Posts Tagged: "Patent Litigation"

The Court held that the district court must review the design disclosed in the patent as a whole, and consider whether functional elements contributed to the ornamentation of the design. Although a design patent protects ornamental features rather than functional features, the claims are not limited solely to ornamental elements. The combination of form and function to achieve an ornamental result is within the scope of a design patent. This is particularly true given that design patents are statutorily permitted to cover “articles of manufacture” which almost always serve a functional purpose. Because design patents “protect the overall ornamentation of a design, not an aggregation of separable elements,” eliminating individual elements of the design from consideration was found to be improper, and the Court remanded for further proceedings.

The records revealed that Dr. Bielawski repeatedly testified that he personally conducted laboratory testing on J&J’s accused lenses when, in fact, the testing was conducted by Dr. Bielawski’s graduate students and various lab supervisors. Further, evidence suggested that Dr. Bielawski overstated his qualifications and experience with the relevant testing methods, and in fact had no experience whatsoever. There was also evidence that Dr. Bielawski withheld test results and data analysis that would have undermined his opinions and trial testimony.

Source Code Review is the most powerful tool in a litigator’s war chest in patent and trade secrets cases. An important consequence of the judicial climate shifting farther away from business methods and closer to technically complex IP is that receiving parties now face a higher burden of proof and subsequently higher legal costs. Not only are receiving parties now required to be more diligent prior to a case filing but they also end up spending extra thousands of dollars reviewing millions of lines of code to successfully formulating their infringement arguments. A significant cost and exposure risk can be avoided simply by a diligent assessment on both sides as to what source code needs to be produced to the receiving party.

The Subcommittee is Chaired by Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who has been an outspoken advocate for the need for more patent reform in order to provide relief from those he believes are abusing the patent litigation system — those sometimes called patent trolls. Indeed, from the start of the Thursday’s hearing, the debate regarding patent infringement at the ITC was couched in the language of the patent troll debate. For example, during his opening statement Congressman Issa rather imperiously stated: “for purposes of my opening statement ‘plaintiff’ and ‘troll’ will be interchangeable.” Issa, himself a patent owner, was forced to litigate against companies that pirated technology covered by his patents. As a patent owner forced to sue at numerous infringers, it would seem that Congressman Issa believes that patent owner and inventor Issa was a patent troll.

On April 1, 2016, Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ: ROVI), a pioneer in the field of electronic program guides, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Comcast in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. The lawsuit alleges that twelve years ago Comcast took a license to Rovi’s patent portfolio, but that license expired on March 31, 2016, without being renewed. Rovi says that Comcast has failed to remove any of its products and services from the market and also continues to provide those products and services, all of which are now infringing because of the expiration of the patent license agreement.

2015 is the second straight year in which the list of top plaintiffs has been led by eDekka LLC, a patent holding company, which at times has been accused of exhibiting trolling behaviors… Atop this list was the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.), which between 2005 and 2015 has awarded more than $2.1 billion in compensatory damages over the course of 2,169 cases filed. Following behind them was the U.S. District for the Southern District of California (S.D. Cal.), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), and followed in fourth place by E.D. Tex. Median damages for cases terminating between 2000 and 2015 showed a different story, however, as that list was topped by the District of Delaware, which had a median award of $10.46 million in 40 cases with damages. The Eastern District of Texas follows in second with a $7.68 million median damages award and in third is the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (E.D. Va.), with a median award of $2.98 million. After that, there’s a steep drop and every other district is showing a median damages award of less than $1 million.

Larger companies like Adobe can defend themselves in court, even in Texas, but upstarts and mom-and-pop small businesses do not have the time or resources to defend themselves in a Texas courtroom for prolonged periods of time. Given the rampant and growing abuse, Congress must pass comprehensive patent legislation that includes critical venue reform measures. Without venue reform, patent trolls will continue to bring lawsuits against America’s leading innovators and small businesses in jurisdictions that have no connection to an alleged infringement. The choice of forum should not be outcome determinative. That’s not justice.

