Posts Tagged: "Judge Jimmie Reyna"

Reyna Concurs in CAFC Reversal of Ineligibility Holding, But Blasts Majority’s Approach to Alice

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today reversed a district court decision that patent claims directed to an “authentication method” were ineligible as abstract under Section 101. The CAFC said that the claims at issue satisfied Alice step two because they “recite a specific improvement to a particular computer-implemented authentication technique” and were thus eligible for patenting. The opinion was authored by Judge Stoll and a concurring opinion was filed by Judge Reyna.

Federal Circuit Affirms District Court’s Eligibility Analysis, Reyna Dissents

On July 14, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with Judge Lourie writing for the majority, affirmed-in-part and vacated-in-part a decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Packet Intelligence, LLC v. NetScout Systems, Inc. The CAFC affirmed the district court’s judgments on the issues of infringement, invalidity, and willfulness, but reversed with respect to pre-suit damages. Judge Reyna wrote separately, dissenting on the issue of patent eligibility under Section 101.

Deposition of Inventor Insufficient to Corroborate Inventor Testimony of Prior Conception

The representative of the inventor attempted to point to metadata contained within the inventor’s affidavit as being corroborating evidence showing the critical dates. The problem with this evidence was never made a part of the record, and the only place it was mentioned was in the inventor’s deposition, and it was only mentioned by the inventor. Inventor testimony must be corroborated by some competent independent evidence or testimony. Indeed, an inventor cannot corroborate their own testimony relating to prior conception. Therefore, an inventor deposition is insufficient to corroborate an inventor affidavit relying on what the inventor said in the deposition. 

Examining the USPTO’s First Precedential Opinion Panel Decision

The first decision issued by the new USPTO Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) tackled the difficult issues of statutory interpretation of sections 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) and 35 U.S.C. § 315(c). In sum, the Board determined that both same party and issue joinder is proper in inter partes reviews (IPRs). The Board also determined that otherwise time-barred petitions are proper when accompanied by a joinder request to a pending IPR. The Board interpreted the statute in a manner to maintain broad discretion for the Agency. The POP could have properly interpreted Section 315(c) by first focusing on the statutory language “join as a party” as being limited to any person not already a party. Instead, the decision dismissed this viewpoint and stated that “the statutory phrase ‘any person’ broadly applies to the phrase ‘join as a party’.” Although I disagree with the emphasis on “any person,” I anticipate that the Board’s reasoning on both same party and issue joinder would be upheld as proper statutory interpretations by the Federal Circuit, if appealed.

Mandamus Relief Denied: Federal Circuit Avoids Clarifying TC Heartland in In re Google LLC

The Federal Circuit recently elected not to decide en banc “whether servers are a regular and established place of business, such that venue is proper under 35 U.S.C. § 1400(b). In re: Google LLC, No. 2018-152 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 5, 2019) (Before Prost, Chief Judge, Newman, Lourie, Dyk, Moore, O’Malley, Reyna, Wallach, Taranto, Chen, Hughes, and Stoll, Circuit Judges) (Dissent by Reyna, Circuit Judge, joined by Newman and Lourie, Circuit Judges). SEVEN Networks, LLC’s (SEVEN) patent infringement suit against Google arose in the Eastern District of Texas. SEVEN alleged Google’s servers, stored in a third-party ISP’s facility, where the allegedly infringing activities occurred, were a regular and established place of business, such that venue is proper under 35 U.S.C. § 1400(b). The district court denied Google’s motion to dismiss for improper venue. As a result, Google petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to dismiss or transfer the case for improper venue. On appeal, the panel majority found mandamus relief inappropriate because “it is not known if the district court’s ruling involves the kind of broad and fundamental legal questions relevant to § 1400(b),” and “it would be appropriate to allow the issue to percolate in the district courts so as to more clearly define the importance, scope, and nature of the issue for us to review.”