether it is consistent with the broadest reasonable construction of the term.” Here, given that PI’s main argument was the proper interpretation of the term “coupled,” which was construed by the district court, the Board had an obligation “to evaluate that construction and to determine whether it was consistent with the broadest reasonable construction of the term.” Because the Board failed to address the district court’s interpretation of the term “coupled” and failed to provide adequate explanation for its decision to reject the claims as anticipated, the Court reversed and remanded.

The en banc Court reversed the previous panel, and expanded the circumstances under which an alleged infringer may be liable under §271(a). In addition to circumstances identified by the panel, liability may arise if “an alleged infringer conditions participation in an activity or the receipt of a benefit upon performance of a step or steps of the patented method, and establishes the manner or timing of that performance.” When that standard is satisfied, the actions of a third party may be attributed to the alleged infringer, who thereby directly infringes under §271(a), even though there was no “mastermind” acting though a formal agent.