Posts Tagged: "Judge Pauline Newman"

The district court imposed a fee-shifting sanction as a condition of permitting AntiCancer to supplement the Preliminary Infringement Contentions that the district court found defective under Patent Local Rule 3.1. The district court issued an Order that would have allowed AntiCancer to supplement its infringement contentions, but only if it concurrently pay the attorney fees and costs incurred by the defendants in connection with their motion for summary judgment related to the defective infringement contentions. AntiCancer objected to this condition, and the district court entered summary judgment… It seems fundamentally unfair for a defendant to have to pay for a filing that becomes nullified by amended infringement contentions, whether they appear in an Amended Complaint or in a filing required by a local rule.

The Federal Circuit, per Judge Newman and with Chief Judge Prost and Judge Hughes, found that the Federal Circuit lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal from a decision to remand the case back to State court, citing 28 U.S.C. 1447(d), which makes unreviewable “[a]n order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed…” Section 1447(d) seems, and the outcome likely unfair, although no one will likely shed a tear for MPHJ.

In Novartis, this Federal Circuit panel (opinion by Judge Taranto, joined by Judges Newman and Dyk) ruled that the second exclusion from PTA in the “B period” portion (i.e., 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(B)(ii)) excludes from PTA any time consumed by a Request for Continued Examination (RCE), even if that RCE is filed more than 3 years after the “actual filing date” of the patent application. Not only is this ruling a questionable interpretation of 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(B)(ii) for reasons I’ll discuss below, but it creates an unfortunate, and surely unintended impact on RCEs specifically, as well as continuation practice generally. And the more I dig into the PTA statute, the more problematical this ruling in Novartis becomes.

In a non-precedential opinion issued October 18, 2013, the Federal Circuit decision calls into question the overall utility of forum selection clauses in contractual relationships. In fact, Eli Lilly lost its bid to have its dispute with Genentech and City of Hope heard in the Northern District of California despite having a forum selection clause in the governing contract that stated the parties would litigate any dispute in the Northern District of California.

The en banc Federal Circuit on September 13, 2013, heard oral argument on whether to overrule its en banc decision in Cybor Corp. v. FAS Technologies, Inc., 138 F.3d 1448 (Fed. Cir. 1998), and hold that claim construction can involve issues of fact reviewable for clear error, and that it is not entirely an issue of law subject only to de novo review. On appeal is the district court decision that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand the claim term “voltage source means” to correspond to a rectifier or other voltage supply device. It thus rejected ULT’s argument that the term invokes Section 112 ¶6 and that the claim is invalid for indefiniteness for lack of specific structure in the specification. A Federal Circuit panel reversed in a nonprecedential decision, concluding from a de novo review that “voltage source means” does invoke Section 112 ¶6 and that the claim is invalid for indefiniteness. That panel decision was vacated when the appellate court decided to consider the claim construction issue en banc.

Earlier today the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued it latest decision in Soverain Software LLC v. Newegg, Inc. (Fed. Cir., September 4, 2013). This latest decision was necessitated by the limited grant of rehearing ordered on June 13, 2013. The rehearing was granted for the purpose of clarifying the status of claims 34 and 35 of Patent No. 5,715,314. Before jumping into the substance of this case, the first thing I noticed was that Seth Waxman of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr was listed as the lead attorney for Soverain Software in both the petition for rehearing and the ensuing briefs. It is hard to imagine that Soverain has brought in Seth Waxman at this late stage if they are not contemplating an appeal to the Supreme Court.

All the Judges rely on the same Supreme Court precedents in Gottschalk v Benson, Parker v. Flook, Diamond v. Diehr, Bilski v. Kappos, and Mayo v. Prometheus. All the Judges recognize the same judicial exception to statutory subject matter under §101 for laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. All the Judges recognize that a claim must include “meaningful limitations” that go beyond an abstract idea. Hollow field-of-use limitations and insignificant pre or post-solution activity don’t count. However, this is where their similarities end.

Perpetuating the myth that the computer is where the magic lies does nothing other than ignore reality. Software is what makes everything happen. or crying out loud, software drives a multitude of machines! Maybe the auto mechanic for Judges Judges Lourie, Dyk, Prost, Reyna and Wallach should remove the software from their cars. Perhaps as they are stranded and forced to walk to work they might have time to contemplate the world they seem to want to force upon the rest of us; a world hat clings to mechanical machines completely non-reliant on software. That will be great for the economy!

The only thing we know is this — the Federal Circuit issued an extraordinarily brief per curiam decision, which stated: “Upon consideration en banc, a majority of the court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted method and computer-readable media claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. An equally divided court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted system claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under that statute.” Thus, the asserted claims are not patent eligible.

Hubbell argued that obviousness-type double patenting is not appropriate where the application and the conflicting claim (1) share common inventors but do not have identical inventive entities, (2) were never commonly owned, and (3) are not subject to a joint research agreement. The Patent Office countered that: (1) whether the application and patent were ever commonly owned is immaterial to the policy of preventing harassment by multiple assignees; (2) identity of inventorship is not required where there is an overlap in inventors; (3) Hubbell did not establish any grounds for being allowed to file a terminal disclaimer; and (4) two-way obviousness analysis is not required because Hubbell admitted that he partially is responsible for the delay that caused the ’685 patent claims to issue first. The CAFC agreed with the Patent Office on each point.