Posts Tagged: "Northern District of California"

On appeal to the Federal Circuit, Zeroclick argued that the district court erred in construing those two terms as means-plus-function limitations, an argument with which the Federal Circuit panel agreed. “Neither of the limitations at issue uses the word ‘means,’” Circuit Judge Hughes writes in his majority opinion. “Presumptively, therefore, [Section 112(f)] does not apply to the limitations.” Although Apple argued in the district court that the claims must be construed under Section 112(f), it provided no evidentiary support for its position. Although the court compared Apple’s arguments to Zeroclick’s objections, Judge Tigar did not point to any record evidence supporting the ultimate conclusion on Section 112(f) grounds.

On Friday, May 11th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila entered an order deciding motions made in a copyright case involving competing musical productions based on the fictional story of the fictional folk hero Zorro. Judge Davila’s orders allows copyright infringement claims asserted by a writer who developed a Zorro musical in the 1990s to move forward against Zorro Productions, the entity which had licensed the Zorro character to entertainment companies going back to the late 1940s. This case is in the Northern District of California.

Corephotonics allegedly first informed Apple that it intended to pursue patent protections for its dual-aperture camera technologies as early as June 2012 during a meeting involving representatives of both firms. In June 2013, Apple camera engineers visited Corephotonics’ Tel Aviv headquarters and were presented with technical details and architectures regarding Corephotonics’ camera technology as well as pending patent applications which the Israeli startup had already filed. In October of that year, a larger team of Apple engineers visited Corephotonics in Tel Aviv to engage in discussions surrounding dual camera processing methods.

On Friday, May 11th, Mountain View, CA-based personal genetics testing company 23AndMe filed a lawsuit alleging patent infringement claims against Lehi, UT-based genealogy firm Ancestry.com. The suit, filed in the Northern District of California, targets Ancestry’s use of a DNA testing kit, which allegedly infringes upon a genetic testing patent held by 23AndMe.

On May 14th the next chapter in the Samsung v. Apple smartphone design patent dispute will commence in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California with a retrial to determine a new award in the case. The most notable moment in this long winding history was the unanimous Supreme Court decision where the Supreme Court sided with Samsung in its appeal in late 2016. But while the Supreme Court’s ruling should have modernized our antiquated law governing design patents to fit into the modern 21st century world, that important outcome is still in doubt pending the retrial. A key question remains – namely, how to determine the “article of manufacture” and appropriate remedy for infringement of multifaceted products. And could this open up potential grounds of consideration for utility patent interpretation?

This study uncovered several shocking revelations. First, 12.64% of PTAB judges were appointed with less than 5 years of experience prior to their appointment as APJs (i.e., 5 years or less removed from graduating from law school), while some PTAB judges were appointed with as little as 2 years of experience. Indeed, 7.47% of APJs had 4 or less years of experience when they were appointed to the PTAB… There were zero federal district court judges appointed with 10 years or less experience, while 46.55% of PTAB judges were appointed with 10 years or less experience… This would mean that 46.55% of PTAB judges were appointed while they were still at best senior associates. Worse, 4.60% of PTAB judges were appointed with 3 or fewer years of experience, which means those 4.60% of PTAB judges were appointed at a time when they were only at a junior associate level.

Microsoft argued that Corel willfully infringed the ’828, ’036, ’237, ’140, ’532, and ’865 patents. The asserted Microsoft patents are directed to graphic user interfaces used in Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office. Microsoft asserted that it has given its interfaces, including menus and toolbars, a distinctive look and feel, which Corel copied into the accused products, including WordPerfect X7. WordPerfect X7 even includes an option to use the product in the “Microsoft Word mode.” See Complaint para 3-5. Similarly, Quatro Pro X7 offers the option to use the product in the “Microsoft Excel mode.” See Complaint para. 6-8.

The TC Heartland decision follows the trend of eroding patent holder rights due to the potential for infringers to more easily move the lawsuit to a more favorable forum and in some cases have the issues of infringement and discovery for same stayed for a year or more.  As patents and mechanisms to enforce patents become weaker, the high-tech economy of Northern California will begin to diminish as foreign companies encounter fewer obstacles in their way to compete against companies with weaker IP rights… Because so much hinges on a stay motion in modern patent litigation cases, this predominant statistic influences where plaintiffs should consider filing their patent complaint.

