Posts Tagged: "mootness"

‘Grand Theft Auto’ Game Makers Score Win at CAFC with Non-Infringement Ruling

On October 4, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed-in-part the claim construction and summary judgment of non-infringement ruling made by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware and dismissed-in-part Acceleration Bay LLC’s appeal against the makers of the Grand Theft Auto video game as moot. In July of 2000, Acceleration Bay filed four patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,701,344 (the ‘344 patent), 6,714,966 (the ‘966 patent), 6,910,069 (the ‘069 patent) and 6,920,497 (the ‘497 patent). The patents are unrelated but share a similar specification disclosing a networking technology that allegedly improves upon prior methods of communication. Specifically, the patents disclose a “broadcasting technique in which a broadcast channel overlays a point-to-point communication network.”

CAFC Dismisses Appeal as Moot, Prost Dissents in Part

On January 7, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) dismissed ABS Global’s appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as moot. Cytonome/st, LLC had disavowed its ability to challenge a district court’s summary judgment that ABS did not infringe claims of the patent in suit and ABS did not establish that it engaged in or had “sufficiently concrete plans to engage in activities not covered by” Cytonome’s disavowal (ABS Global, Inc. v. Cytonome/st, LLC), said the court. The majority denied ABS’s request for vacatur and Chief Judge Prost wrote separately to dissent on the issue of vacatur.