Posts Tagged: "Judge Haldane Robert Mayer"

The label “anti-patent” is not meant as a criticism or insult. Instead I mean it is a purely descriptive way that recognizes a distinct and very real viewpoint; one that we have seen periodically throughout history but which is inconsistent with what the Framers believed. Therefore, I disagree with Judge Chen that it is not helpful to recognize that there are Judges on the Federal Circuit who, based on their written decisions, show a tendency to eschew a pro-patent viewpoint.

This is just another example of the Federal Circuit substituting its own decision for that of the decision maker at the district court level. It is one thing when the Federal Circuit ignores the factual findings of a district court judge, but an entirely different matter when facts found by a jury are ignored… Sadly, the Federal Circuit, or at least some panels, no longer operate as an appellate court. The Federal Circuit operates as a super-trial court, particularly with respect to obviousness. This is extraordinarily problematic given that the Supreme Court has shown no interested in taking even egregious obviousness decisions for appellate review.

Alexsam, Inc. v. IDT Corporation is a non-remarkable patent infringement decision with a remarkable dissent. What is noteworthy about the case is not the majority opinion, but the dissent by Judge Haldane Robert Mayer. Mayer’s dissent discusses why the patent is invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, which is curious because the 101 issue was not raised by the defendants during the appeal nor even mentioned during oral arguments. While Mayer’s dissent is not a binding opinion, if another judge on the panel signed on to Mayer’s reasoning then the patent would have been held invalid based on an issue not raised during the appeal.

After dispatching with Underwater Devices the Federal Circuit announced the new rules, which requires at least a showing of objective recklessness in order to support a finding of willful infringement and, thereby permitting enhanced damages. The Federal Circuit did not stop there though, but rather took the opportunity to explain that because of the abandonment of the affirmative duty of due care, there is no affirmative obligation to obtain opinion of counsel. Thus entered the era of intentional blindness, effectively killing the practice of obtaining an infringement opinion.

It was also determined that the underlying patent litigation was brought for no other reason than to extract nuisance payments despite the fact that there was no infringement. Specifically, the district court determined that Eon-Net filed the lawsuit against Flagstar had “indicia of extortion” because it was part of Eon-Net’s history of filing nearly identical patent infringement complaints against a plethora of diverse defendants, where Eon-Net followed each filing with a demand for a quick settlement at a price far lower than the cost to defend the litigation.

Judge Kathleen O’Malley was confirmed by the United States Senate earlier today. O’Malley’s confirmation, along with the confirmation of 18 others in recent days, is the result of a deal between Senate Democrats and Republicans that ensured passage of 19 nominations in exchange for an agreement not to move forward with other controversial nominations, including the hotly challenged nomination of Goodwin Lui, who is Associate Dean and Professor of Law at University of California Berkeley School of Law.

Putting aside my disdain for the Supreme Court stepping into patent matters of any kind, what does seem clear is that the Supreme Court wants to pretend that patents are the same as any other area of law and the same processes and procedures pertaining to other areas of law apply equally to the patent world. See eBay v. MercExchange and Zurko v. Dickinson for but two examples. The Supreme Court also loves case by case approaches without hard and fast rules that can actually be objectively and even-handedly applied. See KSR v. Teleflex and Bilski v. Kappos for but two examples. So strictly adhering to this clear trend it would suggest that the Supreme Court would be quite open to giving district court judges broad latitude to enforce their own Orders when appropriate. This would allow the district courts discretion to handle different cases differently, so that would cover the case by case approach, and it would seem to be in keeping with theories of judicial economy, which are typically left to the district court to handle, particularly when procedure, process and management of the docket are at issue.

TiVo, Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), owner of U.S. Patent 6,233,389, titled “Multimedia Time Warping System,” was a big winner today at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit when the CAFC handed down its decision in Tivo, Inc. v. EchoStar Corp. A majority of the 3 judge panel hearing the case agreed with the district court and ratified the contempt order against EchoStar (NASDAQ: SATS) and Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH). On news of the Federal Circuit ruling TiVo stock immediately surged ahead well over $5, up over 50%. Within less than 1 hour TiVo stock when from trading just over $10 a share, trading at $10.31 at 11:06 am EST, to trading at $16.07 at 11:42 am EST.

Normally, I find Judge Rader, the heir apparent for Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit, to write cogently and persuasively, even in dissent. Witness his withering blast in In re Bilski where he rightly takes the majority to task for the nonsensical “machine or transformation” test. But unfortunately, like the line from Hamlet, Judge Rader “doth protest too much, methinks” without case law support in his dissent in Media Technologies.

I am just getting back from a week in San Francisco, California teaching the PLI Patent Bar Review Course at PLI’s California Headquarters in downtown San Francisco.  I am back in the office after having taken the red-eye, with a stop over in Long Beach, California before the cross country trek to DC.  As has become so common, while I…

If you are going to read only one of the briefs in this case I would strongly recommend the Medtronic amicus brief, which was filed in support of neither party. Much of the Medtronic brief is devoted to explaining what the company does, some of the key medical innovations created by the company, why these innovations have helped improve the quality of health care for real people, and what technologies they will no longer be able to seek patent protection for, which will all but certainly lead to less medical innovation, which is hardly good for society.