Posts Tagged: "Patent Litigation"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded a final written decision from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding filed by Apple, Inc.. The court concluded that the Board was precluded from finding the challenged claims of a patent owned by Smart Mobile Technologies LLC patentable, where a related patent with substantially similar claims had been found unpatentable in a prior IPR.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision on Tuesday, January 20, concluding that a district court abused its discretion in granting motions to exclude two of Dr. Mark A. Barry’s experts and granting judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) to DePuy Synthes Companies. The panel included Judges Stark, Taranto and Prost and Judge Stark dissented. Barry’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,670,358; 8,361,121; and 9,668,787 cover “surgical techniques and tools for treating spinal deformities, such as scoliosis, that cause vertebrae, which are the small bones forming the backbone, to twist out of alignment,” according to the opinion.

In the latest episode of IPWatchdog Unleashed, I sat down with my good friends Brad Close, who is the Executive Vice President of Transpacific IP, and Jim Carmichael, a former judge on the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences and founder of Carmichael IP. Brad, Jim and I engaged in a candid conversation that provides our unvarnished assessment of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), where it started historically, where it is today, and where it may finally be headed. Bottom line: the PTAB is no longer the automatic execution squad it once was, but durable patent rights will require reform well beyond the agency level.

The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday considered the Protecting Third Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) From Abuse Act as part of a lengthy markup hearing that chiefly focused on escalating immigration enforcement operations in the United States. The bill did not reach a vote after committee members recessed for votes on the House floor and never reconvened. Sources tell IPWatchdog the bill has now been pulled.  

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a ruling in Indect USA Corp. v. Park Assist, LLC largely affirming the Southern District of California in a patent infringement case involving methods of managing parking lots. However, the Federal Circuit reversed some aspects of the district court’s rulings after finding abuse of discretion by excluding evidence related either to invalidating sales of the patented method or to bad faith patent infringement allegations against several customers using the alleged infringer’s accused system, including a regional airport.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that certain claims of Viasat Inc.’s data error correction patent are unpatentable as obvious. The opinion was authored by Judge Bryson. Western Digital Technologies, Inc. filed for inter partes review (IPR) of several claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,966,347 and the PTAB held all of the challenged claims unpatentable for obviousness. The Board ultimately found that any difference between Viasat’s claims and the key prior art reference (“Diggs”) “was a ‘semantic discrepanc[y]’ rather than a difference in substance.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday affirmed a district court decision finding that Technology in Ariscale, LLC’s patent for a transmission signal decoding method was ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The opinion was authored by Judge Cunningham.

The Supreme Court rejected equitable defenses of laches in infringement suits, reasoning that by enacting a statute of limitation, Congress left no statutory “gap” for equitable judgments on timeliness. See Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (2014), and SCA Hygiene Prods. v. First Quality Baby Prods (2017). These precedential holdings should have also governed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decisions on prosecution laches in Hyatt v. Hirshfeld (2021) and in Hyatt v. Stewart (2025), particularly after the multiple briefings in the Hyatt case on the binding effect of such holdings. Yet, nowhere in these decisions can one find any reasons why the principles in SCA Hygiene and Petrella should be inapplicable for precluding prosecution laches.

On Monday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that the agency has established a Standard-Essential Patent (SEP) Working Group to develop and deliver meaningful policy solutions on SEP-related issues. The working group, which will report to USPTO Director John Squires, will play a role in advancing the Office’s engagement with patent remedies and enforcement in furtherance of the pro-innovation stance the agency has taken on SEP cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) and in U.S. district court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday affirmed a district court’s summary judgment of non-infringement in favor of SC Johnson & Son Incorporated in a case brought by Zip Top, Inc. The decision centered on the interpretation of a key term in a patent claim for reusable silicone containers. Zip Top appealed a decision from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that granted summary judgment of non-infringement to SC Johnson. Zip Top had asserted that SC Johnson’s Ziploc Endurables products infringed United States Patent No. 11,383,890, which discloses a process for making a container from molded silicone.

For Section 337 investigations before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), 2025 was a year of contrasts. As one example, the Federal Circuit’s long-awaited decision in Lashify, Inc. v. ITC reduced the burden for satisfying Section 337’s domestic industry requirement, under which ITC complainants must show adequate U.S. investments in practicing or exploiting the asserted intellectual property rights. But this lower threshold did not immediately result in increased Section 337 complaint filings. For much of 2025, uncertainty concerning U.S. trade policy and federal government operations likely depressed ITC complaint filings.

On December 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC v. Ford Motor Company, affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) invalidation of three patents owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and licensed to Ethanol Boosting Systems (EBS). The opinion was authored by Judge Chen and joined by Judges Clevenger and Hughes.

It’s been a year of significant decisions from the Unified Patent Court (UPC), from both the first instance Local Divisions (LDs) and Central Division (CD) and the Court of Appeal (CoA).  Jurisdiction and, as more appellate decisions become available, the substantive law on patent validity and infringement, have come into focus. Decisions relating to enforcement also provide helpful indications for the future. 

On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued its opinion in Micron Technology v. Longhorn IP. As reported earlier, the CAFC held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Longhorn’s appeal from a district court order that required Longhorn to post an $8 million bond to proceed with a patent infringement case. In imposing the bond, the district court had relied on Idaho’s “anti-troll” statute, which outlaws assertions of patent infringement made in “bad faith.” Also under that statute, if a court finds a “reasonable likelihood” that a patent owner has made a bad faith assertion, the court must require the patent owner to post a bond equal to its opponent’s estimated litigation costs and damages.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential ruling in Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc. finding that the Eastern District of Texas did not abuse its discretion in denying third party Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) motion for permissive intervention in patent infringement proceedings. Applying Fifth Circuit rulings on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 24(b), the Federal Circuit agreed that EFF did not timely move to unseal summary judgment briefs surrounding infringement under the relevant cable data transmission standard.