My sense is that non-practicing entities had long ago eliminated the Northern District as a potential venue for patent cases. But if and when there is an influx of cases to the Northern District of California, litigators who predominantly practice in Texas will have to make adjustments. While perhaps not as regimented as some other districts, the Northern District expects litigants to know the local rules and strictly comply with them, particularly for things like sealing motions that can be complicated procedurally… Unlike in Texas, technology tutorials in the Northern District are expected to be live. Attorneys need to be prepared for the judge to ask questions. They also need to make sure that the members of the team most familiar with the technology are present and ready to address any issues that may come up.

Joint-defense groups lower costs and increase efficiencies for all defendants in the groups. Certain prominent patent litigation boutiques and Big Law departments have skillfully made a business of being retained by many of the accused infringers in a single multi-defendant case. Even if counsel is not shared among defendants, the benefits of joint-defense groups inure greatly to small- and medium-sized companies that gain the benefit of top-notch defense teams retained by larger tech companies, without having to pay for them. Joint-defense groups also leverage economies of scale to accomplish more at lower costs for everyone. For instance, filing four or five IPR petitions may be feasible when those costs are spread around a group, but prohibitive for any individual defendant. In short, the pre-TC Heartland framework provided significant cost-savings and efficiencies to defendants, and in particular, small- and medium-sized companies.

We believe that the fallout from the Court’s ruling last week will be less dire for patent owners than most commentators predict. The conventional wisdom is that TC Heartland will cause a mass exodus of patent filings from the Eastern District of Texas and other supposedly plaintiff-friendly venues to Delaware, the Northern District of California and, to a lesser extent, the other states. The assumption underlying this view is that all those plaintiffs will be forced to file in the state where the defendant is incorporated. Yet even post-TC Heartland, patent owners have options and can continue to be strategic about how and where they proceed.

About 5,100 patent infringement cases were filed in the U.S. during 2016, according to the PwC litigation study. This represents a 9 percent drop in lawsuits from 2015’s totals and the third straight year of decline since 2013, when more than 6,000 patent suits were filed. As the PwC study notes, this decline stands in stark contrast to the 6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for patent case filings since 1991. It’s also the largest deviation between the rate of case filings and the rate of U.S. patent grants since that time.

The Federal Circuit granted a mandamus petition filed by Google and ordered a Texas federal court to transfer a patent infringement case to a federal court that covers Silicon Valley as requested by Google. This extraordinary remedy was delivered in the form of a non-precedential opinion authored by Chief Judge Prost and joined by Judge Lourie. Despite the Federal Circuit’s designation of the decision as non-precedential the Court should be prepared for the onslaught of mandamus petitions that will now be filed given that they have shown a willingness to step in and re-weigh transfer factors de novo.

Non-practicing entities are especially likely to be subject to personal jurisdiction because the nature of their business involves asserting and litigating patent rights in foreign courts. This is especially true if the non-practicing entity has had other litigations in the state… Papst is a non-practicing entity engaged in the business of acquiring and asserting patent rights incorporated under the laws of Germany and having its principal place of business there. In October 2012, Papst acquired the patents-in-suit and investigated Xilinx, a Delaware corporation with headquarters in San Jose, California. Papst sent two patent-infringement notice letters to Xilinx in 2014 encouraging Xilinx to take a patent license. Three representatives from Papst traveled to California in October 2014 to meet with Xilinx to discuss Papst’s infringement allegations and Xilinx’s potential licensing.

Damages discovery in patent cases is usually contentious, expensive, and non-uniform in application by the courts. The patent owner, on one hand, wants to discover all possible revenue streams for settlement and resource allocation. The accused infringer, on the other hand, wants to minimize disclosure, because of the sensitivity of financial information and the belief that the suit is meritless. And the courts are caught in the middle. Compounding these issues, fulsome damages contentions typically are not defined until expert reports are presented, meaning the parties (and the court through a Daubert motion) will not know whether there is sufficient basis for the damages sought until late in a case.