Posts Tagged: "motion to dismiss"

“The Aatrix ruling is significant because when deciding a motion to dismiss all factual allegations made by the plaintiff (i.e., the patent owner) in the complaint are supposed to be taken as true,” explained patent attorney Gene Quinn. “The Federal Circuit has not always seemed to apply basic, fundamental procedural rules when reviewing cases dismissed for lack of patent eligibility on a motion to dismiss. Returning patent litigation to the status quo required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will make it much more difficult for defendants to prevail on motions to dismiss if complaints are properly worded.”

Berkheimer is also equally important, if not more important, because it stands for the proposition that questions of fact can and do underline patent eligibility determinations. This is important not only because it will make summary judgment more difficult for infringers, but because if there are questions of fact underneath the patent eligibility determination it should be exceptionally difficult (if not virtually impossible) for district courts to dismiss patent infringement complaints using FRCP 12(b)(6). This is true because under FRCP 12(b)(6) all facts asserted in the complaint by the plaintiff (i.e., the patent owner) are taken as true and dismissal appropriate only where there can be no victory by the plaintiff even based on the facts plead in the complaint.

Arguing against Micron’s motion to dismiss, Harvard contended that TC Heartland only affirmed a previous precedent set by SCOTUS and that the improper venue challenge was available to Micron back when it filed its first motion in August 2016… The Federal Circuit concluded that the TC Heartland decision “changed controlling law in the relevant sense” and thus the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the patent venue statute was not available to Micron at the time of its August 2016 motion to dismiss.concluded that the TC Heartland decision “changed controlling law in the relevant sense” and thus the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the patent venue statute was not available to Micron at the time of its August 2016 motion to dismiss.

Many district courts have interpreted Alice as authorizing invalidation of issued patents as “abstract” based solely on the pleadings. They have done so even where the invalidation rests on resolution of a disputed issue of fact or of claim construction or scope. In short, since Alice, the Federal Circuit has done nothing to clear up the district courts’ confusion, but instead has affirmed pleading invalidations more than 90 percent of the time. Nothing in Alice, or Mayo for that matter, authorized these “pleadings invalidations.” Whether you agree with the decisions or not, both Alice and Mayo, were decided on summary judgment.

The Federal Circuit heard the case of Secured Mail Solutions LLC v. Universal Wilde, Inc., where the Appellant, Secured Mail Solutions LLC (“Secured Mail”) appealed from the grant of a motion to dismiss on grounds that the claims of seven asserted patents are directed to subject matter ineligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of Universal’s motion to dismiss… Claims determined to be patent-ineligible based on intrinsic evidence from the specification can be dismissed, at the motion to dismiss stage, without need for “extraneous fact finding outside the record.”

Lifetime Industries, Inc. v. Trim-Lok, Inc., 2017-1096, (Fed. Cir. Sept 7, 2017) is an appeal involving a dispute over the correct pleading standard in the context of allegation of infringement of a patented product.  The appeal resulted in the reversal of a district court’s final judgment granting Trim-Lok, Inc.’s motion to dismiss Lifetime’s complaint for failing to adequately allege that Trim-Lok either directly or indirectly infringed claims of its U.S. Patent 6,966,590 (’590 patent)… In sum, the Federal Circuit opinion in Lifetime is a good refresher on sufficiency of facts needed for filing a complaint alleging patent infringement. It is a refresher also on proving infringement resulting from assembly of components to make the claimed product when not all of the components are made by the same party.

Earlier today the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe filed a Motion to Dismiss in six separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings relating to the Allergan drug RESTASIS®. The RESTASIS® patents were recently all assigned by Allergan to the Tribe, with the Tribe granting back to Allergan an exclusive license… As the Motion to Dismiss points out, the petitioners can have an opportunity to challenge these RESTASIS® patents in federal district court. “The Tribe will not assert sovereign immunity in the Eastern District of Texas case,” the Motion to Dismiss reads. ” So dismissing this case does not deprive the Petitioners of an adequate remedy; it only deprives them of multiple bites at the same apple.”

On Tuesday, May 30th, online legal news outlet Law360 reported that a trio of major automakers filed a motion asking a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.) to toss a patent infringement suit filed last May by Longview, TX-based patent licensing firm Stragent LLC. Reportedly, the automaker defendants argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group forecloses the case from being decided in E.D. Tex.

This case arrived at the Federal Circuit on an appeal brought by BASCOM from the district court’s decision to grant a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). In the majority opinion Chen made much of the civil procedure aspects of a 12(b)(6) motion, as well he should. Frankly, it is about time that the Federal Circuit notice that these patent eligibility cases are reaching them on motions to dismiss. This should be overwhelmingly significant in virtually all cases given that a motion to dismiss is an extraordinary remedy in practically every situation throughout the law. Simply put, judges are loath to dismiss cases on a motion to dismiss before there has been any discovery or any issues are considered on their merits. That is, of course, except when a patent owner sues an alleged infringer.