Without getting into the substance of the Hogan vs. Gawker lawsuit, the issue of posting bonds to appeal is a contentious one, and if you ask me there is something fundamentally unfair about requiring a party to pay in order to challenge what they believe is an erroneous or unfair ruling. It seems particularly wrong in the patent space where we know that strange and mysterious things transpire in the name of “efficiency,” but which over the years increasingly seem like code for nothing short of denying property rights to patent owners. Yet, pending patent legislation would impose a bond requirement to exercise what seems like a fundamental right — to seek redress for an incorrect, unfair or unjust ruling.

Bamberg’s specification stated that plastics must not melt at ironing temperatures (up to above 220 degrees Celsius) because the effects would be undesired. Bamberg argued that while this was in the specification, the written description requirement was satisfied because one skilled in the art would understand that one could have a layer that melted above and below 220 degrees Celsius, but both may not be desired. The Court held there was insufficient evidence on the record to support the conclusion that Bamberg possessed a white layer that melted below 220 degrees Celsius because it specifically distinguished this as an undesired result.

Following a five-day trial, the jury found the asserted claims valid and infringed, and awarded Eon $18,800,000. In determining only that the terms should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, the district court left the ultimate question of claim scope unanswered, and improperly left it for the jury to decide. Instead of remanding, the Court independently found that, when read in their appropriate context, the terms “portable” and “mobile” could not be construed as covering the accused products at issue. The jury’s infringement finding was reversed.

Over the course of several amendments, Disney granted increasing rights to Candella, by which Disney specifically intended to give Candella standing to sue for patent infringement. The court held that the rights retained by Disney were not “substantial rights” sufficient to deprive Candella of standing, because Disney did not retain a right to exclude. Disney merely had a financial interest in any enforcement efforts by Candella. Thus, Candella did not have to join Disney to maintain the lawsuit.

We along with several other attorneys represent ParkerVision, the plaintiff, which secured a $173 million infringement verdict that the courts subsequently threw out based on their own assessment of the evidence. In this case, the roles of courts and juries are front and center. The Federal Circuit has been dismissive of jury findings. As Judge Newman has observed, the Federal Circuit frequently “reweigh[s] the evidence to reach [the court’s] preferred result, rather than considering whether substantial evidence as presented at the trial supports the verdict that was reached by the jury.” Other judges and scholars have concurred in this view.

The availability of high speed Internet access (HSIA) is a major factor determining consumer satisfaction when staying in hotel or resort lodgings, and it’s this market where Blueprint RF has been stepping into Nomadix’s IP territory. “It’s fairly widely known that Nomadix has patents protecting this technology,” said Doug Muehlhauser, a partner at the Knobbe Martens law firm and the lead litigation counsel for the Nomadix infringement case. Both he and Mark Lezama, another Knobbe Martens litigation partner, were able to offer us more insight into the legal case. This kind of infringement case is exactly why the patent system exists, Muehlhauser said. “People should really be acknowledging the value of this technology, but some participants in the market are not willing to do that,” he said.

The near constant disintegration of patent rights in modern times (see here, here, here, here and here) may be about to come to an end, or at least a pivotal turning point reached. The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on February 23, 2016, in two patent cases consolidated by the Court for consideration: Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc. (14-1513) and Stryker Corporation v. Zimmer, Inc. (14-1520). These cases will force the Court to dive head first into one of the most thorny political patent issues of our time – the issue of enhanced damages for willful patent infringement. The outcome could give district court judges broad discretion to enhance damages, which would be a significant win for patent owners.

The original PatentOptimizer™ product was created by patent attorneys for patent attorneys in order to help provide internal well-tailored patent applications that are internally consistent. The goal of PatentOptimizer™ is to serve as a critical quality control check for drafted patent application, which helps ensure the filing of higher quality patent applications. The new PatentOptimizer for Litigators offering includes special tools to help litigators with claim construction arguments, locate Section 112 anomalies in the specification, and generate charts to illustrate patent infringement claims that are supported by a prior art analysis.