Posts Tagged: "preliminary injunction"

A preliminary injunction was appropriate when non-infringement depended on an erroneous claim construction; the evidence did not show the proposed combination of references for non-obviousness was enabled; irreparable harm was likely despite other competition, and the injunction tipped in favor of the public interest… The Court held that the fact that other infringers may be in the marketplace does not negate irreparable harm. It also held that the loss by Scag of customers may have far-reaching, long-term impact on its future revenues, and the sales lost by Scag are difficult to quantify due to “ecosystem effects,” where one company’s customers will continue to buy that company’s products and recommend them to others.

Practitioners dealing with a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation should be sure to preserve objections for appeal, since failing to object may lead to a more deferential, plain error standard of review, depending on the applicable circuit law. Further, in seeking a preliminary injunction, evidence of harm from pre-issuance of the asserted patent is relevant to show likelihood of irreparable harm from similar injuries in the future.

Activist Supreme Court decisions in the last decade have been principally responsible for these changes, stimulated by aggressive technology company incumbent lobbying. The combination of these decisions has had a far greater effect on the patent system and the economy than the Court originally intended. The U.S. is now in a compulsory licensing regime in which large technology incumbents that control at least 80% of collective market share employ an “efficient infringement” model of ignoring patents and forcing patent holders to enforce patent rights in the courts.

The Federal Circuit, while deciding a preliminary injunction was properly granted, addressed the PTAB decision in its oral arguments and in its decision. In oral arguments Judge Moore stated, “You have to be able to say substantially, ‘cause there’s a million patents that use the word substantially.” And in their written decision the Federal Circuit explained: “We find it difficult to believe that a person with an associate’s degree in a science or engineering discipline who had read the specification and relevant prosecution history would be unable to determine with reasonable certainty when a water balloon is “substantially filled.”

Murata argued that the district court should have relied on the traditional three-factor test, which does not consider the burden of litigation on the court and the parties. By considering the burden of litigation, it alleged that the court committed a reversible error. The Court disagreed, ruling that courts have broad discretion to manage their own dockets, including the power to grant a stay of a case. This discretion does not come from statute, but is an inherent power of the courts. Thus, a district court may consider other factors beyond the three-factor stay test at its discretion. Further, the legislative history of the AIA reveals that Congress intended IPR’s to reduce the burden of litigation.

While we tend to think of Las Vegas’ tourism-based economy as built on gambling, trade shows also bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city each year. Thus, the issue of effective enforcement of the patent laws at these trade shows becomes entwined with the health of the city’s economy. Against this backdrop, the Las Vegas bench of the U.S. District Court for Nevada has developed a muscular set of equitable remedies for U.S. patent holders who complain to the court of patent infringement by a trade show exhibitor, remedies that the court can and does deploy with sufficient speed to be effective within the narrow timeframe of a trade show.